- We're roasting chicken.
Nothing beats a perfect roast chicken.
Our recipe is really easy and it's full of
great techniques to make sure your meat is juicy
and your skin is super crispy.
Before we start I will note to en chicken.
In order for chicken's skin to be really crispy
you want as little moisture as possible.
So if you can, take your chicken out of its packaging
the night before,
pat it dry and put it in your fridge, uncovered.
That way the skin will dry out
and when you bake it, it will turn out super crispy,
which is exactly what we want.
When you go in the grocery store
you'll probably see a lot of different information
on your packaging for your chicken.
You should look for,
I wrote it in my notebook.
You should buy it air chilled,
rather than water chilled.
That refers to how the chicken is cooled
after it's slaughtered.
I know, it's kinda gross.
This chicken has been hanging out in the fridge
for a couple hours.
I'm gonna just give it one more pat down,
just to make sure it's completely dry.
It's time for the seasoning.
We've got salts.
And we want to get this salt in every nook and cranny
of this bird,
even the cavity.
The best way to do this is just to hold the bird
with one of your hands,
and salt with the other,
that way you don't contaminate your salts.
A lot of people think you need to wash your chicken
before you bake it.
That is not true.
All that bacteria is gonna die in the oven.
So you don't have to worry about it
contaminating your food
and actually if you're washing your chicken in your sink
you run the risk of moving that bacteria around,
mixing it with the water.
It's gonna hit your counter,
it's gonna hit your sink.
It's just gonna make everything worse.
So I promise it will taste just as good
if not better, because the skin's gonna be crispier,
if you don't wash it.
So don't do it.
Don't wash your chicken, okay.
Please, do it for me.
Thank you.
A little pepper.
We are going to stuff the cavity.
A lot of herbs, citrus, garlic.
I really like to just pop a whole lemon
in the cavity.
The reason I don't cut the lemon is because
as the chicken bakes, the juice from the lemon's
gonna evaporate and it might kind of steam the chicken.
It might affect the crispiness of your skin
so I like to leave it whole.
It adds like a really nice really subtle lemon flavor.
And then in terms of herbs, I just got some thyme here.
Rosemary or tarragon would be delicious.
Don't be shy.
Popping some thyme in here.
And the lemon.
In order for the chicken to cook properly in all parts
we need to truss the bird so it's all compact
and nothing is burnt, nothing is under done.
So we're gonna use some butcher's twine.
About like two feet ish.
I'm five feet,
yeah, that's about two feet, I'd say.
So we're gonna come through at the bottom
of the drumsticks and cross over.
And then we're gonna go under each drumstick like so.
Then we're gonna come around to the back
between the wings,
and at this point I'm gonna flip the bird over.
We're just gonna loop around the neck bone,
pulling somewhat tightly.
And we'll just give it a quick tie.
Give it a bow.
It is a gift after all.
Flipping back over.
Chicken's nice and compact.
And then you can just tuck the wing tips
right under that string.
That way they won't burn.
How about that?
Cute little chicken.
This next step isn't totally necessary
but it's a great way to make this into
more of a meal.
We've got some delicious veggies that I'm going
to line the bottom of our roasting pan with
that will catch all that insanely good chicken fat
while the chicken is roasting.
It's almost as good as the chicken honestly.
You can use whatever vegetables you like.
I am using rainbow carrots,
some onion,
and fennel,
but baby potatoes would be delicious,
turnips would be great
and then I just got a head of garlic that I've halved.
Nestle it in with the rest of my veg.
I happen to have some thyme left over
so might as well throw that in too.
A little salt couldn't hurt.
And maybe a little pepper as well.
Now I'm just gonna fit our roasting pan with a rack.
This will help the heat from the oven circulate
and make sure that your chicken is being
cooked evenly throughout.
If you put it just flat on the baking dish
then there's not gonna be any air coming from the bottom
so it's better to have a little rack
or if you don't have a rack, just really go
hard on the vegetables and make kind of
a natural rack for your chicken.
Just as a final step, also not totally necessary,
but very delicious,
we're gonna brush it in butter.
This will just help with the browning
and just adds a good flavor.
There is my opinion nothing that butter
doesn't improve.
So we're just gonna stick with it.
Make sure I get every bit.
You know if a little butter drips down
onto the veggies,
you know, it's all for the best.
All right, beautiful.
I have an oven preheated to 425,
and we're gonna pop this guy in.
Our chicken was a little small
so it might be done a little faster
than your average chicken,
but usually it will take between 50 minutes to an hour.
But I'll keep checking.
I was just smiling at the chicken.
So it's been one hour
and I wanna check and see if our chicken is done.
Whoo.
A chicken needs to be 165 degrees on the inside
for it to be safe to eat.
I'm gonna stick my instant read thermometer
in between the breast and the drumstick.
At the thickest part of the meat.
Yea.
I'm gonna let this rest for 10 minutes
and then we can cut into it.
("Chicken Dance")
All righty,
so my chicken has rested.
And it's time to cut it open.
To start I took off the twine.
And now we can start getting into the cutting.
I'm gonna start with the legs.
It's juicy in there.
We're just gonna go straight through that joint
and that will give us our drumstick and thigh meat.
So we're just twisting off the wing
because the chicken's really tender,
so you don't even really need a knife for it.
Ta da, cute little wing.
And then last step
is cutting the breast meat off the bone.
So this area right here is called the keel
so there's one like bone right here
that we need to try to avoid.
And we're gonna cut as close to the keel as we can.
And then we're just gonna slowly start cutting
away from that bone so we can get as much of that
breast meat in one piece as possible.
Some people might worry that
if they let their chicken rest
it's gonna get cold.
But this has been resting for like 15 minutes now
and it's still super hot,
so you really don't have to worry about that.
And as for any excess meat that you might not
have gotten completely,
either you can pick it off,
super easy,
super delicious,
and just serve it with the rest of your meat
or if you wanna make a stock with it
it's nice to leave a little bit of it on
you should not throw this carcass away.
It makes the best chicken stock ever.
And flip it over.
And just to show you,
here, right here,
these two bits of meat right here
are called the oyster.
And they're some of the most tender bits of chicken
on the entire bird.
It looks like this.
("Chicken Dance")
I just gotta make sure it tastes
as good as it looks, you know.
Moment of truth.
You get this really slight hint of lemon
that's so good.
You can also taste the thyme
and I think we have to try a veg, too.
Chicken fat,
is truly a miracle.
That is what you want.
Look, can you kind of show,
juicy.
What kind of seasoning do you like to add to your chicken?
Let me know in the comments below.