Holiday’s are Roast Days

Here at thisishowweeat, we’re as patriotic as you get. While most people would be celebrating our nations’ 45th year of Independence, some of us were eagerly attempting to celebrate our 45th inch on our waistlines 😛

Over in SL’s kitchen, he’s done a Roast Chicken. Here’s what he has to say…

“…this is your standard-every-day-roast-chicken, except I’ve brined the chicken for 6 hours in a bath of kosher salt, fresh herbs, pepper, cloves & lemons…”

” … having stuffed the chicken with onions, garlic & lime, the bird now rests on a bed of purple & yellow onions, celery, red peppers & portobello mushrooms… ”

“… everyone got to the bird, before I could take a decent photo, oh well, there’s always next time…”

SL’s Brine Recipe – Adapted from various sources on the internet

Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cooking Time: 30 minutes

Ingredients:

• 1 cup of kosher salt (if you use normal table salt, reduce quantity by half)
• 1/2 cup of sugar
• about 4 litres of water
• about 2 litres of cold/iced water
• 1 tablespoon black peppercorns
• 1 lemon/lime
• 4-6 cloves of garlic
• Fresh herbs (I used dill & rosemary)
• Fresh spices (I used cloves & nutmeg)
• 1 cup of cooking wine (sherry)

Preparation:

In a large stew pot, bring 4 litres of water to a light boil on high heat. Add salt, sugar, garlic, pepper, wine, spices and herbs. Stir until all the sugar and salt has dissolved. Quarter and squeeze the lemons into the mix (I threw in the lemons into the pot too). Remove from heat and allow to cool to room temperature.  Here, the brine should start looking like a nice soup and you should be able to smell the herbs. Mmm.

To speed up the cooling process, add the cold water. At this point, the brine should taste slightly salty, if it’s too mild, stir in some extra salt 🙂

Method:

Earlier in the day, I had purchased a 3.5 Kg Farm-fresh chicken from NTUC, and left it to thaw. Prepare the bird in the usual way (remove the gizzards, neck, feet & bishop’s nose) and pat dry the bird with kitchen towels.

Once the water has cooled to room temperature, Place the bird and the brining solution in a large plastic container, that’s big enough to hold everything and keep the bird submerged (I used a plate to weigh the bird down). The bird MUST be totally submerged. else some parts won’t be brined! I kept the bird & solution in the fridge for a minimum of 4 hours and up to 12 hours. I had mine brining for 6, although another 2 hours wouldn’t have hurt.

Remove the bird from the brine and make sure to rinse the bird and remove any excess solution. Pat dry with kitchen towels and allow the bird to rest at room temperature for at least 20-30 minutes before cooking.

SL’s Roast Chicken Recipe

Prep Time: 20 minutes
Cooking Time: 1 hour 20 minutes

Ingredients:

• 1 brined chicken
• 1 medium yellow onion
• 1 medium red onion
• 1 medium red pepper
• 4 carrots
• 6 portobello mushrooms
• 2 sticks of celery
• sea salt
• freshly ground pepper
• 1 lemon
• 1 bulb of garlic
• Olive oil
• Fresh herbs

Preparation:

Preheat your oven to 240C. Chop/slice the vegetables to your desired size. Break the garlic bulb into pieces, leaving the skin on. Quarter the lemon and stuff it into the chicken along with some of the garlic and the fresh herbs of your choice.

In a roasting pan, lay out the vegetables and drizzle with olive oil. Rub some salt, pepper & olive oil over the bird.

Method:

Place the bird breast side up on the bed of vegetables in the roasting tray and put it into the pre-heated oven. turn the heat down immediately to 200C and cook the bird for at least 30 minutes. This will brown the skin on the breasts. After 30 minutes flip the bird over and let it cook for at least another 40-60 minutes.

You should baste the bird every 20-30 minutes. If the vegetables look dry, add a splash of water to the try to stop them from burning. When cooked, take the tray out of the oven, transfer the chicken to a board to rest for 15 minutes. You could take this time to prepare a sauce for the chicken, I did.

Carve and Serve!

The Verdict

The herbs and spices made for a wonderfully fragrant bird and thanks to the brine, the bird was so tender and moist, I could tear the meat off the bone 🙂 Didn’t need to knife the bird at all!

Just goes to show, a little preparation goes a long way!

So that about wraps it up for this post. Stay tuned for more thisishowweeat.

p.s. we were kidding about the 45 inch waistlines, none of us are anywhere near that!

p.p.s apologies on the crappy iphone 3g photos