Roast Chicken, again

We tried a different recipe this time, this time based on the "One chicken - 3 ways" recipe that I found online.

This was a much smaller chicken, and it fitted into the varoma properly.

The recipe said to stuff it, but I didn't.  Instead, I put half an onion, some tarragon, some thyme, some sage and some garlic butter in the cavity. I put a puece of garlic butter under the skin against each breast. Salt and pepper.

We steamed it for just over half an hour, then put it in the oven at 160 fan (180 equivalent), to brown. I'd already put the roasting tray in to warm up

We had one breast between us as part of a quick roast dinner.  We'll have the other one tomorrow in a cheese sauce, followed later in the week by risotto and then maybe risotto balls again.

I liked this method more than the other, and I will use it again.

Next time I will put some butter on the bird just before it goes into roast.

Roast Chicken

We've been approaching the Thermy thing by deciding what we want to cook and then working out if it is possible to do it in Thermy.

I wanted to make chicken risotto, mainly because I wanted to have leftover risotto to make deep fried risotto balls (Arancini di Riso). I had these for lunch o Friday, and they were amazing.

Now, the Thermy is well known for its ability to produce risotto, so I wanted to make risotto.  And to make risotto, I really needed some cooked chicken.   So, I had a look to see what was possible with whole chickens.

I found a range of recipes for "Roast Chicken", which involve steaming a chicken for about a hour, then sticking it in a hot oven to brown.   Let's give that a go.

We hoiked our last whole chicken out of the freezer.  We raise our own table birds, and this lad was rather large (by our slow grown chicken standards): well over 5 pounds.  He seemed to fit in the Varoma whilst frozen, so we left him out to defrost.

The defrosted chook was a tad too large for the Varoma.  This must be on the wishlist for any new model, some sort of extension to make the varoma higher. I did look, but couldn't see any hacks for it. We cut the leg off, and then we managed by scrnching up foil.

We used a honey and soy "marinade", and steamed for 1 hour.  A skewer showed that most of the chicken was cooked, but one leg was still pink. 10 more minutes.  Still pink, so we turned it round, ten more minutes.  It then was still slightly pink, but we put it in the hot oven, along with the rest of the bird, for 10 minutes. We were thinking we could leave it in for longer if necessary.

However, all was well.

The chicken was very moist.  I think I'd  put it in to brown for longer next time,  and I might experiment with bastes.

But I would definitely consider doing it this way again.

One "note to self": make the Yorkshure pudding batter using Thermy, before you put the chicken on.