Cooking help please whole chicken?!
Cooking help please whole chicken?
ok. i have a 5lb chicken and want to bake it tonight, the problem is i dont know at what temp and for how long. also i dont know what to put on it that wont dry it out. any help would be great. thanks in advance!
Answers:
general rule of thumb, pre heat oven to 325. Wash inside chicken thoroughly under cold running water. Ensure you remove bag that contains innards, ie neck heart, liver, etc. Or remove them anyway whether in a small plastic bag or not.
These can be placed in a small pan and boiled to make a lovely chicken flavoured gravy. To keep chicken moist during cooking time. place small knobs of butter with/without garlic pieces chopped up, under the skin, being careful not to pierce the flesh. Or place 3 or 4 rashers of streaky bacon over the top of the chicken instead.
Some prefer to use some kind of stuffing inside the chicken too. It's all a matter of taste. I never do as raw juices run through this as it cooks, and to me isn't very healthy to serve it when the chicken is cooked. I much prefer to make a stuffing seperately.We all have different tastes.
An orange cut in half, juice squeezed over the chicken is nice and remainder placed inside the chicken give it a nice tangy aroma.
Chicken should be in it's roasting tin during preparation, pour a little water in the bottom of the roasting tin, place enough foil over the chicken and top of roasting tin, shiny side up, to cover the whole and fold over edges of roasting tin. Place in pre heated oven for 20 minutes to the pound. 20 minutes before cooking time is up, remove foil and place the whole lot back in the oven to brown the skin. If streaky bacon over the back of the chicken it will crisp and make a nice addition to your served roast chicken.
Don't prod and poke the chicken during cooking. Other wise you will loose all the nice juices you worked hard to keep in there. You can be certain a chicken is cooked when you cannot see any pink colour in the juice, or showing pink/red in the open end of the chicken.
Leave it to rest for at least 15/20 minutes, before carving. Bon Appetit!