Whole Chicken Recipes - Share yours!

How many ways can you cook a whole chicken?



Honestly, it seems endless to me!

Let me share a recent recipe of mine.

Dutch Oven Spatchcock Chicken over Cabbage

To start, I took my bird and spatchcocked it.



Spatchcock chicken involves cutting the spine from the bird with kitchen shears on either side and then spreading the bird out so that it lays flat.

Separately, I chop up a head of cabbage (and some shallots for flavor) and line the bottom of a cast iron Dutch oven leaving enough room to fit the bird on top of the cabbage and still remain inside of the dutch oven.

I spread herb and spices on the inside of the bird before placing it in the pot. I then season the top of the bird when it is in the pot so that some extra goes down on the cabbage.

I set my oven for 400 degrees Fahrenheit and cook for roughly an hour uncovered.

Something about cabbage being cooked in chicken drippings is absolutely delicious. I'm not a cabbage guy usually, but this is next level.

Usually I just roast a whole chicken in the oven.

I used to stuff mine until my mother-in-law showed me how to just put the stuffing into the juices after the chicken is cooked.  Just pop the chicken surrounded by stuffing back into the oven to finish everything off.

My father in law always used a Mr Smoker to smoke whole chicken.  He liked to experiment by stuffing the chicken with different citrus fruits.

Have you heard about cooking the chicken under a brick, I have not tried this?

https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/241500/chef-johns-chicken-under-a-brick/

Next time I cook roast chicken I might try this Instant Pot version:

https://www.delish.com/cooking/recipe-ideas/recipes/a57642/instant-pot-fall-off-the-bone-chicken-recipe/

Various approaches.  One of my standards is putting chicken is a covered Dutch oven with balsamic vinegar … per Emeril.

Our favorite. We do at least 1 bird a week and sometimes 2.

https://permies.com/t/273331/Salted-Roast-Chicken-Recipe

I have started processing my chicken into two half pieces.



I will then marinate the chicken in used pickle brine from four to twelve hours in the fridge.

I will pull the chicken out and let it come up to room temp for around half an hour.

I will put some fat into a cast iron pan and sear the chicken breast side down for around eight to ten minutes at a medium heat. I will take a seperate cast iron pan and use it as a iron press to get the chicken to have the most contact it can with the cooking surface. I'll flip the chicken and go for another eight minutes.

I'll set my oven to 375 and get a combination of chopped root vegetables together (Potato, carrot, parsnip, onion, garlic). I'll pull the chicken from the pan, add the veggies, and put the chicken on top. I'll place that into the oven for an hour and it is good to go.

Cast iron half chicken over root vegetables

I like to cook a whole chicken in the traditional turkey and dressing style ..

cabbage underneath is brilliant.

I stopped roasting whole chickens a few years ago when gas got really expensive and I started using the air fryer. I might do half a chicken.

A year or so ago one of my favorite stores got a truckload of very small whole chickens. Bigger than a cornish hen, but definitely smaller than a normal roast chicken; the price was right and I bought MANY!
I cook them in the crockpot to make Chinese white chicken (it's boiled and then sliced and divided to be eaten with dipping sauces, and the broth is your soup to accompany...) or a Cambodian stew made with basil, cilantro, lemongrass... I got the recipe out of Yankee Magazine 30 years ago, I'm amazed to find it elsewhere on the interwebs, although the version I use adds healthy amounts of garlic... https://bittmanproject.com/recipe/chantha-nguons-sour-chicken-lime-soup-village-style-sgnao-chruok-sach-mouan/

I'm pretty sure I've posted this in another thread but here it is again - a favourite recipe is a whole roast chicken cooked in a romertopf/clay baker on a bed of fresh herbs - parsley, tarragon, fennel, thyme, rosemary, whatever you have in your garden.

Top the herbs with several bulbs of garlic cloves cracked but not peeled and drizzle a generous slug of olive oil, pernod dressing and freshly ground black pepper.

Stuff the chicken with croutons tossed in the pernod and olive oil dressing and place over the herbs and garlic.

Drizzle more olive oil over the chicken and place the clay baker into a cold oven, turn the thermostat up to 200C and roast for 1.5 hours.

The chicken will brown inside the baker. If you don't have a clay baker, use a cast iron Dutch oven and make a flour and water dough rolled into a sausage to seal the lid & rim of the pot.

I also like to debone and stuff a chicken with the classic sage and onion stuffing, and/or chopped spinach/chard with sauted mushrooms (foraged dehydrated birch boletes and/or winecaps)

I have found the instructions on Jacques Pepin's video of how to debone a chicken the easiest to follow.

A deboned chicken goes so much further and the bones can be kept for stock or to boiled make a gravy.