For my very first time roasting a whole chicken, I did some research and decided on my method. Since my smoke detector goes nuts at the faintest sign of smoke, I decided not to go with a cast iron skillet, even though that is a method I would really like to try. It just seems like any time I try putting a cast iron skillet in the oven with even a little oil, the smoke detector goes off, even when I don’t see any smoke.
So, I used a roasting pan. It’s a cheap stainless steel one I got free from the supermarket once when they were doing some coupon thing where you could save them up and then trade them in for cookware.
My chicken weighed a little over 6 pounds and, from what I read, I determined it would probably take a little over 1.5 hours to cook at 425°F.
Preparation
I knew what I was going to do to the chicken before putting it in the oven but I definitely did not do everything in the best order. I had to wash my hands multiple times in this process alone. I think I’ve worked out the best order for next time though. It’s especially important to have salt and pepper in a bowl so I can just sprinkle it on with my raw chicken hands.
I took the giblets out, which was super gross. Actually, although I like eating chicken, I find a whole raw chicken to be kind of gross. I think I’ll buy gloves to use next time.
I patted the chicken dry but did not rinse it. I’ve read that rinsing it is not necessary, and is more likely to just spread raw chicken bacteria all over your kitchen.
I put my fingers between the skin and breast to make a pocket to put in a mix of butter, garlic, dried thyme, salt and pepper. I had a bit left so I rubbed it on the outside of the chicken. I probably shouldn’t be eating butter at the moment, but I had seen this method and liked the sound of it so decided to try it before I’m really restricting myself later. It definitely was not as easy to do this part as it looks in the videos I have seen.
I put salt and pepper all over the outside of the chicken and inside it, and then I put a bulb of garlic in the cavity. I’ve read conflicting reports as to whether putting flavorings in the cavity like that actually do much for the flavor of the meat, but I have a lot of garlic which I need to use within the next few weeks, so I did it. I purposely did not use a lemon or fresh thyme as some recipes suggest, as I’m trying to avoid acid and I think dried thyme works fine for most things.
At this point I put the chicken in my roasting pan and tucked the wing tips under and tied the legs together. The legs would not stay where I was trying to tie them, and they were slippery too. I’ll have to look up whether there is some trick to tying the legs together. Putting the butter/oil on the chicken after tying the legs would probably have helped a lot.
Roasting
I put the chicken in the oven for 1.5 hours. It was kind of noisy, perhaps from the butter sputtering or something, and I checked to make sure it wasn’t making a huge mess but it was fine. My smoke detector decided to go off when I opened the oven though, as a very small amount of steam/smoke came out (though nothing was actually burning).
I can confirm here that putting a shower cap over the smoke detector and fixing in place with a rubber band does not work, at least for me. I’ve read about other people having success with it, but for me it still went off the next time I checked the chicken. I covered it with foil that time, in an effort to stop smoke/steam coming out of the oven, and because I don’t care about making the skin crispy anyway. That way, I can remove the foil while the chicken is sitting on the stove under the fan. I also lowered the temperature to 400°F, thinking there may be less smoke then to begin with. My oven tends to get a little too hot sometimes anyway (yes, only sometimes. It’s old and not very good).
When the 1.5 hours were up, I checked the temperature with an instant read thermometer. I at least thought I was hitting the spot I’m supposed to, in the inner thigh between the breast and leg. It wasn’t quite done so I put it in for another 10 minutes, and when it came out the next time it had reached 165°F so I thought it was done.
I left it to rest for about 15 minutes and cut into the breast and it was not done deeper into the chicken. I don’t know if I just didn’t temp the right place, or if maybe this chicken’s breasts were just giant. My thermometer has proven accurate so far, so I don’t think it was that. I ended up putting the chicken back into the oven for another half hour.
This time I was stabbing it everywhere with my thermometer to make sure everything was cooked, and it was.
Result
So the chicken did taste good after all that, but it was a stressful experience. Next time, I think I’m going to take the minimalist approach and only use salt and pepper on the chicken. Hopefully that will keep my smoke detector happy.
I dream of having a kitchen that is well ventilated and which does not have a smoke detector that is so close and so sensitive. I mean, I realize the kitchen is a place where a fire can start, but a smoke detector should know the difference between regular cooking smoke levels and dangerous house fire levels. Or I should be able to tell it ‘please don’t go off for the next hour’. Apparently some won’t go off for 15 minutes or so after you turn it off, but mine will just go off again whenever it thinks there’s a problem.
I was so stressed by the whole thing that I didn’t make any gravy, but that would just be for me anyway since my husband would most likely not eat it. I put all the drippings in the fridge because I hate to waste them, thinking maybe I’ll make gravy later. Then again, I probably shouldn’t be eating it right now. It’s quite the conundrum!
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