You Can Be a Winner with This Fancy Roast Chicken Dinner

Whenever people ask about my favorite thing to cook at home, the answer is always the same, roast chicken. So I got very excited when I heard that Lon was developing a new roast chicken recipe. Julia, roast chicken is fantastic, and it's so easy, it's homey, it's comforting. I do feel like people sometimes miss out on the best part of a roast chicken, and that's what we're gonna focus on today. Ooh. I know you're curious. I'm really curious. What have I been missing? Before we get to that, let's put together a seasoning mix. I'm keeping it really simple here, just salt and pepper. I've got two and a half teaspoons of kosher salt and a half teaspoon of ground black pepper. I just want to stir them together so there's no cross-contamination. Now, I've got a four-pound chicken here. Before we start cooking, I want to do a little bit of trimming. There's a lot of fat on this bird that we don't really need, so let's get rid of it. The fat in the cavity, you can just kind of pull out with your hands. Comes right off. It's nice. I also check the neck and make sure there's not a ton of skin. I have a friend who refers to this as the turtleneck. And this looks like a mock turtleneck, so we're gonna leave it alone, but if it's longer, you want to trim some of that off. So that best part of the chicken that I was alluding to earlier, the drippings. Oh, that makes sense. Right? They often get left behind in the pan, but we're not gonna do that today. What I want is for the juices from the bird to not stay trapped under the skin, but for them to hit the hot pan in the oven. There they'll concentrate, reduce, they undergo maillard browning and pick up some beautiful color. It's exactly what we want. Oh, so you're gonna encourage extra drippings. Extra drippings, and the way to do that is to put a couple of little slits in the skin so that the juices get to the pan instead of getting trapped beneath the skin. So this little bit right here, you can almost think of it as like the back of the knee. I'm just gonna put a little half-inch slit right here. Any knife will do. That's it, really simple. Really small. Quick poke, that's all you need. I wanna feel for the thigh, and right up here where the thigh hits the rib cage, I'm gonna put a little poke, and that's it. Nice and simple. Really clever. And I'm just gonna repeat this on the other side. Just gonna tuck the wings. It'll give the bird a little stability and protect them a little bit. And I'm gonna use our seasoning mix. A third of that salt and pepper mixture is gonna go into the cavity. Great. And now I'm gonna brush one tablespoon of melted, unsalted butter onto the top and sides of the bird. You often see oil instead of butter, but I think the milk solids in butter encourage browning, gets you a nice burnished color. So that looks pretty good, nice and simple. Little more seasoning. So you're not really doing it on the backside, just the front and the outside of the legs. Yeah, there's not much beat on the back. I wanna make sure the thighs are seasoned and the breasts and the wings and the drums. Julia, I've got a half a teaspoon of vegetable oil in a 12-inch skillet, and I'm heating it at medium-high. Just want this oil to shimmer. I find that a 12-inch skillet is great for a four-pound bird. Oil's looking a little wavy. We're ready. Just gonna pop this bird right in. That's a hot pan. Sure is, and it's hot for a good reason. What's happening right now is we're jump-starting the cook for the dark meat. It's gonna make sure that the thighs wrap up cooking at the same time as the breasts. So we're gonna pop this into a 400-degree oven on the middle rack. It'll roast until the breasts hit 150 to 155 degrees. Takes about an hour, maybe an hour and 10 minutes, and halfway through, I'm gonna go in and rotate that skillet. Okay, now that's a little lower than the average 160 that we usually roast chicken breasts to. So what's the difference here? So what we've learned over time is that when you roast a chicken or any cut of meat in a hot oven, it tends to carry over a lot more. And at 400 degrees, I can rely on carryover cooking to take that bird all the way up to 160, which is where I wanna serve it at. Sounds good. Are you ready to take your cooking to the next level? Introducing the complete America's Test Kitchen TV show cookbook, featuring every recipe from every episode of America's Test Kitchen. That's thousands of recipes. That texture's unbelievable. Reviews. Gadgets you didn't know you needed. And tips. Yes, there's some terrible choices, but there are also some amazing choices. We've spilled all of our secrets and included our insider notes alongside each recipe. Plus, there's a handy shopping guide so you know exactly what to grab when you're at the store. And