We cooked one of the birds and it was tender and tasty. I think you may be on to something there!
Well, I cooked one of your six pound chickens last night. I started by cleaning the excess fat from the openings; there was very little. I peeled back as much of the skin as I could get my fingers under and rubbed the meat down with salt and fresh ground pepper. I did the same to the rest of the outside of the bird as well. Then, I gave it a light coat of olive oil from my nifty pump-up oil sprayer.
I baked it at 325F for two hours uncovered, rotating it once at one hour. I let it cook for an additional half hour covered and then let it rest for twenty minutes, also covered.
There was about one and a half cups of drippings left in the pan which I strained and made a simple gravy out of with corn starch.
It was delicious! There was enough meat for four people. The skin was very thin and crispy, a nice treat. Definitely not your average chicken. This one was definetly worthy of Thanksgiving.
I cooked mine on a vertical roaster. You start at a higher temp., and overall a shorter cooking period. It came out very tender and moist, but next time I want to try another vertical-roaster recipe that is a little fancier and has a longer cooking period.
We had great results brining and roasting our "bird of distinction." I used a brine recipe of 1 cup of kosher salt per 5 cups of water. For my pot and bird, this meant 2 cups of salt and 10 cups of water. I made my brine the night before by boiling one half of the water and dissolving the salt in it. I cooled it outside, since it is cold. For brining, the calculation is 2 hours per pound of bird, or about 8 hours for a typical chicken. If you make your brine the night before, you don't have to worry about cooling the brine before you put the bird into it. Hot brine would cook the chicken, a no no. I dropped the chicken into the pot at 7 in the morning.
The purpose of the brine is to add water to the bird. The salt brine helps to rearrange the protein structure of the meat so that water and juices are held in the meat, leading to a moister chicken.
To the brine, I added two large tablespoons of orange juice concentrate, lots of rosemary that had been crushed and one lemon cut into slices. Some of the rosemary and lemon went into the cavity. Through osmosis, some of these flavors pass into the chicken, creating additional flavors. The meat is lightly salty but not salted.
I followed the hot method of roasting---30 minutes at 500, and 30 minutes at 450. Some basting with a mixture of butter and molasses for color and flavor.
The chicken was superb, tender yet firm, very flavorful. We made soup from the carcass and are still enjoying a chicken barley soup, with some winter greens from the garden.
Here's to healthy eating.
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