Roast chicken has never tasted so good with this cooking technique!
Roast chicken, this essential part of a family or Sunday meal, is a meat dish very popular in France, with its least fatty and expensive flesh on the market. But contrary to what you might think, it is not that simple to prepare. Undercooked in some places or too dry in others, roast chicken can also be disastrous. Don’t panic, we’ll give you the secret method to ensure perfect cooking.
To get juicy, evenly cooked roast chicken like your favorite rotisserie, prepare to be active throughout the cooking process. And yes, it’s not that simple, we warned you: waiting for the timer to beep while the oven does the work alone is ancient history! So, roll up your sleeves and read these lines carefully.
Above all, the first thing to do, or rather not to do: do not rinse your raw chicken with water! Contrary to popular belief, running your chicken under water does not destroy the bacteria, on the contrary, it increases the risk of food poisoning by dispersing the bacteria around the sink…
Start by massaging your whole chicken with melted butter or oil, depending on your preference, to help prevent the skin from drying out. You can help yourself with plastic gloves and even a kitchen brush if the idea of using your fingers bothers you. Next, pour half a glass of water or broth into your chicken’s cooking dish. This will create the cooking juices with which you will baste it while it cooks.
Then it’s time to cook in three stages. Bake your chicken at 180°C in forced heat mode. You will turn it and baste it regularly with its cooking juices approximately every 15-20 minutes. We start by baking it for 15 minutes on one thigh, then 15 minutes on the other, then we bake it for 20 to 30 minutes on the back, then another 20 to 30 minutes on the stomach, while thinking about each times to water it with its juice using a tablespoon before closing the oven!
You should expect cooking time of around 1 hour for a 1 kilo roast chicken, and 1 hour 30 minutes for a 1.5 kg roast chicken. And here you are with a delicious roast chicken with fragrant aromas, juicy on the inside and crispy, golden skin on the outside, just like at the local rotisserie.