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Autumn
An Eleven Dollar Chicken – Classic Roast Chicken Method
This post is by our chef author Tyson Greenwood, who has cooked at such fabulous restaurants as Manresa in Los Gatos, CA and Plumpjack Cafe in San Francisco. Tyson is currently a chef at Boulevard Restaurant on the Embarcadero in San Francisco. It’s a real treat to have him write on TFD, please enjoy!
For some reason it never occurs to me to roast a chicken at home. It certainly isn’t a tricky prospect, I just never think to, and so the other night I did. I was pretty happy with the results, but as ever, it all comes down to the quality of the product. Our eleven dollar chicken was a free range, air dried bird the we picked up at Whole Foods, as was all the veg. I’m really partial to air dried poultry if you are roasting them. Air drying makes it easy to achieve that perfect crispy skin without a convection oven. To accompany the bird we opted for a simple potato salad.
There are a few key ingredients that you’ll need. As you can see in the picture, one is a magnum of Champagne. While we didn’t cook with any of it, upon the recommendations of Julia Child and Fernand Point, we had one on hand anyway. The others you see are tarragon, thyme, chives, shallots, leeks, garlic, carrot, a bottle of Vouvray (to pair with the chicken once the champagne was done), bacon, and my favorite secret ingredient, Kewpie mayonnaise.
So, to start, we made the potato salad using small Yukon Gold potatoes (Yukon “C” potatoes if your market uses the standard grading sizes). I like to cook them with the skins on. The boys at the Fat Duck in Bray, England have done a lot of research on cooking potatoes and have shown that potato skins contain a substantial amount of what we recognize as potato flavor, though they like to peel their potatoes, put the peelings in cheese cloth and cook them with the potatoes to remove any textural contrast. Either way, start the potatoes in lightly salted cold water over medium heat (it’s easier on starch conversion if you use cold water instead of hot). To test the doneness, insert a paring knife into one of the potatoes and lift it from the water. If the potato immediately falls off the knife, you’re done. HOWEVER. I like to cook my potatoes for another two to three minutes. My reasoning is that by overcooking the potatoes just slightly, I will have a little bit of broken down potato starch to thicken whatever dressing I add to the potatoes. And more to the point, that’s how I like my potato salad to taste.
Once cooled, chop your potatoes into bite size pieces. To the potatoes we added some chopped celery, shallot, red onion, and rendered bacon (what the French call Lardons). Please, please don’t throw out the grease left from cooking the bacon (or for that matter any other cooking liquid you may encounter). To dress the potatoes we made a slight variation on a basic vinaigrette. By most cookbook standards a vinaigrette is two to three parts oil, one part vinegar. We opted for one part mild olive oil, one part assertive olive oil, one part rendered bacon fat, and one part champagne vinegar, a tablespoon of mustard, an egg yolk for richness, some chopped tarragon, thyme, and chives. I whisked this all together and then my inclination for all foods Asian, snuck in with a generous helping of Kewpie mayonnaise. Kewpie can be found in most Asian markets in a non-descript transparent bottle with a red cap (see the pictures). It is flat out delicious.
On to the chicken. Essentially any time I roast chicken, I slip some kind of aromatics under the skin, a very classic French approach. We used tarragon, thyme, chive, marjoram, and shallots. Start by mincing the shallot and chopping all of the herbs. Mix the herbs and shallot with a pinch of salt and ground black pepper. Now, very gently lift the skin of the bird at the top of the breast, near the cavity. Using a very slight pressure, slide your hand back and forth between the skin and meat of the bird. The skin will release slightly, but be careful not to tear any holes. Work your way forward until you have reached the wishbone. I try to leave the skin attached at the keel bone (the bone running in between the two breasts) as that helps the skin shrink back around the bird easier. Once you have loosened the skin, generously rub your aromatic mix between the skin and meat.
If you are going to be presenting this bird to a crowd (or are an OCD chef), I recommend trussing the bird. The best description for this is given in The French Laundry Cookbook, and I won’t bother with it here. It just makes for a more even roast, and a fantastic look. I also like to roast the bird on a bed of vegetables (onion, carrot, leek, celery, thyme, marjoram), as well as a glass of the Vouvray that we will be drinking with dinner. All the drippings from the bird and vegetables will be collected for the sauce.
Once on its bed of veg, take a small stick of butter and lightly rub it over the skin (the butter fat will help in the evaporation process and render the skin more crispy, not to mention all those caramelized milk solids). Place the bird in a 425 degree oven. Roasting times will vary, but every six or seven minutes, pull the bird out, and rub it with the stick of butter. Our bird was a little over four pounds and took around thirty five minutes to cook. To check your bird, insert a thermometer into the thickest part of the thigh (the slowest part of the bird to heat up). When the thermometer reads between 140 and 145, pull the bird and let it rest on the counter for fifteen minutes. The residual heat will carry the internal temp up to nearly 160 degrees without drying out the bird.
While the bird is resting, take the all the drippings and the veg that the bird was cooked on, and press them through a strainer. Add a little chicken stock (I don’t recommend store bought stock, but if you do use it, be sure it has no salt added, and cook it until it has reduced by half, in order to concentrate the flavor). Bring this to a simmer and add three to four tablespoons of the best quality whole cream you can find. I personally like Strauss Family Creamery, but unless you are in Nor Cal, it could be hard to come by. Bring to a simmer and add some chopped tarragon, as well as salt and pepper to taste. Turn off the heat.
Now slice up the bird and serve. The thighs should still be somewhat pink. If they aren’t, then the bird is over cooked, and the breast meat will be bone dry. I know it is contrary to the FDA and everything your third grade school nurse taught, but if you source your products as we all should, there is nothing to worry about. Do watch out for pups though. Robbie nearly knocked the table over because his tail was wagging so hard.
Check out some of Tyson’s other posts:
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very good