Chicken lungs? Have never noticed chicken lungs in our birds. I usually just season and bake. Never trim the fat.

eta: gizzards!

"IF" I bake a chicken, I skin the whole thing. Less grease. Then I add vegetables(carrots, potatoes & onion) and uncooked rice w/ chicken broth.

I’m really curious about the lungs!

I've never noticed lungs, wouldn't they be obvious if left inside?

I take my chicken out of the bag, discard the neck and baggie of innards, cut off excess skin or fat at both ends. (I hate the smell of innards boiling, so am not going to do that.) Rinse gently in sink, pat dry with paper towels. Sprinkle with seasoning mix such as Mrs Dash. Arrange in baking dish (usually on a bed of carrots). That's the basic way. Sometimes I cut along the backbone to flatten it.

Yah, have never seen lungs... except in a freshly killed bird when I was a kid.

I take out the parts-bag, cut off the excess fat from the.... bottom, season and roast. I use the removed fat, the parts (except the liver), and lots of veggies to make a little stock for gravy.

Shambo (Apple wants to type shambles, so I told it that “shambles” is the one composing the post. “Shambo “ is the cool woman in the apron), what I used to do when feeling under the weather, is to go to one of those grocery stores with prepared food and dinners. My favorite quick fix when recovering from something like a cold was Hanaford’s (Maine-based grocer in New England) roasted chicken, real mashed (real) potatoes, real chicken gravy (hot deli area). Then I’d fetch a pound of fresh green beans, trim and wash, then boil-steam.

Heat up chicken dinner kit, serve with cooked fresh green beans. Easy.

When I roast whole chicken, I removed the bag of neck, liver, giz, heart. Preheat oven with convection assist fan. Have salt, pepper, poultry seasoning in separate bowls. Toss some salt into bird cavity. Tie up or fold, pin secure wings and legs. Leave fatty “nose” flap to prevent interior from drying. Pat dry w kitchen toweling. Apply salt, pepper and poultry seasoning to exterior skin.

Put a tethered digital probe thermometer into thick section of chix body. Roast at (? 350 deg F. , uncovered for ??? until probe thermometer indicates done. Then I remove from oven, check a few other areas for temp. I can’t recall doneness temp, perhaps 160 to 165 deg F. Let cooked chicken rest, tented.

Once I’ve put the chicken in oven, I clean near sterilize my kitchen counters - sink. A teakettle of boiling water helps. Then soap, water, bleach, hot water rinse. Toss fat out.

ETA — deemed done when well placed thermometer reaches 160 - 165 deg. F.

Because of how bacterially contaminated chickens are these days, most experts recommend NOT rinsing them (because of the splatter). I also handle the raw chicken with gloves and clean the counter with a vinegar spray when done.

When I buy a whole chicken, I have the butcher cut it into pieces (better his mess than mine, it's usually a 90 second deal for them). If not, I take out and chuck anything inside. Either way, I salt the outside and put it into a hot oven (425) with the convection blower going. After about 10 minutes, I turn it down to 400 and turn off convection. The higher temp and the fan to start do the equivalent of blotting dry but it's easier. The surface moisture evaporates and then it will brown.

I check the temperature of a leg and the breast 40 minutes later and keep it in until 160 degrees is reached. Sometimes that's another 10 minutes. How long it takes depends upon how cold the raw chicken was. I don't bring it out early to reach room temperature, also not recommended to do.

The more simply roasted, the better. Chicken has a lot of flavor, better to not tamper with it. One easy thing to do is to put a lemon wedge or two inside the carcass.

Chicken meat cooked with bone in and skin on is more flavorful than boneless, skinless. Which, to me, is tasteless. I understand those who want to reduce calories by taking off the skin but better to do that after it's cooked.

I usually buy kosher chickens, not for religious reasons, but for the taste. There is no bag of gizzards, etc. with those, so I just pat the bird dry, then rub it all over with half a lemon. I then put the lemon in the cavity along with a piece of onion, and if I have any fresh tarragon I put that in as well. If not, I'll sprinkle dried tarragon on the skin, then roast at 350.

When I roast a chicken, I usually do it on a spanek type roaster. The vertical frame, I have one with accompanying pan made by graniteware.

