(Upbeat music)
In culinary school, I learned the basic techniques for
making roasted chicken, but over the years I've experimented
with ways to make it even better. This recipe yields super crispy brown
skin and tender slices, plus I've made it a
complete meal with vegetables and a pan sauce.
Elevating the chicken on a bed of vegetables prevents the meat from
steaming in its own juices. This simple technique ensures a super
crispy skin, before you get started make sure to
preheat the oven to 475 degrees so it's nice and hot. I like to use a
variety of sturdy root vegetables like onions, celery, and carrots, but if
you want to switch things, up you can use potatoes or butternut squash.
The first thing we're going to do is cut the onions.
Okay to start, you're going to want to cut both ends
just cut the top off first
and then cut this root end. You want to leave it intact so that the wedges stay
together
Cut it down the middle
Okay and then we're going to cut each half into four wedges.
Now we have the celery, we're going to just trim the
stem a little bit and then cut them into 3-inch pieces.
For the carrots I already peeled them so now we're going to cut them into
2-inch pieces and I like to cut it on a bias because
they're a little bit prettier that way when you present them.
Now that everything's cut I'm going to prepare the bed of vegetables.
Add the cut onions, chopped celery, chopped carrots, 1 tablespoon olive oil,
a half teaspoon salt, and a quarter teaspoon black pepper.
Stir the ingredients to combine spread them out in an even layer and add
5 sprigs of thyme, and 3 sprigs of rosemary on top.
To prepare the chicken, you're going to want to remove the neck
and any innards from the cavity these actually add a lot of flavor to soups
and stews so you might want to save them. Okay and it's really super important to
dry the surface and the cavity of the chicken
so that you can remove any excess moisture.
You know I've also found that it works really well to place it in
to the refrigerator and that helps dry the surface even more.
Don't forget to flip the chicken over and get the underside too.
Season the cavity with a half teaspoon of salt,
and a quarter teaspoon black pepper, add four cloves of crushed garlic,
5 sprigs of thyme, and 2 sprigs of rosemary.
Massage the inside of the bird to infuse it with the flavors.
Trussing prevents the chicken breast from drying out due to an exposed cavity.
Let me show you how to do this. The first thing you want to do is make sure that
the legs are facing towards you and then you're going to tuck the wings
right here behind the chicken, kinda like
it's relaxing on a beach. Then you're gonna take some kitchen twine,
I have about 3 feet, you're gonna place it in the center
right here
and then you just pull the string back along the side and
right under the crown of the breast. You're going to tie it
into a knot. So watch this, the breast gets nice and plump. I like to
tie it an extra time so that it stays nice and
taut. Okay now you're going to bring the legs
together like this cross them over and just tie
the string. I like to make it into a pretty little bow. Now let's get the
chicken buttered up and ready for roasting.
Melt 2 tablespoons of butter, place the chicken breast-side up and
brush with a third of the butter. Then generously season with salt and
pepper. Flip the chicken over and brush with
additional butter then season with salt and pepper.
Save the remaining butter to baste the chicken later.
If you want you can use olive oil or ghee instead of butter
they don't contain any water so it's going to give a crispier skin
however, it doesn't have those milk solids so it's not going to brown as much.
Place the chicken breast-side down on
top of the vegetables. Transfer to the oven and roast for 30-minutes
Oven roasting the chicken breast-side
down ensures that the thighs and the legs get cooked
first this prevents undercooked sections. The next thing we're going to want to do
is flip over the chicken. So grab some paper towels and then make
sure that the cavity is facing away from you so that the hot juices don't get on
your skin
and then just carefully give it a quick little flip.
I like to add a little bit more butter
on the surface to ensure that the breast gets nice
and crispy and make sure you get the sides of the wings.
Okay now we're going to add the chicken back into the oven for about
25 to 30 minutes
Wow this looks incredible! The next thing we have to do is check
for doneness so I'm going to use my instant-read thermometer
and you're going to check in the thickest part of the breast. It should
read about 160 to 165 degrees fahrenheit.
This is perfect and then you're going to check the thigh
and in the thigh area it should be make sure you don't hit a bone
thickest part of the thighs right here should be between
165 to 170, and then if you want you can also check
in between the thigh and the breast that's also a thick area too.
Perfect it's ready to go we're going to let this rest for 20 minutes before we
slice meanwhile we're going to make the gravy.
Discard any of the herbs in the pan and then you're just going to scoop out
all these wonderful roasted vegetables into a
large bowl and at the bottom of the pan you're
going to have all these amazing juices it's going to be flavored with garlic
the fats from the chicken and herbs, salt, and
pepper, so we're definitely going to want to use
that for the pan sauce. Okay we're going to pour the drippings
into a fat separator so just be careful because this pan is
going to be really hot.
You're going to want to let the fat rise to the top because it's less dense than
the juices and then we're going to use the juices
to make the sauce. Add just enough chicken stock or broth to reach
one cup of liquid total. In the same skillet used to roast the chicken
make the gravy, alternatively you can use a clean large skillet.
Heat one tablespoon of butter and one tablespoon of flour over medium heat,
once the butter melts, whisk until the flour mixture turns pale yellow,
about one minute. Gradually whisk in one cup of the defatted pan juices
and stock mixture until the sauce lightly thickens
about two to four minutes. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
I made the gravy in the same pan that I used to roast the chicken because it's
going to have a ton of fond and browned beautiful flavors in
the pan that we want to get into the sauce.
Now we're going to strain the gravy so that it's nice and smooth.
Okay now it's time to carve the chicken. The first thing we want to do
is cut off the kitchen twine so if you just pull the chicken away
right here going to cut the skin, see it opening up
and you just pull the leg in the thigh away from the bird.
And there's this amazing portion back here called the oyster that you're not
going to want to miss. It's a very tender piece of chicken.
There's going to be cartilage and bone so you don't want to cut through the
bone but the cartilage is pretty soft and just do little slices
until the thigh and leg comes off like that.
I'm going to repeat with the other side, just cut through the skin
separate the thigh a little bit. Kind of want to work with the chicken and not against
it because there's a lot of bone and cartilage so you just kind of
pull and tug and let it naturally kind of pull away from the carcass.
Okay and if you want to cut this down further
there's a little bit of a membrane right here that you could just slice
right through so remember we're not trying to cut through bone.
Spread that membrane again right in the middle
perfect and then now we're going to cut through
there's this bone that runs through the center of the
the chicken breast so we're going to want to cut alongside of it
and just down to hit the bone right there
and then you're just going to slide the knife kind of parallel
to the rib cage, just gently releasing it. Then you can kind of just cut the breast
off and then the wing comes off too so you could have either cut the wing off
earlier or keep it on but I like to kind of just
take it off. And then any of these extra pieces you
could just have as a snack or add to some soup
but again cut down the side of that bone down the middle and just slide the knife
down kind of gently going parallel to the
carcass because you want to get as much as the
meat off of it as possible just little sawing motions just be
gentle with it this one you want to keep the wing on
just cut it alongside bone. There you go.
So again you can keep it on or I like to cut it off.
Okay save your wings your drumettes your carcass if you want to make soup
but then you can slice the chicken breast
slice it like this. And I go about a half an inch and then when you want to
plate it up you can actually have a nice fan so it looks nice and pretty, but
there you have it. Once you've mastered this recipe and
technique you can use the leftovers to make this dish right here.
I hope you enjoyed learning the science behind roasted chicken
See you in the next video!