Unfortunately, it is also rather expensive :( . Its actually cheaper pound for pound to buy a whole chicken. It will last you longer than just buying the breasts, and you have the additional advantage of using all the meat on it. You can even make stock out of the bones! so it is an excellent deal!
I am not so concerned about an organically raised chicken. A farmer has to be certified organic by the government, but that doesn't mean an organic chicken is any more or less healthy than a non-organic chicken. Free range is also misleading. You can call a chicken free range if it has access to outdoors. But sometimes, that access area is extremely limited, and not very safe.
A "good" chicken is one with lots of muscle on it (as opposed to fat). The taste of a strong chicken that gets to walk around is very different from a sweatshop chicken.
On the other hand, times are tough nowadays. I lost my job a while back and recently found a new job. But I am not in a mood to spend more money! So, this time, I went with a sweatshop chicken! It was a little softer and flabbier than a chicken from say Prather Ranch Farms or Marin Sun Farms. If you have the extra disposable income to spare, I'd say get a good, free range chicken. Prather Ranch and Marin Sun Farms are good people raising good animals. They are just expensive. But, on the other hand, raising chickens properly IS expensive,so Prather Ranch and Marin Sun Farms do reflect the cost associated with raising sustainable, healthy animals.
For me, I made the decision to buy the more expensive chicken, but purchase it less often. I think we just got used to sweatshop chickens.
Ingredients
1 raw roaster chicken, around 3-4 lbs
1 stalk of fennel, with bulb and frauns
2 carrots
1 or 2 yellow onions
garlic
Lavender salt
Olive oil
1 lemon
Fresh herbs (rosemary, thyme, oregano)
Equipment
Large bowl
Ziplock bag
Small bowl
Saran Wrap
Roasting pan
1 chopstick
Meat thermometer (optional)
Bread knife for carving
Paper towels
Disinfectant
Procedure
Precooking Prep
Eat your chicken soon after you buy it! The chicken can last a day or two in the refrigerator, but it is best to eat it right after buying it. The longer have the chicken in the refrigerator, the flavor will go away and it won't taste as good. Obviously, if you wait too long, the meat will go bad, rot and have a bad smell. If you open the package and the chicken meat smells bad, throw the bird away. You don't want to risk getting sick!
If you are going to keep the chicken in the refrigerator, try to put it on the lowest shelf level. This way, if the chicken does leak, the raw chicken juice will only fall on your refrigerator shelf, not on any of your other foods. I also try to keep it in a bowl, so if any of the juices do escape somehow, they will be self contained.
You are dealing with raw chicken, so you have a higher risk of salmonella. Anything the chicken comes in contact with needs to be washed in hot water and disinfectant (your hands, sink, forks, etc).
Have a bottle of disinfectant readily available and a large supply of paper towels.
Take a ziplock bag out and write "chicken guts" on it. Write the date on the bag.
You will want the kitchen sink completely empty. Clear out any dishes or other objects from the kitchen sink. If you have 2 mini-sinks in one sink, all the better.
Take the chicken out of the refrigerator and let it sit for 1 hour at room temperature in the bowl. This will bring the meat up to temperature and allow for a more even cooking. In the meantime, prep your vegetables.
Vegetable Prep
I dont like to use a metal rack or aluminum foil. Partly because it is wasteful (you need to wash the metal rack and throw away the aluminum foil), but also because as the bird cooks, all the juices and fat will melt off into the pan. Afterwards, you can use that fat to make wonderful things (like scrabbled eggs in the morning).
Take 3 or 4 of the larger carrots in your bunch and split them in half, laying the cut, flat half down on the pan. Space them about an inch or so apart, it should take about 4 halves to cover the chicken. This will serve as your rack for the chicken. Take the leaks and cut them the same way. place the leaks in between the carrots.
Take a lemon and boil it in a pot of water for a few minutes. Take it out and pierce it with a knife several times. Stuff it into the cavity of the bird. The lemon will start to steam when in the oven and help cook the bird from the inside, while releasing its juices! Brilliant! (I got this tip from Jamie Oliver's show!)