I tidy up the chicken wearing disposable gloves, shed the gloves and any paper toweling I may have used into a zip lock bag saved for just that kind of purpose when done.

I push a half lemon into the cavity to hold some partially crushed garlic cloves in place so they don't fall out of the upright chicken, and roast 15 min at 475 preheated oven then about 16 min per pound at 350. Let stand a few minutes after removing from the oven for juices to settle. Crispy outside, moist inside every time.

I wonder if anything makes the kitchen smell more appealing than a chicken roasting ;0)

Ina Garten has a couple recipes you might check...Perfect Roast Chicken and Lemon Chicken With Croutons. I like both. Can't remember if she instructs to rinse the chicken. I don't but do wipe off with paper towels.

Take out the innards, pat with paper towels and roast without covering. I remove the extra fat and skin after cooking. No sense in removing things like bones, skin and fat that add flavor to the chicken. If I wanted that I would buy boneless frozen chicken breasts. I have gotten into the habit of using gloves when prepping any raw meat, not just poultry.

I don't like the wet chickens sealed in plastic, and try to avoid them. I'm very choosy about which one I'll take from the butcher's case. Sometimes, like around the Winter holidays, they snatch away the giblets to sell separately, but even if the ones in plastic say they have giblets, they don't either at that time!

I have a couple of raw meat only cutting boards, small and large, and use one of those. Since I usually roast the chicken butterflied (not technically spatchcocked because I don't remove the sternum), I sometimes let the butcher cut the spine out for me. Otherwise, the first thing I do is cut it out with heavy poultry shears. The giblets and spines go in bags in the freezer for making stock. If there are bits of liver or whatever clinging inside the chicken, I clean that out lest it be bitter. I do a cursory check for pinfeathers and other flaws, and take care of them, then put the open side down and give it a shove to make it flatter. This doesn't usually break any bones.

Now and then, I really feel like a bird needs washing. If so I do make sure the sink is empty, including the rack, and the area around is clear. I have a large, deep sink so I'm not worried about splatter. The chicken then goes in a bowl to contain the drips.

On hand, there are usually two kinds of gloves. The big, thin, "baggie" style, sandwich gloves that can slide on and off for clean hands/dirty gloves, and food service latex gloves for getting one's hands in the ick and working for awhile with dirty gloves. For basic chicken, I often just go bare and wash my hands before and after.

Standard roast is a "rack" of onion slices and baby carrots in a hotel pan or baking dish, and whatever else I feel like throwing in, with the chicken on top. A dressing or sauce that has some oil and some sugar as "suntan lotion", some herbs and a mixed seasoning for added flavor. Into the combi-steam at 360° F, 60% steam for an hour and a half (chicken 3.75-4.25 lbs.). If not a steam oven, about half a cup of liquid (stock, beer, wine, juice, water) in the bottom, the rest the same.

My please don't make me cook version used to be ordering it from Instacart the way I want it from the butcher, spine out, but since Amazon took over and ruined Instacart, I don't trust them to get anything right that isn't packaged goods. Even when I've tried to get a store cooked chicken from them, it's wrong, though if I'm not feeling well and in the store myself, I'll pick up a cooked chicken if there's none in the freezer. Restaurant delivery has improved enough that if I really want a cooked chicken, I'll get it sent from the grill place.f Very like home cooked, and tasty enough to cut through the everything tastes bad when you're sick thing.

Sue, as you can tell from the responses, most of us don't get lungs included with our chickens, and most of use don't trim as much as you do. The chickens I buy aren't as fatty as many, and butterflying opens the skin enough to let the fat render out.. I can't say if you'd find the fat a problem if you left it. You could make a couple of strategic cuts in the skin to let the fat run out, but it will also let water run out, so you might want to do something, like steaming, to compensate.

General advice? If you're feeling too poorly to prep your chicken your usual way, even if it magically appears at your house (Instacart), you're probably not feeling well enough to do it a different way, either, and getting in some cooked food, or getting someone else to cook your chicken, or waiting for a time when you feel well enough, all seem like better choices.

Feel better soon!

Vertical roasters look interesting, I'll think about getting one.

A few of us live in the same area. I get Mary's Air Cooled chicken from Whole Foods, the flavor is incomparable. Such stores and similar up-market ones are happy to cut a whole chicken into parts.

