Roasted chicken with savoury stuffing
Bonus: buying a whole chicken is super inexpensive for anyone cooking on a budget. I found this whole chicken (natural, cage free, no antibiotics..blah blah blah) on sale for 98 cents a pound so the whole chicken was less than 5 bucks. An amazing value when you think about the fact that this will give you at least 2 meals and a batch of broth.
This meal was like eating a mini Thanksgiving dinner for 2 and was so easy to put together. I stuffed this chicken with a homemade savoury stuffing and served it with mashed potatoes, fresh green peas and gravy made from the liquid in the pan after cooking the chicken.
I know that going to the grocery store and buying a pre-made rotisserie chicken is super simple and a great way to throw together many easy recipes, but after preparing my chicken using a new trick, I will never buy a pre-made chicken again.
So- the new trick that I used before preparing this roasted chicken was BRINING. You. Need. To. Try. It.
I have heard a lot about brining on cooking shows and have always heard about how moist and flavourful the chicken will turn out but I always thought…"how much of a difference can it really make?" Well- let me tell you, it makes ALL the difference. I have never had a chicken turn out so moist, juicy, flavourful and delicious since I started cooking.
The process of brining itself it super easy. It does take a little thought going into your meal plan because you need to brine your meat for at least 12 hours in order to have the delicious outcome you want, but the actual brining process literally takes less than 3 minutes.
Recipe:
1 whole chicken
1/2 up kosher salt
1/4 cup sugar (optional- see note)
2 cloves garlic- cut in half
1 tbsp black peppercorns (these can be omitted if you do not have them on hand)
2 bay leaves (can also be omitted if you do not have them on hand)
*note- the sugar is optional. I read a lot about brining before actually trying the process. In many recipes I looked at, the recipe called for sugar so that the chicken would not be overly salty. I decided to add the sugar and the chicken turned out perfectly. However- I also saw many recipes that called for only salt which means that you can omit any of the other ingredients that you do not have on hand.
Instructions for brining
1) Rinse chicken in cold water and remove the organs from the cavity
2) Place chicken in a large dish (large enough that you will be able to submerge the chicken in liquid)
3) In a separate bowl, add salt, sugar, garlic, pepper and bay leaves. Add 2 cups of boiling water and stir to dissolve the salt and sugar.
4) Add ice cubes to the mixture (you want this to be cold because you do not want to pour warm or hot water onto the chicken)
5) Pour the water with all the spices, salt and sugar onto the chicken and add enough cold water to completely cover the chicken in your large bowl. It should look like the picture below.
7. Once chicken has been brined, remove all the water, rinse the chicken and let air dry for about 30 minutes to 1 hour (make sure you put it back in the fridge while it is drying)
Instructions for cooking:
1) Preheat oven to 400 degrees
*If you are going to stuff your chicken, you will do this now. See below for my homemade stuffing recipe.
2) Place chicken into a roasting pan
3) Season outside of chicken with your favourite spices/seasoning. I used just salt and pepper and it tasted great but you can use whatever seasoning mix is your favourite.
5) Remove lid, add 1.5 cups water or stock to your roasting pan (do not pour this on the chicken, just into the bottom of the pan) and cook for another 30-35 minutes at 375 degrees until the skin is browned. ***See note below
5) Remove from oven and let rest for 15-20 minutes prior to carving- while you are waiting you can make your gravy (recipe below)
6) Take out the stuffing (if you have stuffed your chicken) prior to cutting the chicken
Note*** This was the cooking time for the chicken that I used which was about 5 lbs. Make sure that you look at the cooking time on the chicken that you purchase because you do not want to undercook your chicken. The larger the chicken that you cook, the longer the cooking time will be.
Savoury stuffing recipe:
3 large buns (this is just what I had on hand- you can use whatever bread or buns you have laying around- day old is better- I used buns that were getting pretty hard on the inside and they worked perfectly)
1/4 cup melted butter
1/3 cup onion, finely chopped
2 Tbsp dried ground Sage
2 Tbsp dried poultry seasoning
salt and pepper to taste
Instructions
1) Rip or cut bread into cubes
2) Mix onions, melted butter and spices to the bread and season with salt and pepper
3) Stuff chicken with bread mixture prior to roasting your chicken.
Note- You will have to pack stuffing very tightly into the chicken so that it will all fit. Don't be afraid to really pack it in.
Gravy recipe:
Juices from the bottom of the roasting pan
2 tbsp melted butter
1 (maybe 1.5 tbsp) flour
1 cup water
splash of white wine (optional)
salt and pepper to taste
Instructions:
1) Put the juices from the roasting pan into a small sauce pan
2) Add 1 cup water to the saucepan
3) Melt butter in a separate bowl and add flour to make a roux. This should be a thick paste which will act as a thickener-start with 1 tbsp flour and add more if needed
4) Bring liquid to a boil and slowly add the roux while it is boiling. Stir for about 1 minute
5) Turn the gravy down to low/med heat and let simmer and continue to thicken. Season with salt and pepper to taste
6) Add a splash of white wine to taste
*Note- if you want your gravy thicker, you can add more roux by melting more butter and mixing flour into butter and adding it to the liquid. Make sure if you are going to do this, you bring your liquid back to a boil before adding the roux and continue to stir for 1 minute before turning down the heat.
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