Roast Chicken is the perfect community dish. It reminds me of so many Sundays where we would just sit around one big chicken & devour it.
My idea of cooking is one that requires minimum effort but produces beautiful dishes. So when you talk to me about Roast Chicken, I can't be bothered to truss or baste the chicken. My only requirement to a perfect roast chicken is that it be moist and juicy & I think this is where most recipes get it wrong.
This recipe that I'm sharing today is a combination of bits from Gordon Ramsay, Heston Blumenthal & my very own Shrey Kamerkar's recipe. Follow this recipe and I promised you a fail safe juicy, moist & tender roast chicken - one which takes minimal effort with finger licking results.
This is a special occasion dish nonetheless and needs some advance prep time (1 day prior).
Quantities enough for one whole chicken
For the chicken:
1ltr brine or salt water
1 ltr Buttermilk
For the stuffing:
1 cup sausgaes
1 tsp Mustard
1 tsp HP sauce
1 tbsp worcestershire
3 cloves garlic
1 cup mushrooms
1 cup cheese
1 tsp oregano
1 tsp thyme
a few leaves of fresh basil
1 tbsp Butter
Salt & pepper to taste
1 large potato
For the outer flavouring of the chicken:
1 cup butter
2 tbsp paprika or chilli powder
Salt & pepper to taste
Wash the chicken throughly in water. In a large pot, add cold water and salt. For every 2 cups of water, add 1 tablespoon of salt. Immerse the chicken in this salted water and let it refrigerate for atleast 6 hours. This technique is called brining. Brining is a very neat trick which ensures you get a juicy chicken everytime. Brining makes the meat moist by hydrating the cells of the chicken's tissue before cooking. It locks in all the lovely juices and flavour and will give you a fabulous juicy chicken once the meat is cooked.
After 6-10hours, remove the chicken from the brine and throw out the water. In the same pot, now add in the buttermilk. Soak the chicken in buttermilk and refrigerate overnight. The buttermilk works to cleanse and tenderise the chicken.
To make the stuffing:
Preheat the oven to 250 degrees Celsius.
Remove the chicken from the fridge and throw out the butter milk mixture. Rinse the chicken well to remove the buttermilk from the inner crevices. Stuff the inside of the chicken with the stuffing mixture. Do not over stuff. Add enough stuffing to fill out the chicken, not to spill over. Add the whole, large potato at the end. The potato acts as a stopper. It will let the chicken hold its shape and also prevent the stuffing from falling out.
Rub the outside of the chicken with butter and paprika. Sprinkle salt and pepper. Place on a baking dish.
Add half a cup of water around the chicken in the baking dish. Cover with aluminium foil. The aluminium foil will help the chicken steam in its own juices, making it even more flavourful. Before placing in the oven, reduce temperature to 150 degrees Celsius. Roast for 1 hour.
You may think that 150 degrees is too low a temperature to cook the chicken, and you are right. But cooking the chicken at a higher temperature initially will result in drying it out. You want to slowly cook the chicken and gradually raise its temperature. At the last 10 mins of the cooking process we will blast out the heat to its maximum setting. This will give the chicken a nice golden colour and will crisp up the skin.
After an hour, raise the temperature to 200 degrees. Remove the chicken from the oven, spread a blob of butter around the top and skin, re-seal with foil and put it back in the oven. Bake for another 30mins-45mins until the chicken is fully cooked. To test if the chicken is cooked, Insert a knife at the thickest part of the chicken (usually the breast), and touch the knife to your lip. If the knife feels hot, it means the chicken is cooked.
Now turn your oven to the maximum heat setting. Remove the foil from the dish. Add a generous amount of butter on the chicken and put it back into the oven for 10 mins.
Remove from oven and let it sit for half an hour before chopping it up. At this point I also add in spring onions around the chicken as it soaks up all the beautiful juices in the dish.
To serve, scoop out the stuffing in a bowl. In another bowl, pour all the baking juices from the baking dish. For those of you who don't know how to cut up a whole chicken, follow this video
Serve up pieces of chicken with a bowl of the stuffing and roasting juices on the side.
I wasn't kidding about my chicken...look how juicy that is!
Tip: Once you've carved and chopped up the chicken, preserve the leftover bones. These are packed with flavour and make a killer stock when boiled with water.