I actually do not remember the last time i cooked a whole chicken. It is just the 2 of us and i really do not want to deal with any innards. Add that to the fact that neither of us really like dark meat, and its kind of a waste of effort. I will usually do a cornish game hen. I butterfly it, marinate it for a few hours, and cook it in my air fryer for us to split. The skin is always crispy and the meat juicy when i cook it in the air fryer. I serve it with air fryer roasted potatoes and cabbage for him, roasted parmesan broccoli for me,

I’ve never seen whole lungs either. I thought someone from the Cooking Forum many years ago identified the reddish gunk that was still attached to the rib cage as lungs. Perhaps it’s something else. But, whatever it is, it creeps me out, and I spend time scraping it out.

I forgot to add that I chop off the tail and add it to the cooking innards. However, I toss the liver. My cats won’t eat it and neither will my husband.

I love the Franken-chicken idea. And, Plllog, You’re right about not even bothering with a whole chicken when I’m feeling unwell. Funny thing is I have much better luck with Instacart than with DoorDash.

I do rinse my chicken, even though they say not to. I do scrub my sink and anything it touches with hot soapy water afterwards. Take out the bag of innards and boil for dogs to eat, chopped up with liquid over their dry dog food. My chicken I only use salt, pepper and sometimes thyme. Sometimes will put a whole onion inside too or just bake it with a lot of root vegetables and celery.

I prep my chicken in the very clean sink, with the roasting pan right next to the sink. It's really easy to clean up that way.

Shambo, I'm with you about the "gunk" that is always smashed down into the ribs. Ugh, no. However just coming off sick-time I can attest that trying to deal with a whole chicken when you aren't up to your usual standards is not easy. Much better to do the Frankenchicken (I love that idea!) You'd still have great chicken to eat with less stress.

I admit to washing a chicken first and then doing a thorough clean up afterwards. I am not cooking or eating a chicken with innards or gunk inside.

I spatchcock the whole chicken and lay it flat in a large pan. I coat the top lightly with olive oil and season with black pepper, onion powder, garlic powder and paprika. Then a shake of parsley for fancy. The skin is crispy and flavorful and DH loves it. The meat remains very moist.

Why do cooks wear gloves when working with raw chicken? Doesn't washing your hands after handling have the same effect?

The Frandenchicken is an interesting idea. I rarely eat the breast and ususally throw it away when I buy already roasted. I've roasted the whole legs before but not tied together.

I think a whole chicken roasted is about the easiest meal there is.....actually several meals.
I rinse it, bare handed, pull out the giblets, and check for bits of lungs ( I once had a chicken that still had the heart in and attached to the sternum!!)
I plop it into a roasting pan, salt the inside and stuff a chunk of onion and a quartered lemon inside, nestle the liver next to the chicken for a tidbit for the cook when it's done!
If there is a big glob of fat at either end I will cut that off....but always leave the tail, and simmer the heart and gizzard with some onion and celery for broth for gravy....or toss it into the freezer for stock later.

Quite often I will put it on the grill, start breast side up and turn often I may baste it with something like butter or garlic olive oil.....but it's delicious without....
As I said....easy!

Linda, I agree with you about easy...if one feels well. Contemplating a raw chicken when one is woozy is another story...

After discovering Mindy Fox's A Bird in the Oven, and Then Some recently, I've made several roast chickens--all roasted in a cast-iron skillet and all with some seasonings applied under the skin. The latest recipe I made called for minced green olives, fennel seed, thyme, garlic, and lemon zest. (I liked it, but not as well as a couple of other of her recipes. Love the olives, not so wild about the fennel.)

I had a lot of fun with these chickens, but it soon became obvious that I was consuming too much saturated fat. I'm fond of dark meat, but shouldn't eat it, at least not roasted. So with the last chicken I enjoyed the white meat and then made soup with the rest, removing the fat after refrigeration. The skin adds saturated fat too, even though I don't eat it, so I'll think about finding another way to enjoy Mindy Fox's intriguing recipes.

Skipped down to reply, will go back and read after.

I keep the raw chicken in a plastic bag, and open the wrappings inside that bag, in a dishpan inside my sink. I scour both with a bleach cleanser daily.

