Roast Chicken

How do you roast your chicken Veeky Forums? Tell me any tricks or tips you have. I'm on a quest to get the maximum amount of crispy skin from one bird without overcooking anything. Posting what I do at the moment.

Basically gonna split it into crown and legs, to get as much skin as possible exposed to the air. First, remove the tail, slice down the spine and separate the skin on either side. That's a bit of extra fat in the corner that came from the cavity.

Cut the spine out, and take the legs off with all of the back skin attached.

Cut tail open and clean the preen glands out.

Butterfly it and take the bones out.

About 1% of the weight in salt, same amount of pepper, and a bit of sodium bicarbonate. Not going to put any other herbs or spices on this one.

Rub some oil and the seasoning all over, and crack the breast like when you spatchcock it. I cut the skin under the thighs to spread it out flat, and jammed that extra fat from earlier under the breast skin too.

This is going in the oven on max for about 40 minutes.

Out of the oven to rest. The tail's a bit over, but the thighs and wings are great. I'd prefer more browning on the drumsticks and breasts, but any longer and I think it'd get dry.

Pretty happy overall, breasts were moist but the skin could be crisper. Maybe giving them a quick sear in a pan first would help.

Look into spatchcocking, OP. It's a less faggy way of what you're trying to do.

Looks good. Would devour/10
Thanks for the photo updates too.

Had it with chips, roast vegetables and some sauce from the spine.

I used to just spatchcock it, but I could never get all of the skin browned enough.

Cheers.

Leave the chicken uncovered in the fridge to really dry out the skin.

Thanks, that's a good idea.

...

Next time rub it with a spice mix + olive oil and let it sit in the fridge overnight first, it'll brown better.

>chips
Those are french fries

Nah, chunky chips.

Have you tried rubbing oil onto the skin when seasoning

Do this but also mix in some baking powder (not soda) into your spice mix

>baking powder (not soda)
Huh, I thought the idea of adding soda to reduce the ph. Baking powder seems like it would defeat the purpose, or does the carbon dioxide actually help bubble up the skin?

aids browning. you can do it to ground hamburger too. it doesn't matter which you use powder or soda.
Serious eats recommends one
America test kitchen recommends the other

*raise the ph

baking soda breaks up the surface because of science so that there is more surface area on the skin to crisp up

Kenji does the 3 things mentioned in this thread already: spatchcock -> rub with baking soda -> fridge overnight. I've done this twice and have had crispy results.

That's pretty much what I used to do, I'm just trying to eke out any small improvements, like getting the tail rendered into a little crispy snack.

yeesh that chicken looks low quality

Yeah, it was pretty beat up.

I made Musa Khan for the first time a couple of days ago. Also made some naan. The yogurt marinade for the chicken was pretty good, I just needed to add more of the spices

This is what I do, works a treat. Make sure you pat the bird dry with paper towels before you apply the baking powder too.

Rinse the bird and pat dry thoroughly, making sure no water is trapped under the skin. Truss the bird so the breast meat is pushed tight against the skin and as compressed as possible by the thighs pushing up and forward against the rear of the rib cage from underneath (there are several ways to accomplish this). This will help to even out the cooking times between the breast and leg meat (though legs could still benefit from a little more directed heat from a BBQ or wood fire). Season generously and roast on a rack in a pan under high heat (around 450) until the skin begins to tighten and brown. At this point or soon after you may have some juices caramelizing in the pan. Add a little water to coat the bottom of the pan when this begins to happen and reduce heat to about 300. Baste as often as you can without affecting the oven temperature too much. Season generously can not be understated. You will think you are using way too much, but the salt helps to dry the skin out and you are seasoning the surface of relatively thick chunks of meat.

It came pre-fucked

I meant to say *overstated* or *should not* be understated. Just use a lot of salt.

Fucking it yourself always makes a mess.

Cook it whole; the bones, skin, and gristle will help retain moisture
Pop a knob of butter under the skin next to the breast and some aromatics in the arse (garlic, rosemary, thyme, sage, whatever you like)
Truss it if you know how
Season throughout, inside, and under skin; rub it in
Cook at 180 till cooked though, basting every ten minutes, then rest and when cooled to ambient temp return to a 220 degree oven till cooked to your preferred level of crisp
this is pretty solid

rub with a teaspoon baking powder and salt, it increases browning of the skin through alkaline environment.
remove the backbone and slit the joints, itll be much more even cooking. if you dont want to do that stuff it and use a lot of butter

impale it on a stake and rotate it with a fire next to it but charcoal under it for an hour
Make sure you stab it as much as you can but not too much
Eat it with hands

Just buy one in a can