- Okay, I made you a gochujang chicken,
but also before we dig into this,
I just wanna say that I
saved you the best part.
- My favorite part.
- This is the tail.
Is that what it is?
- I call it the butt.
- The butt, it's really
the chicken's butt.
- Isn't there a nice name
for it like Pope's Nose?
- The Pope's nose.
- Pope's nose, but it's a butt.
- Everybody always talks about the oyster
on the chicken, and that
the oyster is old news.
So earth to world, it's all about
the chicken butt.
- Chicken butt, chicken butt.
[string bass music]
- Here we are, folks, in
the Bon Apetit test kitchen.
Today we are making slow
roasted gochujang chicken,
which is a recipe that I developed for
eatbasically.com.
It's one of those extremely
low-effort, high-reward recipes.
The other thing that's gonna happen,
while this chicken slow
roasts at 300 degrees,
is there's gonna be a bunch of little
baby potatoes that are nestled
in the skillet with it,
and they are going to cook
in all of the schmaltzy,
gochujang drippings that
come off the chicken,
and that might be the best part.
The setup of this goes
a little bit like this.
One three and half to four pound chicken.
You always want to pat your chicken dry
so that when it hits the oven,
the skin can immediately
start getting crispy.
If there's a lot of water
still all over the chicken,
it will impeded browning,
and we're looking
for a nice, caramelized, brown skin.
So I'm going to generously
season this chicken,
all sides, with salt and pep.
Look, his little wings
are already tucked in.
And then it's also great practice
to season the inside of the cavity.
Because that way, you're seasoning it
from the inside out, and
not just on the skin.
If you have the time
to do this in advance,
season this the night before
and leave it uncovered in your fridge.
It will make a huge difference in terms of
both the texture of the flesh, but also
how juicy and seasoned it is.
Let's put some garlic
right inside the cavity.
This will just sort of perfume it.
I'm cutting two whole
heads of garlic in half.
Half of it is going to be in the skillet
with the potatoes, and the
other half is getting tucked,
here let me spin this
around, right in the cavity.
Then I have a little bit of
kitchen twine, actually a lot.
This is my preferred method of trussing,
is just take the two legs, cross them,
and then tie them up
just with a single knot.
Now for the gochujang rub.
I'm gonna take five
tablespoons of gochujang,
which I'm going to approximate.
So my very precise measurement
of five tablespoons
right here, and then as you
can see it's very thick,
so we're going to add some oil to that
and that's gonna help thin it out
to make it a little bit more slatherable.
I'm gonna stream in approximately
one quarter cup of olive oil.
So this is thinning it out a bit.
The oil is also going to
help conduct some heat
and create that really nice
golden brown chicken skin.
That feels about right.
So now three cloves of grated
garlic on a microplane.
I'm adding about one and
half inches of fresh ginger.
So I'm going to break this down into
what I think is about
one and a half inches.
So whisking that all in, and now this is
a nice bright red paste that we can
brush all over the chicken.
Pastry brush, very crucial tool here.
I'm coating every nook and cranny
with some of this marinade.
One thing about gochujang is that
there's quite a bit of sugar in it.
That's what makes it very delicious,
and that also helps in
the browning process.
Because since we're cooking this chicken
at such a low temperature, it actually
doesn't really have the tendency to get
super golden brown,
the way a chicken might
if you roasted it at like 450.
So the added sugar in the chili paste,
is really gonna aid in that process
so you don't miss out on any of that.
Okay, one and half pounds
of baby creamer potatoes.
If you can't find potatoes
that are this small,
you need to cut your potatoes down
to approximately this
size, because that way
they'll cook at the same
rate that the chicken does
and when the chicken's done,
the potatoes will be done.
They are going into
this bowl with the rest
of the marinade, and they're
gonna get all coated,
because we don't want to
leave any of that behind.
I'm going to add a little
bit more oil to that,
just to help them get started in the oven.
Then, once the chicken starts cooking
and all the schmaltz starts dripping down,
the magic will start happening.
They're gonna go straight into a 12-inch
cast iron skillet.
