Brined and Roasted Chicken

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Earlier is year I set my mind to figuring out a create recipe for roasting chicken. I read a lot of recipes and advice and roasted several chickens to develop the following recipe. The keys to my chicken system are starting with a brining the raw chicken overnight and using high heat at the start and end of the roasting period.

Brine

• 1/3 cup brown sugar
• 2/3 cup kosher salt
• 3 quarts cold water
• 1 bay leaf, torn into pieces
• 3 sprigs fresh thyme (or 1t dried thyme)
• 4 garlic cloves, peeledor 1 t dried garlic
• 2 allspice berries, crushed or 1/2 t allspice powder
• 1 teaspoon peppercorns

In a large bowl or pot, mix the sugar and salt into 1 quart of the water until dissolved.

Add the bay leaf, thyme, garlic, allspice and peppercorns and mix well. Fresh herbs are definitely better, but if you don’t have some ingredients the substitutions I suggest work pretty well.

Clean the raw chicken and remove any excess fat. Make sure you remove the giblets from the inside of the chicken cavity.

Add the chicken to the bowl or pot.

Pour the remaining 2 quarts of water over the top. Make sure the chicken is completely submerges. You may need to put a plate or heavy bowl on top of the chicken to keep it under the water.

Cover and refrigerate for at least 4-6 hours. But you can leave it up to 24 hours. I usually do this after the kids are in bed in anticiaption of starting the roast the following afternoon.

Chicken

• 8 -9 lb Whole Roasting Chicken
• 1/4 – 1/2 cup butter
• 2 garlic cloves, halved
• 2 T fresh sage leaves, chopped
• 2 T fresh rosemary, stemmed and chopped
• 2T fresh thyme, stemmed and chopped
• salt and pepper
• 2 carrots, sliced
• 2 celery stalks, sliced
• 1 medium onion, cut in six chunks

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Remove the chicken from the brine pot and let it drain for a while. Dry the chicken completely and put it in a roasting pan.

Melt the butter and stir in garlic, sage, rosemary, thyme. You can add salt and pepper too, but it’s difficult at this stage to know how salty the end result will be from the brining. I usually wait to season the gravy later. Pour most of the butter mixture over the chicken, using your hans or a spoon to make sure all the exposed parts of the bird are covered.

Here’s the messy part: take the chicken out of the roasting pan. Spread the dripped butter all over the pan and put in the vegetables. Pour the remaining butter over the vegetables and mix. Push the vegetables to the edges of the pan and put the chicken back in the pan.

Cook chicken at 400 degrees for 15 minutes, then decrease heat to 350 degrees and cook for 2-2 1/2 hours or until the internal temperature of the bird reaches 165 degrees. You can baste the bird with the butter periodically. In the last 15 minutes, increase the heat to 400 degrees. I find that brined chickens take a little longer to cook.

Helpful chicken roasting times, temperatures and methods: Help with Cooking’s Guide to preparing and roasting a whole chicken.

As a general rule, calculate a cooking time of 20 minutes per pound of meat plus an additional 10 – 20 minutes at a temperature of 350ºF (176ºC). Therefore, a 5 lb chicken will need to be roasting in the oven for at least 1h 50 mins. A 5 lb bird will serve between 4 – 5 people.

Adapted mostly from SFGate’s Bird Meets Grill and a recipe in a cookbook at my mother-in-law’s house.