For vegetables, I use carrots, onions, garlic, leaks and fennel. I love fennel. Its delicious and lends a lovely subtle licorice taste to this dish. If you don't have fennel, you can use celery in a pinch.
Chop the carrots and fennel up roughly. You can even use the fawns of the fennel if you like. Cut the onions into quarters. You can leave the garlic whole, and even with its skin on! This will become your stuffing for the chicken.
About 30 minutes into warming up the chicken to room temperature, I preheat the oven and let it warm up nice and proper to 400 F.
Pour lavender salt into a separate bowl (you will be rubbing it on the chicken and your fingers will get infected, so you don't want to be putting your infected fingers into all of your lavender salt, just a little bit)
Chicken Prep
Unwrap the chicken and carefully throw away the paper or plastic covering. Take all the giblets out of the cavity of the bird and place them in the ziplock bag marked "chicken guts" (you can use them for making chicken stock later).
Choose a specific sink for raw chicken. Gently wash the chicken with running water, inside and out. I repeat gently, because if you put the faucet on high, the water is going to hit the raw chicken and the infected water will splatter all over the place--you don't want that. Once you have touched the chicken with your hands, use your arm or elbow to turn the water on and off.
Gently pat the chicken dry with the paper towels and place on your oven tray with the carrots.
Take a single chopstick and pull away the skin on the breast meat. This allows the skin to "breathe" during the cooking process and gives it a very crispy taste.
Rub the chicken down with lavender salt and freshly ground pepper. Make sure to put the salt mixture both under the skin you just peeled away, as well as over it. If you have thyme, rosemary or any fresh herbs, you can stuff them under the skin.
Take olive oil and cover the bird generously in olive oil. Really get in there and massage it into the bird, making sure to get the wings and under the skin. Stuff the bird with the cut carrots and onions.
If you have a meat thermometer, stick it into the meatiest part of the bird, in the back.
By this time, your oven should be nice and hot. Place the bird inside the oven, on the lower rack. this will insure than it doesn't overcook.
Chicken Roasting
Roast at 400 F for 1 hour. A 3.5 or 4 lbs bird takes about 1 hour to cook.
I usually will chuck one or two cubes of chicken stock into pan at some point during the cooking process.
Knowing when your bird is finally cooked is a real art. The first indicator for me is smell---your kitchen should fill with a delicious aroma that will fill your whole house! The second indicator is visual-the legs and theighs should no longer look pink. They should have a delicious golden color. The skin on the drumstick should seperate from the meat. Third, take a fork and prick the chicken in different parts. If clear juices ooze out, then it is done. If the juices are pink and or red, then it it not yet done. The thighs are the thickest part of the bird, so they will be done last. Cut into the bird near the joint between the drumstick and the thigh and check to see if it is cooked.
The internal temperature of the bird needs to get to 160 F.
Clean up the kitchen while the bird is cooking. Make sure to use disinfectant and paper towels (don't use a kitchen sponge).
After it is done cooking, let it rest outside of the oven for a good 10 minutes. This does two things: it lets the juices inside the bird really sink into the meat, leaving it more juicy and tender. It will also cool the bird off a few degrees, making it easier to bite into.
After you finished eating, comes the really fun part! Take out the carrot rack and all the vegetables and serve them with the chicken.
After you removed the bird, the carrot rack and all the vegetables, the pan should have some fat and remnants of chicken and vegetables still in in that were stuck to the pan. I either turn that into a gravy, or I save it and use the fat to cook scrambled eggs in the morning. The vegetables work wonders in eggs!
Its important to use as much of the chicken as you can. If you get your chicken with the feet off, chop them off and use them for stock! When preparing the chicken, save the guts in a ziplock bag in the freezer. No need to waste those precious morsels! After I have cooked the chicken I carve it up and get all the meat off of it I can. You can reheat that meat and make another dinner, or have it cold as a sandwich. Once I have stripped the carcass of as much meat as I can, I snap off the legs and wings. I then take a knife and cut off as much meat as I can from the legs and wings. I put the legs and wing bones back in a ziplock bag along with the carcass and chuck it into the freezer. After I have about 2 or 3 carcass, I am ready to make chicken stock. I will use the carcass as well as all the guts to make rick dark chicken stock.
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