Saltwater Chicken

This is my son’s favorite version of roast chicken¹. It’s a modification of Julia Child’s recipe (from Mastering the Art of French Cooking), but I have simplified Julia’s recipe, and brining the chicken is — sorry, Julia, I love you, but it must be said — an improvement on the original.

You can do this with a roaster or a fryer. Rinse the chicken inside and out, then put it into a plastic garbage bag. Add four to eight cups of brine, seal the garbage bag, put it into a bowl large enough to catch anything that leaks, and stick the whole thing into the refrigerator. Soak in brine overnight. I have left the chicken soaking for two nights with no ill effects.

Since I soak for such a long time, I use a weak brine: one teaspoon of kosher salt for every cup of water. If you prefer a faster soak with a more complex brine, check out this recipe from The Experimental Kitchen. I haven’t tried it, but it looks like it has potential. Hey, the author pinched it from Thomas Keller, so it’s gotta be yummy.

Now for the recipe . . .

Preheat oven to 425 F.

Coat the bottom of a roasting pan with olive oil. Peel a russet potato, cut it into equal-width disks, and lay the disks flat in the pan. I cut them about 3/4-inch thick. Chop up some yellow onion and add it to the pan. Ideally, the onion pieces should be no taller than the potato. (In other words, you want the chicken to rest on the potato slices.) Add additional vegetables as desired. Root vegetables work well, but my favorite thing to do is add sliced Portabella mushrooms. While the high carb people in your family are devouring the potatoes, you’ll be happy as can be with the mushrooms. Trust me.

I like to flip the vegetables in the oil to coat them thoroughly. Then I lightly salt and pepper the vegies, and dust with paprika. If you like giblets, add them in, too. You wouldn’t believe how tasty gizzards get if you cook them in the pan along with the vegies. Chicken liver tends to get overcooked, but it’s still good. Even the chicken neck tastes great.

Melt 1/2 stick of butter and mix it with 1/4 cup of olive oil. You’ll need a basting brush.

Take the chicken out of the brine and pat it dry, inside and out. Sprinkle it inside and out with kosher salt and freshly ground pepper. Rest the chicken breast side down on the potatoes. Put the roasting pan in the oven, and set your timer for 10 minutes.

Baste liberally with butter and olive oil every ten minutes. After about 30 minutes, the underside of the chicken will be golden brown. Flip the bird². Baste the bird, add more salt and pepper if it looks necessary, and put the chicken back into the oven. Continue to baste every ten minutes or so. You can do this as infrequently as every fifteen minutes, but keep an eye on the bird to avoid overcooking. When you run out of basting fluid, use the oil which has drained into the roasting pan.

When the thighs, legs, and breast are golden brown, the chicken is done. You can test this in two ways: prick the thigh, and make sure the juices run clear yellow, not pink; use an instant read thermometer, and make sure the thigh and breast are at or above 170 F. Julia gives these additional pointers:

Indications that the chicken is almost done are: a sudden rain of splutters in the oven, a swelling of the breast and slight puff of the skin, the drumstick is tender when pressed and can be moved in its socket.

Finesse point: in the later basting stages, I insert a wooden spoon into the cavity and tilt the chicken so as to drain the cavity. Blood will drip onto your vegetables. This is a good thing. The blood will cook rapidly and will flavor your vegies.

Depending on the size of your chicken, it will take approximately an hour to cook — longer if you follow Julia’s recipe, since she reduces her oven temp to 350. This is unnecessary, in my experience. It drags out the cooking process and adds nothing to the final result. Yes, you have to watch things a bit more carefully at 425, but the brining step gives you considerable insurance against dryness.

Why is this recipe so great? The chicken is always moist, white meat and dark, and the vegetables (and gizzards, if you’ve cooked them) are perfect. SAVE THE DRIPPINGS, by the way. This is an incredibly flavorful liquid which you can use to make gravy, chopped chicken liver, you name it. Use your imagination.

Yes, you can vary this however you like — shove a lemon into the cavity, add rosemary to the roasting pan, stick garlic under the chicken’s skin. Whatever. I wouldn’t bother with variations until you have become tired of this simple recipe, which for us has been . . . um, never.

D.

¹ In case you’re wondering, I pre-wrote this so that Wednesday would not be an utter wasteland here at Balls and Walnuts. See how I think about you?

² You don’t know how long I have waited to make that pun.