Hope all my American readers had a wonderful Thanksgiving. I’ll post about our celebration soon, but in the meantime, I have a recipe to share. Do you recall my post from April 2016 requesting chicken recipes? I have enjoyed preparing the recipes you suggested, as well as experimenting with new ones. The one I’m about to share is one of my favorites, and Mr. Handsome loves it, too!
Oven-Roasted Whole Chicken Rotisserie-Style
Ingredients
- 1 whole chicken 5 lbs
- 1/4 cup salt for brine
- 1-1/2 tsp salt
- 1 tsp onion powder
- 1 tsp garlic powder
- 2 tsp paprika
- 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
- 1 tsp dried thyme
- 1/2 tsp black pepper
- 1 large onion cut into chunks
Instructions
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Remove chicken from packaging, and discard giblets. Rinse chicken.
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Place chicken in a large pot (I use my slow cooker insert). Fill with warm water, and stir in 1/4 cup salt. Let chicken soak in brine for 15 minutes.
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Meanwhile, prepare the spice mixture, mixing together onion powder, garlic powder, paprika, cayenne pepper, thyme, black pepper, and 1-1/2 teaspoons salt.
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After 15 minutes, remove chicken from brine, rinse, and pat dry with paper towels. Use your hands to rub the spice mixture onto chicken (inside and outside). Stuff onion chunks into chicken cavity.
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Place chicken in empty slow cooker insert (not the electric part). Cover with several layers of plastic wrap, a few directly around the chicken and a few over the top of the pot. Refrigerate for at least 3 hours (or overnight).
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Remove plastic wrap, and place chicken in an oven safe pot (I use a Dutch oven). Bake uncovered at 275F for 2-1/2 hours.
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Increase oven to 325F, and bake until internal temperature has reached 180F/82C (approximately 45 minutes to 1 hour).
Recipe Notes
If you wish to use your slow cooker insert in the oven, check to make sure it is oven safe, and follow any special instructions. Many slow cooker companies advise against placing the insert into a hot oven, but rather to put it in the oven before preheating. Crock-Pot.com says the following: "All Crock-Pot® Slow Cooker removable crockery inserts (without lid) may be used safely in the microwave and the oven set up to 400°F. If you own another slow cooker brand, please refer to your owner’s manual for specific crockery cooking medium tolerances."
The recipe sounds delicious, but I have to ask, why warm water? That seems to go against everything we are taught about safely handling raw poultry. Also, it would be much easier to dissolve the salt in the water in a measuring cup before pouring it over the chicken in the brine-ing vessel.
There are different ways to brine chicken, but 15 minutes in warm salt water is a common "quick" brine.
Ellie
I'm also wondering about this recipe, from a food safety aspect. What is the source for the recipe?
Raw poultry held beyond two hours in the 40-140 degree range is the danger zone. I would hope this raw bird cools back down quickly once put in the fridge to rest after being brined, but I'd be suspicious. You have to treat every commercially-produced chicken these days as if it's contaminated with Campylobacter, Salmonella or Clostridium. Because chances are, it is…
Also, there was some talk in the news or on TV recently about cooking poultry at low temperatures, and whether or not that brings the meat up out of the danger zone fast enough. Your 250 degrees is in that dangerously low oven temperature range, I fear. An oven 300 or higher is what's recommended. Turkey usually roasts at 325, and chicken at 350 or higher.
If you've made this recipe many times and haven't gotten sick, you've been lucky. I wouldn't give it to the very young, the elderly, or anyone with a compromised immune system.
That slow cooker insert with warm water is a Petri dish for bacteria, too. It wouldn't hurt to put a few drops of bleach in the water you use to wash it. Let the bleach water sit 5-10 minutes to do its job, then wash and rinse thoroughly. Clean your hands well after handling it, too. And watch for cross-contamination at any point along the way.
To the anonymous commenter who is telling people to soak their chicken in bleach water: Please tell me I read that wrong. Or am I the only one who thinks that's a bad idea? There are a lot of whole chicken recipes out there that use a similar process to Ellie's, but I have never seen any that call for soaking meat in bleach water.
Not the chicken – the empty pot, to clean it out thoroughly! "…the water you use to wash it." How did you translate that to soaking the chicken in bleach? SMH
Of course it's the pan and not the chicken! It says that.
Whenever I handle raw poultry, everything that can't go in the dishwasher gets bleached afterwards – counters, sink, oversized cutting boards, etc. There are directions on the back of bleach bottles telling you what concentration to use for hard surface sanitation, and how long to keep it wet. I even keep a soft fingernail brush handy to (soap) scrub under my nails and around my rings. Raw meat can carry some nasty germs that you don't want to transfer elsewhere.
To clean off cut boards you use salt because if you use bleach it will still have that smell from the bleach on it. And you can get sick.
You don't get sick from things washed in bleachy water. Quite the opposite.
Diluted bleach turns into salt water after it does its job, which is why it can be used on food prep surfaces in restaurants. You can also purify drinking water with it, in an emergency.
I saw it on a episode of Home &Family were you put salt in cutting boards to clean them.
I'm sure that's a fine recipe, but that's a lot of fuss for a chicken. I just take the "yucky" bagged stuff out, put the bird in a foil-lined open roasting pan, and roast at 350 degrees for 22-25 minutes per pound, the old school way. Stick the thermometer in the thigh and breast, and if you're in the 170-180 range, it's ready to come out and sit a few minutes before carving.
If anything, I sprinkle Lawry's salt and paprika on it before baking, or McCormick's Rotisserie Chicken seasoning. You have a lot of pepper in your recipe, red and black…yowzers.
After you've done it once, the prep for this recipe is very quick. And SO worth it.
In case you're worried about the taste being overly "peppery," I'll assure you it's not. 🙂
Ellie
Seems like Ellie can't share a post without at least one negative nellie. But don't take it personally, Ellie. After all, criticism is the most sincere form of flattery.
My recipe for rotisserie chicken: head straight for the local deli after a hard day's work and purchase their garlic/butter chicken. Ellie, your chicken looks good.
It takes too much time for the busy mom that I am! For a very juicy chicken, I take a chicken, rub it with my favorite spices, sit it on a beer can, put it on a pan and voilà! In the oven for about 2 hours at 350°. Crispy skin, juicy meat. Doesn't taste like beer, the beer only keeps the meat moist.
Josée