It's pretty important that
you use a 12-inch skillet
because what we're going to do next
is place the chicken in
the middle of the skillet
making sure that none of the potatoes
are actually under the chicken,
because any potatoes
left under the chicken,
and I know this because I tested it out
several times, will be so
insulated by the chicken
that they will take
much, much longer to cook
than any of the potatoes
around the outside,
and everything will cook unevenly.
Basically, just scoot
these little guys out
and make space for your chick, so that
everything is finished at the same time.
Sorry for the messy.
There we go.
It really truly is the same color,
or like a more intense version of it.
We're gonna put this sunset bird
in the oven at 300 degrees for anywhere
between two and three hours, depending on
how big and how hot your oven is,
and what else is in there.
My oven at home takes three full hours
to cook a chicken this way.
These ovens in the test kitchen are huge
and very powerful, and
although it's set to
the same temperature,
the birds finish sooner
in these large, industrial ovens.
So you'll start checking around two hours.
Okay, it has been five minutes,
because there's another chicken that's
been in the oven the whole time.
I don't wanna lie to you guys any more,
it doesn't feel right.
So let's go check on the chicken that's
been in the oven this entire time, because
it has been in there for
two and a half hours.
And she's looking real nice
Okay, there's a lot of really delicious,
schmaltzy gochujang drippings down here.
Wow, I mean, wow, pretty stunning.
Okay, let's just do a
quick potato doneness test.
I just wanna make sure that when I
put a little bit of pressure on it,
the potato gives and
smushes, which it has done.
I could even break into it, as I just did,
with just a spoon.
So it is tender.
Let's bring this over and, as with all
roast proteins, let it
rest for about ten minutes.
Meanwhile, we'll slice up some scallions.
I'm gonna cut them on a very extreme bias
so that they're nice and
angular and geometric.
I'm gonna cut both of these limes in half
and actually, one of them I'm going to
cut into wedges for serving,
so that people can
squeeze to their liking.
But I will say that the potatoes are
going to need a little bit of lift
and a little brightness and acidity,
and that's going to come in the form of
scallions and lime juice.
We'll transfer this to the cutting board.
What we're gonna do now is smash
all of the potatoes, just
enough to split them open
so that the insides are
exposed, and give them
a chance to soak up all of the juice
that's at the bottom,
'cause we wouldn't want
to waste any of that.
And they're basically like
little potato sponges now.
Don't those look nice and fun?
Oh my god, look at that frigging garlic.
Would you look at it?
We're going to add about two teaspoons.
I'm not gonna measure
it, it just seems silly.
I'm gonna do a drizzle of about
two teaspoons of honey,
the juice of two limes.
Oh, such a juicy lime, what a pleasure.
And then some of these here scallion
get tossed in, and then finally
we're going to carve this chicken.
Okay, so there's all of our parts.
Then the way that I like to serve this
is just straight out of the skillet,
because the presentation of it
is really pretty that way.
And the skillet has now cooled down a bit.
So just nestling all the pieces
right back in there, and just throw it
on the table and that's your centerpiece.
What can I offer you, like in terms of
dark, light--
- I would love a thigh.
- A thigh?
- Yeah, a thigh.
- No problem, coming right up.
- Wow, thank you, mm, what service.
- And then can I give
you some schmaltzy peas?
- Yes please.
- 'Cause those are maybe the best part,
second only to, wait for it,
please check this out.
- [Cook] That came out very,
that's pretty excellent.
- [Molly] It's
excellent-looking garlic, right?
- [Cook] It looks beautiful.
- Mm, delicious.
- I very, like, barbecue-y.
- Like Korean barbecue-y?
- I was thinking more KC Masterpiece.
- What is that?
[bleep]
[muffled speech off-camera]
KC Masterpiece, is that the name of the--
- The really bad barbecue
sauce that you buy.
But this is like that, all grown up.
- [Molly] Okay, say fine.
- [Cook] Great work.
- [Molly] Thank you.
[mumbles]
Namaste.
[muttering]
That's a good one.
- [Man Off-Camera] Yeah,
I just came up with that.
[laughing]
