Different Roasting Method? With Not A Grain Of Salt.

dcarch7 d c f l a s h 7 @ y a h o o . c o m

12 years ago

Recently there have been a few discussions about roasting chicken and turkey.

High heat, low heat, dry brine, wet brine, salt, marinate, herb under the skin, spatchcock, plaster with butter, inject with secrete flavoring --------.

I decided to roast one without add anything, just chicken, not even pepper, with not even a grain of salt. Just a pure experiment in cooking thermal dynamics.

The chicken was not store pre-soaked. The only thing I did to it was to remove the bag of giblets and some extra fat. I never truss a chicken or turkey. Trussing produces soggy anemic skin and uncooked meat.

The chicken went into the sous vide cooker at 155 F for 5 hours, then into the dehydrator set at 150 F for 5 hours. While I was pre-heating the oven, the chicken was put into the freezer for about 20 minutes.

Once the oven got to be 550 F, I removed the kitchen's smoke alarm, turned on the exhaust fan, and put the chicken into the oven to roast.

Turning the bird a couple of times, it took about 5 minutes and the experiment was finished.

There was no need to rest the chicken with sous vide cooking. Uniformly juicy and tender meat is a given with sous vide cooking.

Like the golden fragile layer on a perfect creme brulee, the skin turned out to be so shatteringly crispy, even handling the chicken gently cracked the skin in a few places.

A simple quick dipping sauce was all needed to enjoy this perfectly pure poultry pleasure.

dcarch

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Comments (6)

John Liu
12 years ago
The dehydrator step is interesting. I imagine that produced the crisp skin. What kind of dehydrator do you have, or is it home made? I didn't know of one large enough for a whole bird.
foodonastump
12 years ago
I can't get my head around sous viding without at least spatchcocking it. Are you not concerned about the cavity being at "unsafe" temperatures for so long? For all the googling I've done on the subject I've never seen anyone else do poultry whole. In fact, recommendations seem to be for cooking the breast for two hours max, longer for the dark meat.

What temp did you dehydrate at? My oven has dehydrate mode between 100 and 160 but I wouldn't be comfortable under say 145.

edit: just noticed you already stated 150, sorry!

Your chicken looks good, and no one can say it's not crispy, LOL! I'm planning to try the method from one of the videos you posted.

This post was edited by foodonastump on Sat, Nov 23, 13 at 12:11
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dcarch7 d c f l a s h 7 @ y a h o o . c o m
Original Author
12 years ago
John, I have a 5-tray Excelsior dehydrator. With the trays removed, it can accommodate a good size roaster. The dehydrator dries the skin and also rendered some fat out from under the skin. It also keeps the chicken in the safe zone.

FOAS, sous vide chicken is safer then thawing chicken in the refrigerator, because circulating water can raise the temperature into the safe zone much quicker. I have sous vided the entire 18 lb frozen turkey with wonderful results.

I set the dehydrator at 150 degrees just to be safe.

Chicken does not need a long cooking time, OTOH, longer sous vide cooking time will not overcook the chicken.

dcarch
bellsmom
12 years ago
Great idea. I think I will try this next time I cook a chicken. Nice to have another use for the dehydrator!

Next time, would you alter the amount of time the chicken spent in the dehydrator?

Thanks.
John Liu
12 years ago
Darn, I have the Nesco/Harvest Maid type of dehydrator with the stacking trays, so can't do this trick.

The traditional process of "Peking duck" has a similar dehydration step, in which the duck is hung in a dry place with a fan blowing on it for a few days. The purpose is also to produce crisp skin.
dcarch7 d c f l a s h 7 @ y a h o o . c o m
Original Author
12 years ago
Thanks Bellsmom. I dehydrate the chicken about 5 hours, but I think three may be good enough.

John, in fact, I studied the making of Peking duck, as well as the original "sous vide" concept of the classic Chinese "White Cut" chicken method of getting very tasty juicy chicken without overcooking.

I basically combined the two concepts to achieve true crispy skin without overcooking the meat and the entire process is done without getting the food in danger temperature zone.

dcarch

Different Roasting Method? With Not A Grain Of Salt.

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John Liu

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Different Roasting Method? With Not A Grain Of Salt.

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John Liu

foodonastump

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