Christmas Roast Chicken : Episode 2

So how, can ah? To be honest with you, I find angmoh style roast chicken not very exciting in terms of flavor.

From what I see on TV/Youtube, they just season with salt and pepper, drizzle with olive oil/rub with butter, stuff the ass with lemon and rosemary and boom it goes into the oven. Mana eh ho chiak?

But it's for Christmas eve dinner. Of course must do it the angmoh way (I have a story for this, but wait first after Christmas) or else it would spoil the mood (their's, not mine). 

If you ask me, I say ayam golek and nasi minyak for Christmas eve dinner and I tell you, Santa Claus won't leave your house (and you can hijack all the pressies).

After the not-so happening and sickly looking roast chicken the week before, I was game for another experiment. This time, I reckon that if I marinated the chicken with salt and pepper the night before, the meat would taste loads better. 

Then I also decided to dry the chicken by way of leaving it naked in the fridge so that when roasted, the skin becomes very crispy.

So I was confronted with this obscenity the next morning.

Bonjour ma cherie!

I took the chicken out from the fridge 3 hours before roasting. This is for it to come to room temperature, totally not cold to the touch. It would not do to put a still cold chicken into the hot oven.

I made a butter rub for the chicken by mixing about 2 tablespoons of butter with a large clove of crushed garlic, 1 teaspoon salt, 1 teaspoon freshly cracked black pepper and 1 teaspoon dried rosemary.

After giving the chicken a good rub down, I stuffed 3 cloves of garlic and a lemon into its cavity. Then it was a spot of bondage with me trussing the chicken.

Actually it is not difficult to truss a chicken. There is not need to go hoity toity like those chefs you see on TV. Just start with the legs, tie them together and then run the string around the chicken making sure you go round the wings and come full circle back to the legs (ankle) and tie.

My oven has a turntable and I had to take advantage of that feature. If I placed the chicken on the rack, it would be too high up the oven and in the past, I burnt my chicken. So  I improvised like so. Please excuse my dirty oven.

With the chicken going round and round in the oven, it would get evenly roasted. I roasted the chicken at a higher temperature and longer time compared to the first time. It was 200C (instead of 180C) for 1 hour 20 minutes (instead of 1 hour 10 minutes, the chicken was till bloody inside).

It came out like this, the skin very crispy! There wasn't much drippings in the pan but some juices oozed out when I lifted the chicken (perhaps from the cavity).

After resting the chicken for 30 minutes, I carved it and noted that it was cooked through and tastewise it was quite acceptable. 

OK. I think I got it. Now I have to figure out how to make the gravy. Aiyah, no need lah. Just pour some chili sauce and we are good. Hopefully, next year I won't be asked to roast. Hah!