of course, it makes an excellent gift. Get your copy today at americastestkitchen.com. Oh-ho! Right? See that skin bubbling away? That is a looker. It sure is. Oh, long. How great does that look? Check out the color on those juices. I've never seen that much juice come out of a single roast chicken before. Now, I'm gonna leave the towel over here since this is hot and we're gonna keep using the skillet to make our side with those juices. But first, let's get this out of here so it doesn't overcook. Yeah. We'll let this bird rest for 15 minutes and in that time, carryover cooking will take it up to 160. All right. So, let's get these drippings into a fat separator. Let the fat rise to the top. So, this has separated nicely. I'm gonna measure out about a quarter cup of our juices. There you go. Okay, great. Spoon out two teaspoons of this lovely schmaltz. Mm, adding the schmaltz back to the pan. That's a good sign. Delicious. So, I'm going to add four cloves of thinly sliced garlic. Gonna set this to medium low. I just wanna gently toast out that garlic. I'm not looking for a ton of color. I just wanna take that heat off. This usually takes maybe three minutes. I'm going to add three quarters of a cup of couscous to this. I like to use couscous or maybe bulgur or quinoa would also work. They're all starches that cook quickly and I wanted to make sure that this was a meal that we could get on the table fast. Just a quick stir. All I'm doing here is making sure that the grains are all coated in fat. This will minimize clumping after we add the liquid. Time for our drippings. Now, these are actually so concentrated that we're gonna dilute them with water. So, that was three quarters of a cup of water. Now, I'm gonna season this with five teaspoons of red wine vinegar and a half a teaspoon of table salt. Just a quick stir. Now, I just want this to come up to a simmer and I wanna make sure that everything is submerged. Anything that isn't submerged is not gonna cook. Last ingredient, I've got three quarters of a cup of jarred roasted red peppers. I've just run a knife through them so they're chopped. Gonna scatter this right over the top. It's a nice quick way to get some color and flavor on top of here. Just gonna shut this off. Would you mind handing me that lid? There you go. Thank you. This couscous is going to take about 10 minutes to cook through. Julia, this chicken has been resting for 15 minutes and it gives me just enough time to carve this while the couscous finishes steaming. Okay. I am just going to take the legs off. For now, I'm just gonna run my knife down this keel bone. Look at this cook. So juicy. My goodness. Couscous has been steaming for 10 minutes and you can see that all of that beautiful liquid has been absorbed. I'm gonna give it a quick toss, fluff it up. This looks great. We'll add two tablespoons of chopped basil just for a little color and some freshness. Oh, lovely. And we're done. Lon, that is a beautiful thing because that is dinner. All out of one skillet. All right, Julia. Oh good, you gave me the wing. Right. Leaving the wing on and just cutting it in half. I mean, it's perfect for a weeknight. Let's eat. A little spoonful of couscous. That couscous is so pretty. Yeah, it's really quick and simple, but it looks great. Looks like you spent more time on it than you did. It does, actually. First off, I love how crisp the skin is. That nice brown skin on top, that's hard to do. I'm going right in. Oh, great. Yeah, so inviting. Mm. Mm-hmm. That is perfectly cooked all the way through. The breast is good and juicy. Mm. So much more flavorful than you'd think considering how little work it is. Yeah, there's a depth of flavor thanks to all those juices that you added. It's nice and savory. You get that hit of acidity. Oh, and I love the fresh hit of basil at the end. Mom, this is a delicious dinner. Thank you. You're welcome. If you wanna make this inventive new recipe for roast chicken, start by making a few slits in the legs. Get the skillet rippin' hot before adding the chicken and use the drippings to make a flavorful couscous. From America's Test Kitchen, Lawn's all new recipe for roast chicken with couscous, roasted red peppers, and basil. You've updated my home chicken recipe. We hope you enjoyed this video as much as we enjoyed making it. Don't forget to hit that like button and subscribe to our channel. And if you're ready to take your cooking to the next level, head over to americastestkitchen.com and get a free all access trial membership. While you're there, you can sign up for our free email newsletters and download our app. With unlimited access to over 14,000 of our Test Kitchen recipes and 8,000 product reviews, you'll have everything you need to cook and learn. So I ask, what are you waiting for? Let's make something great together.