Friday night dinner with my in-laws
Friday night dinner was eaten with my in-laws up in Yorkshire. I showed them how to roast a chicken properly and make a good sauce to go with.
The starting point to a good roast chicken, as anyone will tell you, is a good chicken. Seeing as we were cooking a cheap battery farmed variety, we weren't off to a good start. Like a good poker player can play any hand, I feel an accomplished cook can make the best of lesser ingredients, so I set about trying to make this poor creature (who had a miserable life - see http://www.animalaid.org.uk/h/n/CAMPAIGNS/vegetarianism/ALL/513/) taste reasonable.
A chicken is a lean creature, and therefore doesn't have enough of its own fat to roast properly in. The best start is to rub in some fat, and while you're at it, a bit of flavour.
I left my father-in-law in charge of this bit. I believe he rubbed in some butter, some vegetable oil and some herbs de provence. A bit of butter and oil is the best bet for fat. For flavour you can use a number of different things. Dijon mustard is quite good, honey if you like it sweet, crushed garlic, tarragon, grated lemon rind. It's intuitive, what goes with chicken? rub it in. You can also shove the same fat and flavour up its "cavity" as well. A few garlic cloves, and a couple of lemon quarter work well.
When you're ready to go get the oven really hot (about 230) and sear it at this temperature for about 15-20 minutes. This sears the chicken, and browns and crisps the skin. My father-in-law left if 35, and it went pretty golden brown, but didn't really seem to have harmed (depends how crunchy you like the skin).
After that take it out and baste it then turn it down to 180 and let it carry on. Basting is the key, the absolute secret to getting a roast chicken right. The basic rule is to baste as often as you remember/can be bothered. At least every 20 minutes, probably no more than every 8 minutes. Forget tin foil, adding water or whatever other funny ideas you have, this is what will stop the bird drying out. I once ate a chicken which hadn't been basted at all, and it was disgustingly dry and wiry. The hostess was distraught and didn't understand what she had done wrong. If you want a good roast chicken baste like an obsessive-compulsive. This probably applies to any meat which doesn't have much of it's own fat/marbling.
Timing is a difficult thing. After a while of doing this you just get the hang of it. You know you are getting good when you can look at a chicken (or joint of meat) and have a pretty good idea how long it needs cooking for - like a good tailor can size you up without a tape. For the inexperienced, the best rule is to do 20 minutes per lb. Then start checking. Some people say you check for doneness by poking and seeing if the juices run clear. This is probably a very good method if you can master it, but I never have. It's pretty hard to tell as the stuff runs down the chicken exactly what shade of pink/clear the juices are. An easier and more reliable method is to gently scratch away the inside of the thigh and literally see if the meat is cooked through. This involves hacking away a bit, which might ruin the final presentation. But if you have good surgical skills you can do this and still leave a very small scar.
The next important bit is resting. The difference between a rested chicken and one straight from the oven is stark. The juices go back into the chicken and it becomes soft and deliciously moist. Pull the chicken out of the pan by sticking a wooden spoon up its "cavity" and letting all the juices run back into the pan. Then drop it onto a large piece of foil (that you prepared earlier) and wrap it up well. Cover it with a tea towel (or two) to keep it warm. Leave it to reast whilst you eat hors d'oeuvre, and by the time you carve it up for main course it will be divine.
I made a great sauce to go with it. This is so easy. First of all tilt the pan and let the fat float to the top. You then spoon off the fat and leave just a small amount of fat and all the chicken juices (the brown stuff underneat the clear fat). Put the roasting tin over the heat and beat in two tablespoons of plain flour until it makes a nice paste (known technically as a "roux"). Then start pouring in fluid - white wine or chicken stock. You could use some reserved water from boiling vegetables -whatever is lying around. Start whisking as you slowly pour in the fluid and you end up with a nice thick sauce. Then just sieve it out into a gravy boat and keep it warm whilst you head to the table for your hors d'oeuvre.
I used synthetic stock from a cube, and jazzed it up with a generous splash of sherry. Another tip is if you make gravy you can keep it warm for longer periods in a thermos flask.
The verdict:
The chicken was very good for a battery. I'm not sure I would have been able to tell the difference in a blind trial, which made me wonder whether organic chickens taste better as they tend to be bought by people who take care over their food, and therefore prepare them more capably. The unbasted dry stringy chicken I had was a battery, but cooked like that would still have been disgusting even if it was the finest bred label rouge organic chicken from Harrods. It's maybe confusing causation and correlation - the writer of Freakonomics could investigate this.
Anyway I'm no way advocating the unsavoury process of battery farming, and I'll continue to use organic chickens on humanitarian grounds - but it's an interesting insight. This one was also bought from a local yorkshire butcher, so maybe is a better than your average Tesco stuff.