I place & cut the chicken in the oiled roasting pan, along one side of the backbone and flatten it, then season and roast it @ 400F for about 55 minutes, skin side up. I like giblets, and cook the livers separately, since they only take about 20 minutes in the oven, but place the giblets under the bird and let them cook with it.

While I'm prepping, I just wash my hands with soap and water after touching the meat/juices/wrappings, and before touching anything else like salt shakers, handles, etc. Wet wrappings go into another plastic bag, tied, and then put outside in the trash can

I love crispy skin, and that's why I prefer splitting and flattening the bird - it cooks more evenly and there's no soggy skin underneath.

I buy organic birds, mostly.

Alisande, the fat is why we prefer the chicken on the grill. It is good on either charcoal or gas using indirect heat. Most of the fat from the chicken and the chicken skin drips off, leaving just enough to keep it moist.

I almost always split down the front (br***t) side and flatten slightly. The skin keeps the meat from drying out. If you cook in the oven be sure to use a rack to keep the chicken above the bottom of the pan, you may have to add water to keep from burning, and it should work the same. Just pans to clean, which you don't have on a grill, lol. ( Which explains why I grill almost all the time!)

Alisande, I found the recipe book on Amazon, I think I will order it.

The skinny on fat

People often shun chicken thighs simply because they're misinformed about fat content. Thighs contain two different types: the fat in the meat and the fat in the skin.

The fat in the meat helps keep chicken thighs moist and juicy. It also happens to be the “good” kind of fat – the monounsaturated fat that the American Heart Association states should be part of a healthy diet. Monounsaturated fats can:

• Reduce “bad” LDL cholesterol levels* Control blood pressure
• Lower the risk of heart disease and stroke* Bolster vitamin E levels

The fat in the skin is the “bad” kind of fat – the saturated fat that may taste delightful to your palate but is completely unhealthy. If you cook a batch of chicken thighs with the skin intact, count on doubling the calories – and doubling the risk of ingesting unhealthy fat.

Quote link, HERE

I make a boneless skinless chicken thigh dish that is a favorite in our rotation. I make it for my parents freezer meals. Thighs also have lots of collagen for a nice broth.

I prefer dark meat for stewing, soups and other moist heat cooking preparations. White meat just gets mealier & stringier the longer it cooks - even in soup.

I believe dark meat is higher in nutrients than white meat - just like colorful fruits and veggies vs. pale or white ones.

When I use white meat in soups, I cook the soup, with chicken broth or stock, then add the meat at the end. This is the same way I use shrimp in all shrimp dishes, except fried.

I love a roasted chicken mainly for all that delicious skin but I'm another who had to give it up as I was eating way too much of it.

Boneless skinless breasts now but I've find some low fat recipes that are still delicious.

I like the vertical method myself...it's gets nice and crispy all the way around. Fat drips into the pan. I just do very simple/basic seasonings and let it roll.

Tigereye, I hope you like the book! I like it so much I ordered her salad cookbook too. (Haven't looked at it yet.)

I wear gloves when prepping chicken because I want to be sure I don’t have any strange gunk hiding in my nails. I still wash my hands after removing the gloves. If I use my bare hands, I wash a couple of times using a nail brush and then sanitize the brush and the soap dispensers along with the sink I washed up in.

One of my friends showed me a way to get a deliciously moist roast chicken. Prepare it for roasting however you prefer, then stuff the cavity with as much parsley as you can get into it. I use curly parsley, not Italian. It makes the bird so moist from the inside and doesn't inhibit a crispy skin.

First, insert seasonings under the skin, the entire chicken. Refrigerate overnight.

Then rotisserie at low heat. Finally at very very high heat to make crackling crispy skin.

dcarch

Whole chickens I buy:

I don't wash it, and I don't wear gloves. But I am continually washing my hands before touching anything else.

I remove the bag with gizzards etc. I remove the heart (one of my favorite pieces), the gizzard and the neck, and stuff the gizzard and heart into the cavity un-bagged, along with a half an onion. I remove any excess fat, but I leave the skin ON - crispy skin is so good. I season with whatever I decide to season with (it varies). The neck gets saved for stock, but I'm not fond of liver. I have cooked that for the cats.

The chicken gets laid belly down on a roasting rack over a pan, and roasted at 350 F for as long as its size indicates. This gets the white meat more juicy than it would be normally. (In fact, I usually can't eat all the white meat - often the denser parts go to the cats...)

