how to roast a whole chicken?

mrs_metal

My favourite way is to peel and quarter an onion and stick it inside the bird (flavours the meat and helps to keep it tender). Rub some butter on the skin (if your feeling lazy just a few blobs of butter here and there will do) bit of freshly ground pepper, some mixed herbs and celery salt sprinkled across the top (the celery salt is fabulous in bringing out the flavour of the chicken, I just couldn't roast a chicken with anything else on now, not found anything that beats it) then bung it in the oven. Depends on the size as to how long you cook it, I usually cook an average sized bird at 180 C (fan oven) about an hour and 15 mins (again cooking time adjusted for size). When you take it out, pearce the thickest part of the thigh and check if the juices run clear, if they aren't it's not cooked so needs longer. Enjoy

Becky_2

Thanks Pink_fluff for starting this thread. Next week I am planning to cook a whole chicken for the first time and any good tips are greatly received.

Good luck with cooking the chicken.

Becky

Olliebeak

Good luck to all you ladies who are cooking a chicken for the very first time. Once you've mastered it - next step is the Christmas Turkey . Believe me it's not really all THAT much different - just a slightly different temperature and timing.

And this is coming from the person whose teenage cooking attempts were the family joke - mother still tells the story of the burnt boiled eggs and ruined sunday dinner .



I don't want anybody to take this next part of my posting the wrong way - but................. can I please just give a word of warning about being extra careful where food hygiene is concerned with raw chicken/turkey.

Make sure that nothing else comes into contact with anything that the raw bird has been on and scrub your hands very thoroughly after handling the raw meat. That also goes for plates, boards, kitchen tools, knives etc.

Do not put the chicken on your bread board (or work top) before it goes into the roasting tin - I think it's best to use a clean plate if you need to put it on something, and then put the plate straight in the sink and pour boiling water over it.

Cross-contamination is the biggest source of food-poisoning - and chicken/turkey is the worst offender.

Those colour coded chopping boards/mats are ideal as long as you're meticulous about only using the same one all the time for chicken/turkey.

basmic

Mmm, when I was younger my mum would cook the chicken slowly from about 10am on a Sunday morning. The smell of chicken was fragrant through the whole house, and I still swear a chicken cooked slowly tastes much better than one cooked in under 2 hours!

Although I don't know how to slow cook a chicken, I'd love to see what people suggest.

salduck

In the oven just this minute i reckon 1 hour 25 or so?? AM i right??? fan assisted oven!
How long for roast potatoes in same oven!!
lol first time cooking a roadst int he new oven!!
xx

Ember999

I cook my roast potatoes around the chicken - works a treat and when you take the lid or foil off the chicken for the last 30 minutes, the tatties are lovely and crispy as well as the chicken skin *yum*

Pretani

I would use a meat thermometor, you can pick them up in a kitchen store for a tennor.

If your oven is at 170-180 check after an hour and every 10-15mins thereafter. If the breast is seperating easily from the spine, it's ready.

as for potatoes, pre-boil them first and oven cook for at least 30 mins to brown. It's easier to pre-cook them and drop them in the deep fat fryer, than oven cook them.

Ember999

salduck wrote: »

In the oven just this minute i reckon 1 hour 25 or so?? AM i right??? fan assisted oven!
How long for roast potatoes in same oven!!
lol first time cooking a roadst int he new oven!!
xx

There is a food standards agency poultry cooking calculator on this page:

Poultry Cooking Calculator

Put in the weight of your bird and it tells you the exact time to cook any meat or poultry. I use it all the time x

salduck

i am cool with actually cooking it I do it all the time its just the new cooker being fan assisted i am unsure how this affects the timings!! lol Can tell its cooking at least y the gorg smell!!
x

salduck

thanks for the hints and tips! Bit late to go out and get a thermometer now!! the chicken is half cooked and the tatties are in!! lol
Thanks again to all its sorted now!
xx