Roasted Chicken! We always have access to precooked roasted chicken from fast food store, food courts stalls or even supermarkets. They are all full of flavours and yum, but most of them are pre-cooked due to business needs. However if you can try make it at home you will know it can be 10 times mouth watering, juicy and tender when its fresh out of the oven!
I don’t know since when I realised rosemary is not only great but lamb but also super delicious to go with chicken. I worked out my own recipe on marinating the chicken which is inspired by my friend’s homemade BBQ sauce on chicken wings, and also from the authentic way of Chinese roast duck where they put a good use with honey or maltose syrup to give colour to the poultry skin – and also the very important part to crisp up the skin – air drying the marinated chicken with a sufficient time. Thats how the restaurants do the infamous Pekking Duck. So worth a try. Recipe for Roasted Whole Chicken with Rosemary CLICK HERE
I bought an upright roasting rack from eBay for less than $10 that comes with a dripping tray and it works like magic. If you have an eBay account grab yours from HERE. Simply tuck the chicken onto the removable rack and while roasting the excess jus and fat drips down to the tray so it keeps the chicken tender and skin remains crispy. The leftover jus and fat can be served as a dipping sauce, and this just taste divine!
Preparation is easy. It roughly take you about 15-20 minutes. My trick to the crispiness is to get the sauce between the skin layer and the flesh. There are a few ways to do it. Either using a fork or meat tenderizer (those with pins) to make holes all over the chicken; or carefully run your finger under the skin to separate the skin from the flesh and then get the sauce underneath as much as you can.
You just have to place all ingredients into one bowl and heat them up in the microwave, melt them and mix well. Then simply apply to the chicken all over and let marinate until it colour up a bit before you air dry it.
You can air dry the marinated chicken in a place with good air circulation, for minimum 1 hour, or a faster way is to go under a fan on low power, for at least half an hour. Once the skin is dry from touching its ready to go into the oven. Remember to rotate the chicken every half an hour so in case your oven has a hot spot it won’t burn your chicken. In order to check if your chicken is fully cooked you will need a meat thermometer, and make sure the temperature of the thickest part of meat i.e. chicken breast has reaached at least 75C. The cooking time may vary depends on oven power and also the size of the chicken. With a medium chicken it usually takes an hour to cook.
Rest the chicken for around 5-10 mins until the core temperature dropped down to 60C before serve. You can drain the dripped Jus and fat into a dish and serve the sauce as a dipping sauce. Trust me you will love it! The flesh is so tender and can easily pull apart from the bones and its an absolute enjoyment for dinner. You can serve with some vegetables chips or wedges, baked potatoes, pumpkins or even rice.
Let me know if you have tried this method and feel free to share your experience in the comments section bellow!
Full downloadable recipe for ROAST CHICKEN WITH ROSEMARY
Causal Recipes by Cindy Cecilia Ngo 