One of my favorite techniques for cooking a chicken

[Major Nikon]

One of my favorite things to cook is chicken and I do it several different ways. I thought I'd detail one great way to do it.

I like to use pasture raised chickens for roasting. If you can find them locally, they are worth the extra expense, IMO. I just use pretty simple spices on my roasted chicken and pasture raised just has that much more flavor to them which I really like.

Naturally the first thing to do is remove all the pieces and parts that are stuffed inside the chicken, if you buy them with all the parts enclose. I use every bit of the chicken. The livers I freeze until I have about a cup of them which I use to make dirty rice. The other parts get used for stock and/or giblet gravy.

I spatchcock which is certainly optional. In addition, I also remove the breastbone, cartilage, wishbone, and rib bones. I do this with just a sharp paring knife, and once you've done this a time or two it goes pretty quickly. So basically what I wind up with is completely boneless chicken breasts with the tenderloin attached.

Next I salt the chicken. After drying it off well with a couple of paper towels, I use about a teaspoon or two of kosher salt for the entire chicken. I take the salt a pinch at a time holding it over the bird about 8-10 inches and sprinkle evenly, moving the various pieces around and turning it over to get even coverage. Then I wrap the chicken in cling wrap, put it in a 9x12 pan, and refrigerate for 2-3 days. This allows enough time for the salt to draw moisture out of the chicken, combine with the salt, and then redistribute throughout the entire bird through osmosis. This is going to keep the chicken very moist during the cooking phase along with seasoning it to the very center.

After 2-3 days, I take the chicken out and give it a spice rub. You can use whatever rub you like. I keep it pretty simple with just ground black pepper and smoked paprika. Then I coat the entire bird with vegetable oil.

I roast the chicken for about 45 minutes on a rack inside a sheet pan, skin side up at 350F. I use a temperature probe inserted into the thickest part of the breast during roasting. I pull the chicken out, when the probe reads 145F. As soon as it's out, I make sure every part of both breasts are at least 145F with an instant read thermometer. The drumsticks should read at least 160F. If you don't get these temps, pop it back in the oven for another 5 minutes and recheck. After you've done this a few times, you should be able to hit those target temps on the first try, which is really just a matter of making sure the probe was in the middle of the thickest part of the breast when you started. Leaving the probe in, I put the bird on a cutting board and tent with aluminum foil, and let it rest for 10 minutes. The temperature of the breast meat will continue to rise during the rest and should peak at about 155-160F. The entire process is detailed here.

After 10 minutes, I carve the chicken and serve. If you've done everything right, the skin will be crispy and very tasty and the meat will be tender and juicy throughout.

[irisblue]

1. bookmarking for future cooking

[rusty quoin]

2. I like this.

The spatchcock is very similar to the butterfly. The one difference I can see is removing the wishbone. I watched Pepin remove all bones from a chicken once...I was amazed.

I get my chickens now from a middle eastern market. They are small compared to the supermarket chickens, which hit 5 lbs. plus for fryers...unnatural. They also don't have the huge fat pockets of super market chickens. On top of that, his prices are comparable with the super duper chickens.

I am going to try your kosher salt wrap rather than brining. I know about the rising temp out of the oven... covering it with foil. I have an instant read thermometer thanks to my dear wife.

Thanks Major Nikon for more good info.