I'll admit it- I picked up Julia Child's "The art of French Cooking" (volumes 1 and 2!). I make edible food but very few things that I'd really consider wonderful. I'd heard (mostly because of the recent movie) about how good these books were so I figured I'd pick them up.

Yesterday I made roast chicken and I followed all of the instructions to the letter. Well, except for two things. I didn't have the right equipment to truss the birds (but that wouldn't affect the taste) and I forgot to salt them when turning them, but otherwise I followed the instructions precisely!

It involved salting the cavity of the chicken and then rubbing the inside with butter, and then rubbing the outside with butter (after drying off the chicken). They are placed in a roasting pan at 425 for 15 minutes to brown (you have to turn it onto it's side after 5 minutes, and then onto its other side for the last 5 minutes too!) and then heat is reduced to 350 and you start basting with a mix of veg. oil and melted butter.

And you baste. And baste. And baste. Did I mention basting? You do this at 10 minute intervals until the chicken is done. It took a little longer than it might have otherwise because I'm sort of a noob at this so I think I had the oven door open too long at times.

But this is how they turned out after nearly 2 hours of roasting:




They were absolutely delicious And they had the crispiest, goldenest skin.

And today if I can get ahold of my sister, I'm going to make chicken noodle soup with the leftovers. She has this really lovely recipe that uses what's left over from roast chicken to make it and it's so wonderful. I can't wait!

 

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All that basting, it's like deep frying it in butter. No wonder it was good.

 

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Yeah I realized that before I went into it, but boy it was still good!

 

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yeah, fine, do all this good cooking stuff AFTER you move away, uh huh!

 

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Looks delicious!


I love roasted chicken.

 

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Chicken with the skin?




I used to spend a lot of effort in making roast chicken ... until I found the food baggies.

Put the chicken in it, a little flour and some veggies, tie it up - viola, easy moist delicious chicken. And no cleanup lol

 

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The skin is the best part...just like with turkey

I've done the bags before and they work ok, but they won't give you that lovely golden brown skin. Of course if you don't like that there's nothing more to be said hehe.

 

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God bless oven bags!!

 

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exactly!!!


and a paper bag works better if you like bagged poultry

 

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A paper bag? Really? I've never heard of that before...what is the difference?

 

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