[zest crunching]
[skin cracking]
[oil sizzling]
[upbeat music]
- I'm Jay, and I'm a Level 1 chef.
- I'm Beth, and I'm a Level 2 chef.
- I'm Barbara from the
Institute of Culinary Education
and I've been a professional
chef for over 20 years.
[drum rolling]
[upbeat music]
- My recipe is easy, hard to mess up,
cost effective, and feeds a lot of people,
everything you're looking
for in a simple recipe.
- The best time to make my chicken recipe
is every day, no matter what's happening.
It always looks beautiful
and tastes delicious.
- I love roasting chicken
because it let's you
have the whole chicken, and
it's not nearly as messy
as cooking it stove-top.
[dramatic music]
- All right, let's season this chicken.
So the first thing we're gonna do
is pat dry the chicken thighs.
So the chicken thigh has a lot more flavor
than a chicken breast, which
I find to be really plain
and needs to be marinated.
Chicken thighs, especially
with the bone in
and the skin on, you get a lot more flavor
from the dark and the light meat.
- In order to make the skin delicious
and the breast meat really, really tasty,
I like to take some
room temperature butter
and zest a lemon inside that butter.
Try not to get any of the pith.
Neat thing about room temperature butter
is that everything will mix right in.
- I like using the whole chicken
because you never know
who likes the light meat,
who likes the dark meat,
and it really does,
roasting the whole chicken on the bone,
it gives it that much more flavor.
What I'm gonna do is
simply fold back the wings.
If I leave the wings out like this
when I roast it in my hot oven,
the wing tips will burn.
Then, the next thing I'm gonna do
is take my fingers and
at end of the breast
go underneath between
the skin and the meat
and separate them.
- What we're gonna do today
is pick up the chicken thighs,
and we're gonna put 'em here
in a plastic Ziploc bag.
The reason I like to put things in a bag
instead of a bowl, I hate doing dishes.
This is so much easier.
Now I'm adding my garlic into the oil.
Hefty portion of salt.
- Salt.
- Next I'm gonna be adding
some oregano to the oil.
- Some pepper.
- And finally,
my favorite, red pepper flake.
- Okay, my butter's ready.
Cutting up the lemon so that I can
put it inside the chicken cavity.
Gonna cut this head of
garlic right in half.
That's gonna go inside the cavity as well.
- Take a couple of springs of thyme,
place them underneath the skin.
Then I'm going to liberally salt this,
and this is all happening 24 hours
before I'm going to roast the chicken.
- Just pour it straight into the bag.
- Stretch out the skin, get
a little of the legs exposed.
The more area you can cover
with the butter, the better.
[whistling]
- Squeeze out some of the air.
- Fat equals flavor.
The chicken fat with butter is wonderful.
Generously salt and pepper the bird.
Paprika, nice smoky taste,
and it also brings a lot of
really nice color to the bird.
- And it's ready to fit.
So I'm gonna place this
in the refrigerator
uncovered for 24 hours.
- Now, the sheet pan
is lined with tinfoil,
again, making clean-up easier.
We're gonna evenly space
these chicken pieces.
- So my chicken's been in the
refrigerator for 24 hours.
I can see that the salt is dissolved,
the skin is dried out a little bit.
It's ready to go in the oven.
My cast iron pan is nice and hot.
It's been in the oven for 20 minutes.
I'm gonna add just a little bit of oil
and in goes the chicken.
- Thyme, right in the cavity.
Got your garlic.
I like to squeeze the lemon in, too.
- Using the cast iron skillet
with just a little bit of oil
will give us a nice,
crispy back of the chicken,
and won't stick, and then when I flip it,
it'll get nice color on
the breast side as well.
So this is all ready to go in
my 475 oven for 30 minutes.
- Okay, now I'm gonna prepare my veggies.
- I'm gonna cut up all of these veggies,
throw them in the pan so that they can be
a wonderful base for my chicken.
- Instead of doing roast
vegetables with my chicken,
I'm doing a variation, bread salad.
- First things first, gonna
peel and slice and onion.
I like to use a sweet Vidalia onion,
because they're not as
overpowering as a red onion,
and I like the way they caramelize.
- First thing I have is a
loaf of crusty ciabatta.
This is gonna be torn into
larger than bite-size pieces.
It'll absorb the dressing and
the juices from the chicken
and pick up all of that delicious flavor.
- Knife skills are life skills.
I'm just putting the onions into the bag.
Now, onto the carrots and the potatoes.
- I'm gonna start with my carrots.
I want to peel the carrot first.
This is about the size
of the piece that I want,
and this isn't that big.
- The best part about
using a store-bought bag
of pre-peeled, pre-cut baby carrots,
is the prep goes like this.
Abracadabra.
- These are gonna go in
the pan with the chicken
with about 20 minutes left of cooking.
