The Recipe Room

Translation by Alessandra Dubini – Marlborough College

Most of my friends ask my why I would make so much effort to make chicken when you could buy it already cooked and ready to be served. To be honesty I completely understand where they come from, you get back from work really late you have to sort out the mess your kids have made and while you’re at it you have to argue with your teenage daughter. So where is the time to make roast chicken at home?! Quite frankly I dont think anyone likes to eat dry chicken, and that is normally how it tastes on the inside. Roast chicken is good because of its juiciness, but unfortunately in the way it is being cooked it loses all it softness.
Every time I go in the kitchen to make roast chicken I have the vivid image of the small chicken my husband and I have in hut Varush val Trunchun (Swiss national park, comfortable leisurely walk that starts from Zuoz).

 

First reflection: The chicken has to have a crisp skin, and to become crisp it must be properly oiled and seasoned with salt and spices. But the real secret I show to get the meat of the chicken as soft as butter. Well I am about to reveal that to you. The softness depends on the humidity that the meat gets a hold, the water between the fibres. What I invented? A small chicken massage with butter, salt, pepper and paprika. The butter does not evaporate; it does not slide as oil. Salt and pepper have so be put well into the belly of chicken. The paprika gives it a unique taste and does not burn

Here you go … There are two lemon slices into the belly of our friend, this takes away the grease within the final taste to then lighten the taste. This is the small chicken after the massage.

And for softness? To achieve softness use aluminium that covers the chest and closes the cavity behind. A kind of protective mask to wear for almost any cooking. Only in the last quarter of an hour you are allowed to remove it, allowing the skin to become crisp!

 

And the potatoes? Peel, cut into pieces and cooked for 10 minutes in boiling water, dip them in the pan were the chicken has been previously.

Total cooking 50 minutes at 220°, the last 5 with the addition of the grill!

 

This entry was posted on Sunday, 6 April, 2014 at 8:22 am by Maria Greco Naccarato and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the feed RSS 2.0. You can leave a comment, or make a trackback from your own blog.