The starting point to a good roast chicken, as anyone will tell you, is a good chicken. Seeing as we were cooking a cheap battery farmed variety, we weren't off to a good start. Like a good poker player can play any hand, I feel an accomplished cook can make the best of lesser ingredients, so I set about trying to make this poor creature (who had a miserable life - see http://www.animalaid.org.uk/h/n/CAMPAIGNS/vegetarianism/ALL/513/) taste reasonable.
A chicken is a lean creature, and therefore doesn't have enough of its own fat to roast properly in. The best start is to rub in some fat, and while you're at it, a bit of flavour.
I left my father-in-law in charge of this bit. I believe he rubbed in some butter, some vegetable oil and some herbs de provence. A bit of butter and oil is the best bet for fat. For flavour you can use a number of different things. Dijon mustard is quite good, honey if you like it sweet, crushed garlic, tarragon, grated lemon rind. It's intuitive, what goes with chicken? rub it in. You can also shove the same fat and flavour up its "cavity" as well. A few garlic cloves, and a couple of lemon quarter work well.
When you're ready to go get the oven really hot (about 230) and sear it at this temperature for about 15-20 minutes. This sears the chicken, and browns and crisps the skin. My father-in-law left if 35, and it went pretty golden brown, but didn't really seem to have harmed (depends how crunchy you like the skin).
After that take it out and baste it then turn it down to 180 and let it carry on. Basting is the key, the absolute secret to getting a roast chicken right. The basic rule is to baste as often as you remember/can be bothered. At least every 20 minutes, probably no more than every 8 minutes. Forget tin foil, adding water or whatever other funny ideas you have, this is what will stop the bird drying out. I once ate a chicken which hadn't been basted at all, and it was disgustingly dry and wiry. The hostess was distraught and didn't understand what she had done wrong. If you want a good roast chicken baste like an obsessive-compulsive. This probably applies to any meat which doesn't have much of it's own fat/marbling.
Timing is a difficult thing. After a while of doing this you just get the hang of it. You know you are getting good when you can look at a chicken (or joint of meat) and have a pretty good idea how long it needs cooking for - like a good tailor can size you up without a tape. For the inexperienced, the best rule is to do 20 minutes per lb. Then start checking. Some people say you check for doneness by poking and seeing if the juices run clear. This is probably a very good method if you can master it, but I never have. It's pretty hard to tell as the stuff runs down the chicken exactly what shade of pink/clear the juices are. An easier and more reliable method is to gently scratch away the inside of the thigh and literally see if the meat is cooked through. This involves hacking away a bit, which might ruin the final presentation. But if you have good surgical skills you can do this and still leave a very small scar.
The next important bit is resting. The difference between a rested chicken and one straight from the oven is stark. The juices go back into the chicken and it becomes soft and deliciously moist. Pull the chicken out of the pan by sticking a wooden spoon up its "cavity" and letting all the juices run back into the pan. Then drop it onto a large piece of foil (that you prepared earlier) and wrap it up well. Cover it with a tea towel (or two) to keep it warm. Leave it to reast whilst you eat hors d'oeuvre, and by the time you carve it up for main course it will be divine.
I made a great sauce to go with it. This is so easy. First of all tilt the pan and let the fat float to the top. You then spoon off the fat and leave just a small amount of fat and all the chicken juices (the brown stuff underneat the clear fat). Put the roasting tin over the heat and beat in two tablespoons of plain flour until it makes a nice paste (known technically as a "roux"). Then start pouring in fluid - white wine or chicken stock. You could use some reserved water from boiling vegetables -whatever is lying around. Start whisking as you slowly pour in the fluid and you end up with a nice thick sauce. Then just sieve it out into a gravy boat and keep it warm whilst you head to the table for your hors d'oeuvre.
I used synthetic stock from a cube, and jazzed it up with a generous splash of sherry. Another tip is if you make gravy you can keep it warm for longer periods in a thermos flask.
The verdict:
The chicken was very good for a battery. I'm not sure I would have been able to tell the difference in a blind trial, which made me wonder whether organic chickens taste better as they tend to be bought by people who take care over their food, and therefore prepare them more capably. The unbasted dry stringy chicken I had was a battery, but cooked like that would still have been disgusting even if it was the finest bred label rouge organic chicken from Harrods. It's maybe confusing causation and correlation - the writer of Freakonomics could investigate this.
Anyway I'm no way advocating the unsavoury process of battery farming, and I'll continue to use organic chickens on humanitarian grounds - but it's an interesting insight. This one was also bought from a local yorkshire butcher, so maybe is a better than your average Tesco stuff.
posted by foodpete at 9:37 AM
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