Next I'm gonna toast my pine nuts
in a dry saute pan.
These are gonna a little extra crunch
and fat to my bread salad.
- So now let's start on the parsnips.
I like to cut them into
about four, five-inch chunks.
I try to make everything
about the same size.
It will all cook the same.
- All right, these are almost toasted.
Gonna put these aside until I'm ready
to make the bread salad.
Next I'm gonna slice my scallions.
I like slicing these
on a bias, on an angle,
just 'cause it makes it look prettier.
Just a little olive oil.
And I'm not really looking to cook these.
All I want to do is wilt
them just a little bit.
- Small new potatoes.
- These are Yukon Gold potatoes.
- These are just the right
size to not have to cut.
They roast easily, and
they brown up nicely.
- Flavor is just a little creamier.
They taste great when they're roasted.
- Now I'm gonna mix the salt with the oil,
and next, about a teaspoon of oregano.
I'm gonna pour the oil
into the bag of veggies,
toss the bag around like this,
and just like the chicken,
this is gonna distribute the oil evenly
across the vegetables, and once again,
the bag means no dishes to clean.
- Last thing, I'm gonna make
a nice, simple vinaigrette.
I have champagne vinegar,
and I have olive oil.
And I'm simply gonna whisk this together.
This is gonna help
moisten the bread salad,
and again, give it that
nice, sharp tanginess.
- Just dump that out right onto the pan,
and the dishes are done.
- Put oil and some salt and pepper.
Mix everything around.
Root vegetables really
hold up well to roasting.
They enhance the flavor of the chicken.
They don't detract from
the flavor of the chicken.
- So I've taken my chicken out of the oven
with 20 minutes left to cook,
and I'm gonna add the bread
so it toasts for the bread salad.
And let's put this back in
the oven for 20 more minutes.
- Pick up the chicken, put
it right in the middle.
- Shake that to distribute
'em a little evenly.
We're gonna put these in
the oven at 350 degrees.
After 30 minutes, we're gonna
flip the pieces of chicken
and give the veggies just
a little bit of a stir.
- Off to the oven, 375
degrees for one hour.
- My chicken and the toasted
bread are out of the oven.
I'm gonna let it rest for 10 minutes
to reabsorb some of the juices.
- First thing I want to
do is get the chicken
out of the pan, onto the board
so that it can rest for awhile.
If you cut it too early, all the juices
will be on this board,
rather than in the meat.
- Everything is fully cooked.
We flipped the chicken
about halfway through,
and now we're ready to serve.
- I'm gonna put my
vegetables onto this platter.
Some of them have a few dark edges,
which are just delicious.
- Chicken's rested, ready to be carved.
Bread salad's ready to be made.
I'm going to take my bread
and all those delicious juices
from the pan, make sure
those go into the salad,
don't throw any flavor away.
- It's beautifully browned
because of the paprika.
Now I'm gonna cut it up and
put it right on the plate
on top of the veggies.
- [Jay] I'm gonna put
the vegetables out first,
get a nice base for the chicken to lay on.
This looks good.
- Separate the legs and the thighs.
Cut those each apart.
- Put my drumstick down, and
my thigh right next to it.
Now I'm gonna remove the wing.
- Turning skin-side up so it
doesn't steam and get soft.
Then right down the center of the breast.
- Just run down the breast bone
and the breast'll come right off.
- And on either side of the back bone,
I'm gonna break the breast
into a few sections,
and I'm leaving it on the bone
'cause that has all the flavor.
- And now we're gonna plate the chicken.
The skin on this chicken
is nice and crispy.
Do it like that.
- I have my toasted bread
with all the chicken juices.
I'm gonna add in my
scallions, my pine nuts.
I've got some beautiful
peppery baby arugula,
which is gonna add another
dimension to our salad.
And I've got our
vinaigrette, touch of salt,
touch of pepper.
Give this a really good toss
so that dressing gets all over the bread.
- Now the other breast.
You can see inside all
the stuff is still there.
This garlic is delicious.
Take this out and spread it onto bread.
- Now we're ready to plate.
Bread salad on the platter.
We're gonna place the chicken artfully
around and on top of the bread salad.
I have a little bit of baby watercress
that I can just garnish
with, and there we go.
- And here's my roast chicken.
[gentle instrumental music]
- And this is my roast
chicken and root vegetables.
- And this is my roast
chicken with bread salad.
- All right, roast chicken,
let's give this a try.
- Really good.
- Mm.
- Nice crispy skin on the outside,
and tender on the inside.
- Oh, that sure is good.
- That's really good.
- My chicken turned out great.
It's crispy on the outside,
tender on the inside,
and the bread salad is a
perfect complement with it.