If the lungs are still in there and attached, they're easily removed when dining.

###

For one of my OWN chickens, that I dispatch in the back yard - I defeather, de-gut and then bring it inside, where I DO wash it. I save the usual organs (I actually am saving their livers up for a future pate), and the feet will go to stock as they accumulate. I've been saving the heads for a friend of a friend who hails from some region in Russia where I gather they are a delicacy. Gizzards and hearts get gathered together for a future meal, but as for that bird itself: As noted, I do wash it, and then I prep it the same way if I decide to keep it whole. Only difference is that I lower the oven temperature to 325 F and I don't stuff it with anything, except maybe some spices or lemon juice. Yes, it stays in the oven longer.

I was looking for the first Survivor thread and found this chicken thread instead.

There was a time when I rinsed the chicken, but stopped when my daughter lectured on the error of my ways. There was also a time when I removed excess pads of fat, but somehow I got tired of that.

I only buy chickens who I believe have had a good life. Organic, free-range. I don't have any qualms about eating meat but I want to feel that the animal was treated well during its life.

Before I handle the chicken, I scoop some tandoori paste onto a saucer. A nice pile of it. I prepare the stuffing if I plan to stuff the bird, and for that I just use a pack mix of seasoned breadcrumbs.

Now for the chicken. I remove him from the plastic and place him into a nice big glass baking dish. I usually do two chickens, but recently settled for one with all the panic buying. The supermarket seems to have adjusted now to the madness. Mostly.

If I stuff the bird, I do that first.

Then I slide my hand up under the skin of the bird, over the breast. I felt awful the first time I did this, and for many times afterwards. It seemed like torture for the bird even though it was dead. I'm over it now and can do without a care.

I place lots of tandoori paste between the skin and the flesh.

He then goes into the oven, usually sitting on his back, but if I have two chickens, I often put them in the 'recovery position'. Friends of ours put us onto this. Somehow it makes them very juicy.

I've been craving a roast chicken all day, but I didn't put any whole chickens in the freezer. I'm sorry you resurrected this thread, tete_a_tete. LOL

artemis:

how do you de-gut a chicken? sounds worse than chicken lungs ... *grin*

nice to see this thread again, it's like an old friend many of us haven't seen for awhile

*written during the covid-19 isolation*

In my next life I want a range with a convection oven, LOL. Since I didn't buy one in this life (yet), I usually brine the bird for a day, then let it dry for an hour. Dust lightly with flour, spray with oil, and roast it.

I tried the standard brine recipe when the brining method first became popular and absolutely loathed it. Way too salty for us. I use salt, but never THAT much, LOL.

I cut the amount of salt to less than half. I also do a mix of brown and white sugar. Fresh-ground pepper, chopped garlic, and some Herbs de Provence sprinkled in. I try to remember to make up the brine ahead of time and chill it thoroughly before setting the chicken in to marinate, but I often forget until a few hours before (smacks forehead with palm).

I take it directly from the bag to the bowl with a lid I cook it in. No touchie but do sprinkle with salt and pepper and lemon pepper.

Again, no touchie ... turn it over half way thru with a big two tined fork.

Same if it goes in crock pot. Bag to pot. Salt and liberal pepper. Our meat dep't does not stuff it with giblets, which we only get in a turkey.

I prefer the crock pot.

A lot of chickens I buy from the grocery store are not well prepped. They tend to have feathers - and not just pin feathers, but big ones too still stuck in them. Y'all don't ever run into that? Or do you just cook your bird feathers and all? I can't stand it. I have to pull all the feathers out and those nasty big hunks of fat too and then rinse all the bits and pieces of innards off. Only then does the chicken go into a baking dish. I do this on one side of the sink and on the other side I have a pump bottle of hand soap situated actually in the sink so I can pump with my forearm and not my hand. Then after my hands are clean I wash the soap bottle. And then bleach the chicken side of the sink along with faucet handles. We've never gotten sick from residual germs. I don't do whole chickens very often any more though. We just don't eat that much. A couple of leg/thigh quarters feeds us dinner with enough left over for a chicken sandwich for DH for lunch.

How I wish I could find a whole chicken!