My favorite dish from Modernist Cuisine at Home is Roast Chicken. Like many people, I grew up eating roast chicken a lot, but having Modernist Cuisine at Home‘s roast chicken is like eating it for the first time. It’s injection-brined and then brushed with soy sauce, which might not be traditional, but these steps act as drying and browning agents for the skin. The result is a chicken that is perfectly moist on the inside and crispy on the outside.
Your work has improved my eating life so much. I don’t even know where to begin.
great recipe, but I had to try it several times before obtaining a good result, though… The first time, despite using a syringe and brine, all the liquid just came off the meat… the second, I put the oven in convection mode at 95 Celsius and the chicken reached the internal temperature of 60 Celsius in just little more than one hour. Indeed the temperature was right, but the meat was still far too raw. With convection at 65/70 Celsius it takes indeed three hours and the meat is perfect. I never tried at 95 degrees no convection…
errata corrige… I tried at 95 degrees no convection, and I tried it several; times and it worked just once, because the hen was some 600gr (a poussin). Even with different weight of the chicken, if you don’t bring it up to at least 75 degrees Celsius in a home oven, this is not edible. And I certainly have not the equipment you have, but my kitchen is way above the average both in terms of performances and price.
I am surprised (and quite pissed off actually) that all my comments did not get a reply from the staff.
Dear Apalmero,
Our sincerest apologies for not addressing your comment regarding the roast chicken.
In regards to the injection- the brine will leak out of the chicken if you inject too quickly. There will be some brine that will be lost normally, but not a significant amount. If the muscle at the injection point swells too quickly before the brine is allowed to disperse throughout the breast or thigh that group of muscle fibers where you inject will burst resulting in a significant loss of liquid.
An internal temperature of 60celsius taken at the thickest part of the breast is a perfectly cooked piece of meat. Now, all our trials at 170F which is just about 75C(167F) results as you said in the 3-4 hour cook, which as you stated With convection at 65/70 Celsius it takes indeed three hours and the meat is perfect. Turning the temperature upwards of 95 celsius the breast do as you said reach the 60 celsius mark, but when you cut into the leg meat- it will be much more rare. The reason is because as you increase the temperature- the rate at which the breast meat and leg meat cook changes significantly due to the bones in the hindquarters that act as an insulator. When you increase the cooking time by lowering the heat, youre able to give the legs and thighs enough time to come up to temperature at the same rate as the thickest part of the breast.
To answer your question about convection vs. conventional- convection is a better method to more evenly distribute the heat for the roast chicken.
Again, we apologize for missing your comment and if you have any follow-up questions please let us know.
Sincerely,
Aaron Verzosa
Research and Development Chef
I made this chicken and it was outstanding. I thought my roast chicken game was pretty good before, but this method is a game changer.
I messed around with it a bit, due in part to A: my oven’s lowest temperature is 200F, and B: also I somehow missed the 3-4 hr cook time and started this whole business at 6PM. I set the digital thermometer to 170 despite the instructions because well, I’m squeamish. at the 3 hour mark I took it out of the oven and actually put it in the fridge until 5PM the next day, when I brushed a little oil on it and browned it front & back.
Even though I was bad girl and did not *quite* stick to the directions, the chicken was perfectly cooked, skin was thin & crispy (let’s face it, chicken skin can be blubbery & creepy) and the meat was amazingly moist & juicy, even after sitting in the fridge overnight.
Modernist Cuisine at home is LIFE CHANGING for me, now I’m thinking about maybe selling a kidney so I can purchase The Art & Science of Cooking series.