Welcome to November! Since Thanksgiving is at the end of the month, we’re going to do some recipes that will help you prepare in case the responsibility falls on you this year to make the big dinner.
First up: roast chicken. This is an easy, scaled-down version of roast turkey, but the main principles all apply. Roasting chickens in the 3 to 5 pound range are easy and cheap to get at any grocery store, and they are excellent practice before you take on a bigger bird.
Roasting a whole chicken seems intimidating, but it’s only as complicated as you make it. You don’t have to stuff it, you don’t have to truss it, you don’t have to do anything particularly fancy to season it. You CAN choose to do any or all of those things, but if you opt not to, you will still end up with some delicious food.
There is only one rule that you must follow: cook it by temperature, not by time. How long it takes a roast chicken to fully cook depends on a variety of factors: the size of the bird, its temperature before you start cooking it, the temperature of the oven, whether it’s stuffed, etc. It is impossible to accurately estimate the time it will take. The only sure-fire way to cook a whole chicken so that it is neither undercooked nor overcooked is to stick a meat thermometer into the thickest part of the breast meat — the part that will take the longest time for the oven heat to reach it — and cook it until the thermometer reads 160 degrees F.
If you are cooking a big 20-pound turkey that will be in the oven for hours, you need to think hard about oven temperature (and basting) because the outer part will get cooked a lot and dry out before the inner part is safely cooked. Not so for a 4-5 pound chicken — it will be in the oven for somewhere around an hour, not enough time to do much damage. You can cook a small chicken at 325 degrees, or at 425 degrees — one will take longer than the other, but it will turn out great either way.
Here is the simplest way to roast a whole chicken. Try this a couple of times, and when you feel comfortable with it, start changing things up. Just remember to always use a thermometer in the thickest part of the meat and cook it to 160 degrees.
Recipe here.
Enjoy,
Kevin
