hello this is chef john from foodwishes.com
with garlic rice roast chicken that's right we've done chicken next to
rice and we've done chicken on rice and in rice
but i believe this is the first time we're going to reverse that or as we
used to say back in the early 90s flip the script
and do the rice in the chicken and no not stuffed in the cavity
this experiment involved stuffing the rice under the skin and the results
really were spectacular so with that let's go ahead and get
started with what originally inspired this video
and that was about a cup and a half or so of cold white leftover rice
from some thai food takeout if you must know and to that what we'll do is add a
whole bunch of freshly crushed garlic or very very very finely minced we will
also add some freshly chopped chicken friendly herbs
which in my case were thyme rosemary and parsley sorry sage
and then we'll season that up with some freshly ground black pepper
plus a generous sprinkling of kosher salt as well as a little shake of
cayenne pepper and then last but not least a fairly
significant amount of melted butter and by the way if you melt butter in a
pan and then let it sit there as it starts to cool it kind of forms a
flaky crust on the top which i only mentioned to explain that
weird looking flaky crust on the top but anyway once everything's in there
we'll go ahead and give this a mix and we will keep mixing until we are 100
confident every grain of rice has been coated in that butter
at which point we should probably transfer this into the fridge since it's
going to be a lot easier to work with once that butter firms up
and while that's chilling we can move on to prep our chicken and by prep i mean
stick our fingers under the skin right where the back of the breast meets
the cavity okay the skin is usually pretty loose there
and what we'll want to do here is take some kind of thin spatula or spoon
and we'll slide that in between the skin and the flesh loosening that skin all
the way to the front of the bird which if you're doing with a spatula
like this is fairly easy since raw chicken skin is very tough and
does not tear easily so as long as you're using
something that doesn't have any really sharp edges
it should work just fine and if you'll notice we're going on either side of the
breastbone which for mostly presentational purposes
we want that skin to stay attached and that's it once our skin has been
successfully and thoughtfully loosened we'll go ahead and transfer our chicken
into a lightly oiled oven safe skillet or roasting pan
or i prefer a pan since it's easier to make a pan sauce later
but as long as it can go in an oven you're fine and then what we'll do is
pull our cold garlic rice mixture out of the fridge
and we'll proceed to stuff as much as we can under the skin over each breast
and know there is no neat or graceful or elegant way to do this
just grab some in your hands and shove it in and then once you've squeezed a
certain amount in there and it's starting to build up what we
can do is kind of press and push our fingers along the surface
working that mixture towards the front of the bird and it's very difficult to
tell you how much exactly you're going to be able to fit in there
okay if we really really overstuff it that skin could rupture as a rose
or it might just start pushing out of the opening so we don't want to go with
a crazy amount but i would say we want to try to get at
least like a two inch thick layer in there
and no matter how much you manage to stuff in there we'll want to make sure
we're sliding our fingers over the surface
to sort of shape this into the natural contours of the breast
okay anytime you're going to enhance breasts like this we really do want them
to look natural so you may need to do a little bit of
shaping and then what we'll do with any of the leftover rice
which i'm guessing you'll have a little bit of is we'll go ahead and simply add
that to the cavity and of course any of that garlic rice
that's fallen into the pan should be snatched up
and also placed in the cavity and then what we'll do once that set
is go ahead and tie our legs together with a little piece of kitchen string or
plain dental floss and by the way that is technically
optional all right a lot of chefs say that doesn't make any difference
but on the other hand a lot of chefs say it does especially the ones i learned
from in culinary school so mostly by habit i
do tie mine up and then before this goes in the oven
we'll want to give it a very generous saltine
or a bottom sides and top and that's it once the outside surface has been
sufficiently seasoned we'll go ahead and transfer that into
the center of a 425 degree oven for about an hour or until your bird is
what you would consider safely cooked and if everything goes according to plan
it should look like one of the most beautiful roast chickens you've ever
seen i mean come on look at that just
absolutely stunning oh and of course since this pan has a
handle that's really hot we will always place a towel over that until it's
cooled but anyway what we're going to do at
this point is transfer that to our cutting board to rest for about 5 or 10
minutes and while we're waiting let's go ahead
and put that pan back on the stove over medium-high heat and we will simply
add some sherry vinegar or the vinegar of your choice to these
pan drippings and we'll go ahead and bring that up to a boil
while we scraping to glaze all that goodness off the bottom
and that's it you just witnessed how to make the world's simplest pan sauce
all right we have those flavorful juices that gloriously garlicky chicken fat
and beautiful acidic flavorful vinegar to balance everything perfectly
and once that's boiled and reduced a little bit we can simply turn that off
and serve it as is or if we want to get fancy we could
strain it but the point is that is ready to go
so i set that aside and went ahead and cut into my chicken
and as i removed that section of the breast i was extremely happy with what i
saw all right that meat looked very moist
and juicy and i thought that rice stuffing was pretty well behaved
all right i was afraid it was going to kind of crumble all over the place but
that really wasn't the case and above and beyond appearance man was
that stuff delicious okay if you told me you were gonna take
the chicken and just leave me with the rice
i would have been fine with that so the rice tasted amazing
but i wanted to taste everything all together so i cut a piece off
and drizzled down a little bit of our quick and easy pan sauce
and that my friends was the perfect bite of food right it's very difficult to
describe just how delicious that was so i cussed them up and went ahead and
served on a plate next to some beautiful braised greens
and since not all the chicken has rice attached i decide to place those pieces
down first and then top it with those beautiful
slices of skin and breast meat before finishing up with our pan
drippings and above and beyond producing one of the most gorgeous roast chickens
i've seen in a long time i found that stuffing that rice under
the skin had three main benefits okay first of all it insulated our
breast meat so it cooked a little slower which means it did not dry out while the
dark meat was finishing cooking all right this meat was extremely moist
and juicy and then secondly because it kind of stretched the skin out
and separated it from the surface that skin got beautifully browned and crispy
and virtually all the fat rendered out and there was none of that flabby fat
you sometimes get under the skin with a roasted chicken
and then thirdly speaking of rendered fat guess where all that delicious
chicken skin fat went that's right it was absorbed by the rice
which was already delicious with the butter and garlic and herbs
but that extra richness from the chicken fat took it up to the next level
oh and i actually should have said four benefits because i'm skipping over one
of the most obvious ones and that's being able to flavor the
chicken from the inside out or if you season the chicken on the outside
a lot of that just stays on the surface and really doesn't get into the meat as
well as when it's actually touching the meat
like we have going on here so let's update that to four official
advantages and maybe the best news you could do this exact same technique
by using all kinds of different herbs and spices and flavorings
i mean you are after all the john mitzvich the third of your garlic rice
stuff bird and i really do hope you take this basic
technique and then come up with your own fabulous variations
but whether you decide to do that or make this exactly as shown
i really do hope you give this a try soon so please follow the links below
for the ingredient amounts a printable written recipe and much more
info as usual and as always enjoy
you