- This is a great recipe when you've got
a whole lot of things going on,
and you don't have a
whole lot of time to cook,
and it's a great recipe
if you hate doing dishes.
- Everybody needs a roasted
chicken in their repertoire,
and this recipe will come out
perfect every single time.
[dramatic music]
- There are many different
ways to roast your chicken,
no matter which way you cut it.
[dramatic music]
Jay roasted chicken thighs,
which are comprised of dark meat.
Dark meat is higher in fat,
slightly lower in protein,
and higher in connective
tissue compared to white meat.
It also has slightly more
iron containing myoglobin,
which contributes to its dark coloring.
Jay placed his chicken in a big with oil
and seasonings for a short amount of time.
[whistles]
This didn't allow the seasonings
to penetrate the chicken much.
He roasted his chicken on a sheet tray,
which helped evaporate moisture
and encouraged Maillard browning.
The sheet tray also aided
in crisping the skin,
because it allowed the
radiant heat from the oven
and convection currents of hot air
to contact a larger surface area.
- And we're ready for the oven.
- While roasting, excess
water is vaporized out,
so drying the chicken prevents steaming
and promotes that good, crispy skin.
- Definitely have to
get that crunchy skin.
- By loosening the skin
and adding seasonings
like lemon zest and butter
directly to the chicken breast,
Beth allowed for a deeper
penetration of flavor.
The butter also added
fat to retain moisture.
- Fat equals flavor.
- This is important, because
white meat from the breast
cooks quicker than the dark
meet of the legs and thighs,
so it helps keep the breast moist
as everything else finishes roasting.
- The chicken fat with
butter is wonderful.
- Beth put garlic, lemon and thyme
into the cavity of the chicken,
which will fill the room
with a really nice aroma,
but it won't add much in terms of taste.
The volatile molecules
found in these ingredients
have to come in contact with meat
in order to enhance its flavor.
When you have them in the
cavity of the chicken,
the flavor compounds are less intense
because they're touching more of the bone
instead of the meat.
Chicken flavor was also
added to Beth's vegetables,
since she roasted her meat
directly on top of them.
- Put it right in the middle.
- However, veggies
generate steam when heated,
which can interfere with the
crispiness of the chicken skin.
Barb seasoned her whole
chicken under the skin
and then let it rest for a day.
This allowed the seasonings to
deeply permeate the chicken,
and helped crisp the
skin by drying it out.
She roasted her chicken in cast iron,
which gets extremely hot,
and maintains that high temperature evenly
while in the oven.
By roasting her chicken at 475 degrees,
Barb encouraged fast Maillard browning,
vaporization of water, and
a shorter cooking time.
[dramatic music]
Including aromatic vegetables
like onions and carrots
with your chicken, adds
color and sweetness,
especially when they're roasted.
Jay again made good use
of a Ziploc bag here,
as a quick and neat way
to coat his vegetables
in seasoned oil.
- And the dishes are done.
- The oil is important
for flavor and texture,
but also because it transfers
heat much better than air,
so it cooked his vegetables
at a higher temperature.
Jay roasted new potatoes,
which are higher in moisture
than larger potatoes that
you might normally bake.
- Boom.
- This makes them very
tender when roasted.
Beth went more for uniformity in size
with her potatoes, parsnips, and carrots.
Baking vegetables that are the same size
for the same amount of time,
and at the same temperature,
allows for even roasting.
- The potato is good.
- Making croutons from
the roasted chicken fat
and the flavoring like Barb did,
is a nice change from
simply roasting vegetables.
Chicken fat is generally
high in both saturated
and monounsaturated fatty acids.
When hot fats come in contact with foods
like Barb's croutons, dehydration occurs
and a crust forms while
allowing conduction
to continue to cook the interior.
This allowed her croutons
to get wonderfully
crispy on the outside.
She also made a warm salad,
highlighted by acidic
notes from the vinegar,
pan drippings from the chicken,
and fresh, peppery greens.
[dramatic music]
Resting chicken after
roasting does several things.
There is some carry-over cooking
when the bird comes out of the oven,
so its internal temperature continues
to increase for a brief time.
Eventually, it cools down
and its water-holding
capacity is increased.
This results in juicier meat,
and the chicken's flesh becomes more firm,
making it much easier to slice.
When people say resting
chicken seals in the juices,
it's not quite correct,
but it may seem that way
because of increased
water-holding capacity.
Both Beth and Barb carved
their chicken after it rested.
They cut it traditionally
into eight sections,
following the naturally
distinct parts of the chicken,
keeping the white and dark meat separate,
and serving them in whole pieces.
The next time you're cooking chicken,
hopefully these tips will help you get
the most out of your roast.
- That's a big piece.
Mm!
Level three chicken right here, mm!
Very good.
Thank you.
- Ooh.
- Thank you.
- Thank you.
