High-Roast Chicken

Late Sunday afternoon we found ourselves without dinner plans, short on time, and long on chicken. Having a whole bird in the fridge that needed to be eaten trumped any idea for dining out that night, so I decided I wanted a quick, tasty way to cook the bird. I threw it in a one-hour brine and got to reading.

I stumbled across a Cook's Illustrated method for what they call a "high roast", which is essentially roasting a butterflied bird at an absurdly high temperature (good thing I already put it in a brine).

Here's how it goes: butterflied, brined chicken (about 3-3.5 lbs. works well), layed out on a broiler pan in a 500-degree oven. 20 minutes, then rotate, then cook until the meat reaches temperature (about 20 minutes more). What you wind up with is a juicy, evenly cooked, crispy-skin chicken. Pretty nice, easy method, I thought.

Here's the cool part about using the broiler pan: In the bottom of the broiler pan, line it with foil and lay a layer or two of 1/4-inch slices of potato (I used my food processor for even, fast slicing), tossed in a little olive oil, s&p. They'll cook up perfectly. The bottom layer will be crisp and nicely browned. The key is to take the whole foil pack out, blot up the extra grease, and invert it, gently pulling away the foil and scraping off the potatoes that stuck too much.

I've never used the bottom of the broiler pan as a cooking vessel before. I loved the idea and the result.

I garnished the potatoes with some leek rings deep-fried in olive oil (the leeks were getting old and needed to be eaten) and added a side of frozen peas.

The downside of this method is the lack of a sauce or gravy, but it was very juicy and I used Louisiana hot sauce as my table sauce.

Anyway, I think it's a pretty cool, new-to-me roast chicken method. Enjoy!

Best,
Michael

I've been using an adapted version of this recipe for the last few months. Instead of just potatoes, I've been using a melange of potatoes, onions and root veggies. I also have eliminated the removal of the grease step, finding that I like the taste of schmaltz on my veggies. I'ts a big hit at my house. We have high-roast chicken at least once a week or so, although now that grilling season is upon us, I suspect we'll be having it less often until fall.

Agreed,

I hadn't cooked chicken in literally ten years, and broke my fast with CI's high roast chicken a couple weeks ago. It came out great. I don't cook meat very often, so it seems the recipe must be fairly fool proof.

The potatoes were even better than the chicken, but then again, I usually think that's the case

MJ

Funny, I just made this last night after not roasting a chicken all winter.

I used Judy Rodgers' early salting method rather than brining.

It worked well, although I wonder if my chicken lacked a component because I omitted the sugar in the ATK/CI recipe.

Either way, this was a very very tender bird. The lack of sugar let me keep it in the oven a bit longer (not even a hint of the scorching they had on the show).

The mustard-thyme-garlic butter really was delicious and perfumed everything. I was a bit short on the potatoes so mine were extra schmaltzy. No complaints here! I hesitated to mix sweets with russets, although in the end it probably would have been ok.

Bummer part of it all was I forgot to spray the aluminum foil pan liner with nonstick spray. This made extracting the spuds, well, like playing schmaltzy hot potato.

Needless to say, don't skip this step.

Next stop, convection for even crispier skin!

HI,

How was the smokiness factor?

One of the first times I tried a high heat method was from a Martha Stewart column may 10 years ago. Roasted it at 500 degrees for an hour. It was good roast chicken, though the oven needed to go through a clean cycle which isn't usually necessary when cooked at 375 or so.

Regards,

Cathy2 wrote:How was the smokiness factor?

Non-existent.

I spent the better part of the cooking time on the exercise bike, but I have a sensitive nose. I came into the kitchen and smoke was the last thing on my mind.

Of course, this was a very clean oven. YMMV.

Another go at high-roast chicken, and it continues to be one of my ongoing favorite CI techniques. I made a small mistake this time by using smaller, new potatoes under the chicken. The smaller diameter slices cooked through much faster and a number of them charred up a tad too far (not so far that we didn't eat them).

High Roast Chicken with potatoes, pan roasted mushrooms, and sauteed spinach with green garlic



Best,
Michael

I'll go ahead and bump this thread as I made this high roast chicken for the first time last week. Simple, great recipe. I was nervous about the smoke but the potatoes on the bottom of the pan took care of that. No smoke. The chicken was perfect - juicy, tender, flavorful. The potatoes were the best thing about the dish. I didn't blot one side and still thought they may have been on the "greasy" side but they tasted good.

Typically, I don't follow recipes but rather just use them as a guideline but this is one of those occasions where the recipe is pretty much spot on.