Cook's Illustrated (January 2015)
Let's start the new year on a comforting note.
That's right, good ol' roast chicken, a perennial favorite of ours -- and, we're guessing, many of yours.
We've done our fair share of roast chickens over the years, be they sauced, stuffed, herbed, tandoori-ed, or faux-tisseried. Why so many roast chickens?
Really, roast chicken is not a hard sell for us. It's the meal equivalent of slipping on a pair of sweat pants (or as they're called in our house, "fat pants"), crawling under the covers, and marathoning Gilmore Girls (please tell us you know the full series is available on Netflix, and please tell us you're watching).
And a roast chicken paired with a delicious sauce? We're IN.
That's why we chose this dish of Slow-Roasted Chicken Parts with Shallot-Garlic Pan Sauce from America's Test Kitchen as our first recipe of 2015.
There are a few innovations here that make this dish really incredible:
1. It's not a whole chicken. While we love the ease of stuffing a chicken with some lemons and herbs and throwing the whole thing in the oven, the problem with cooking whole chickens is that its easy for some parts to dry out and overcook while others are still coming up to temperature. By cooking chicken parts instead of a whole bird, you can control for that. Are the legs already at temperature but the breasts still need more time? Take the legs out and let them rest.
2. Brown first. The other great thing about cooking the chicken in parts is that you can brown them in a stovetop pan prior to roasting. That gives you a great golden skin without the need for high oven heat, which is important because...
3. Cook it slooooow. The oven temp on this recipe stays at just 250 degrees. Yes, that means a longer cook time (up to an hour and a half). But it also means incredibly juicy, tender chicken.
4. A surprise ingredient. After you've browned and roasted the chicken, you make a pan sauce using the usual suspects: broth, cornstarch, shallots, garlic and herbs. But the unusual ingredient here is gelatin, which is combined with broth before being added to the pan sauce. The sauce thickens nicely. We can't always say the same for other pan sauces we've improvised on our own, which have either fallen apart or gotten all gloopy faster than you can say gravy.
The result is out-of-this-world good. The chicken is ... perfect. There's no other way to say it. And the sauce. The sauce! It's so silky and rich and comforting.
We'd make this chicken again and again. Which sounds, to us, like an awfully nice way to spend 2015.
Slow-Roasted Chicken Parts with Shallot-Garlic Pan Sauce
Cook's Illustrated (January 2015)
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(This photo: America's Test Kitchen)
INGREDIENTS
5 pounds bone-in chicken pieces (4 split breasts and 4 leg quarters), trimmed
Kosher salt and pepper
1/4 teaspoon vegetable oil
1 tablespoon unflavored gelatin
2 1/4 cups chicken broth
2 tablespoons water
2 teaspoons cornstarch
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into 4 pieces
4 shallots, sliced thin
6 garlic cloves, sliced thin
1 teaspoon ground coriander
1 tablespoon minced fresh parsley
1 1/2 teaspoons lemon juice
SERVES 8
To serve four people, halve the ingredient amounts.
INSTRUCTIONS
1. Adjust 1 oven rack to lowest position and second rack 8 inches from broiler element. Heat oven to 250 degrees. Line baking sheet with aluminum foil and place wire rack on top. Sprinkle chicken pieces with 2 teaspoons salt and season with pepper (do not pat chicken dry).
2. Heat oil in 12-inch skillet over medium-high heat until shimmering. Place leg quarters skin side down in skillet; cook, turning once, until golden brown on both sides, 5 to 7 minutes total. Transfer to prepared sheet, arranging legs along 1 long side of sheet. Pour off fat from skillet. Place breasts skin side down in skillet; cook, turning once, until golden brown on both sides, 4 to 6 minutes total. Transfer to sheet with legs. Discard fat; do not clean skillet. Place sheet on lower rack, orienting so legs are at back of oven. Roast until breasts register 155 degrees and legs register 170 degrees, 1 1/4 hours to 1 hour 35 minutes. Let chicken rest on sheet for 10 minutes.
3. While chicken roasts, sprinkle gelatin over broth in bowl and let sit until gelatin softens, about 5 minutes. Whisk water and cornstarch together in small bowl; set aside.
4. Melt butter in now-empty skillet over medium-low heat. Add shallots and garlic; cook until golden brown and crispy, 6 to 9 minutes. Stir in coriander and cook for 30 seconds. Stir in gelatin mixture, scraping up browned bits. Bring to simmer over high heat and cook until reduced to 1 1/2 cups, 5 to 7 minutes. Whisk cornstarch mixture to recombine. Whisk into sauce and simmer until thickened, about 1 minute. Off heat, stir in parsley and lemon juice; season with salt and pepper to taste. Cover to keep warm.
5. Heat broiler. Transfer sheet to upper rack and broil chicken until skin is well browned and crisp, 3 to 6 minutes. Serve, passing sauce separately.
