Slow Roasted Chicken (Helen Rennie vs Alison Roman)

I don't think I'll ever come up with the perfect roast chicken, but it's not the destination, it's the journey that matters to me. Every roast chicken on this channel is the best one so far for me and this one is no exception. It's everything I want from a roast chicken. The strategy here is rather clever, but very easy. Every chef I know roast chickens in a very hot oven of at least 400 degrees. The idea of putting a chicken into a 300 degree oven never occurred to me until I saw Alison Roman's recipe for a slow roast chicken. In her book, Nothing Fancy, Alison roasts a chicken with tomatoes at 325F for a ridiculously long time of 2.5 to 3 hours. The idea seemed crazy to me, so of course I had to try it. Flavor-wise, this recipe was spectacular. Just imagine chicken juices and tomato juices mingling and reducing for hours. It's an umami bomb. But the chicken itself left much to be desired. As Alison promised, it was incredibly soft. It practically fell apart, but after 2.5 hours, it was completely dry. Even the legs were dry. You could certainly make it edible by dunking it into the delicious tomato juices, but that's not the same as a juicy chicken. The reason Alison uses such a long cooking time is browning. If you reduce the time you end up with a chicken that looks like an albino. Without browning, the chicken doesn't smell or taste roasted. If only there was a way to speed up browning. Wait, are you thinking what I am thinking? That's right. Browning glaze to the rescue. With this glaze, I got the chicken to brown twice as fast at an even lower heat of 300F. Unfortunately, browning is not the only problem we need to solve to make a perfect chicken. Keeping the chicken whole presents the usual conundrum. How do we get the legs to 185 and the breasts to 150? Until recently, I solved this problem by cutting up a chicken into the breast and leg roasts, but this time I tried another strategy. I roasted the chicken on a rack above the tomatoes upside down. This slowed down the breasts tremendously and allowed me to get the perfect temperature on the breasts and legs. In the end, I flipped the chicken over and broiled it to brown the breast skin. It might have taken me 25 years, but I can finally make a whole roast chicken that I love without reservations. Would this strategy work at a higher heat? Quite possibly. I'll play around with it, but keeping the oven temperature at 300F reduces user error tremendously. Chicken breast tastes best between 140F and 150F. To make people comfortable with these low temperatures, I like to follow the USD rules of holding at 150F for 4 minutes to proclaim the chicken officially safe. The problem with roasting at high heat is that you'll get a huge spike in temperature during rest, so there is some guesswork involved in figuring out when to pull the chicken out of the oven. It can be as low as 130F, but will depend on the oven temperature, the exact size of the chicken breast, and the roasting procedure. Chickens roasted at high heat need a 15-20 minute rest to finish cooking on the counter. Roasting low and slow solves this problem. You can wait for the chicken to get close to 150F in the oven. Give it a 10 minute rest and serve. This will work whether your chicken is bigger or smaller. It will also give you exceptionally even doneness making every bite of the breast tender and juicy. Alright, let's do it. To trim the fat around the cavity, then wiggle your fingers under the breast skin. In the thicker part of the breast, you'll find chunks of fat. Pull them out. If they won't budge, cut them off with a knife. Keep wiggling your fingers to loosen the skin over the breast starting from the thicker end and starting from the thin end. Why are we doing this? To give the breast meat a proper salting. I am sure you heard that salting in advance makes the meat more tender and juicy. It's called dry brining. But it only works effectively if you do it under the skin. Salt only dissolves in water. It doesn't dissolve in fat. Guess what the skin is mostly made up of? Fat and collagen. There is a little water, but not nearly enough to let all the salt through. I always salt my chicken under the skin, but out of curiosity, I salted one over the skin to see what would happen. It wasn't nearly as tender and juicy as the one salted under the skin. That being said, it was still a good chicken. If salting under the skin seems scary, just salt on top of it. Sprinkle lots of salt on the flesh accessible to you and shove it in. Legs turn out tender and juicy without all the skin separation shenanigans, so give them a generous sprinkle and rub a little salt on the wings, back, and inside the cavity. How much salt was that? For a 4lb chicken, I used 16g, which is 2 Tbsp of diamond crystal kosher or 1 Tbsp of table salt. For all other salt types, check the nutritional info on your box to convert the grams to spoons. Put the chicken on a rack, set it over a plate, and put it in the fridge uncovered overnight. Preheat the oven to 300 degrees with the rack in the lower third. Cut a pound of compared tomatoes in half. Put them into a large skillet and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Add 3 whole unpeeled garlic cloves. If you want, add some dry oregano. Mix well. Set tomatoes cut side down and top with 2 Tbsp of butter cut into thin slices. Grate 1 small garlic clove on a microplane zester. Add 1 tsp of soy sauce, 1 tsp of pomegranate molasses. If you don't have it, you can replace it with ½ tsp of balsamic vinegar and ½ tsp of honey, 1 tsp dijon mustard. Whisk with a fork to combine. Then slowly drizzle in 1 Tbsp of neutral oil, whisking constantly. Add 2 tsp of za'atar or blend or dry oregano. They give the chicken a great aroma, but that's completely optional. Set the rack with the chicken over the pan. Dry the chicken very thoroughly inside and out with paper towels. Pay close attention to the back since it will likely be very damp. Overlap the bones of the drumsticks and tie together. Tuck the wingtips behind the back. Drizzle the breast and drumsticks with roughly 2 tsp of the glaze and rub all over. Flip the chicken over and drizzle the thighs and back with another 2 tsp of the glaze and rub all over. You'll have some glaze left over. It can stay in your fridge for up to a week and can be used on anything you want to brown. Put the chicken in the oven for 75 to 90 minutes or until a thermometer registers 145 in the coolest part of the breast. If it's not too much trouble, rotate the pan after the first 45 minutes of cooking. Here we are after 75 minutes. We aren't quite there. Let's give it another pan. Now we are good. To make sure I got the coolest spot, I'll test it again after the flip. Grab it by the ends of the drumsticks and the neck and flip. I am shooting for the center of the breast area. Really fish around in there to make sure you find the coolest spot. Put the chicken under the broiler for a few minutes. If it's not browning evenly, crumble up a piece of foil and stick it under the breast area to level out the chicken. Let's give it another couple of minutes under the broiler. Excellent. At this point, we are either at 150F or close. If you are worried, stick a thermometer into the coolest part of the breast and monitor the temperature. Since we are resting it for 10 minutes, even 146F would be sufficient. While the chicken is resting, pop the tomatoes back under the broiler for a minute or two to brown them. Just watch them carefully so that they don't burn. Splash them with balsamic vinegar and serve with your gorgeous chicken. About the crispy skin. It's not crispy, but it's well rendered, jammy, and delicious. Crispy skin on roast chicken is a myth. I completely agree with Alison here. Even if it's crispy out of the oven, it will soften out during rest unless you overcook the meat. Sure, there are ways to accomplish crispness with deep frying and other non-practical methods, but I love this chicken just as it is. The legs are super soft and succulent as to be expected, but the real beauty here is the breast. For me, that's the real measure of a roast chicken. Here are more thought provoking culinary videos for you to check out and if you are ever in the Boston area, maybe I'll see you in one of my classes.