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Post by sunshine817 on Jul 6, 2008 18:32:20 GMT -5
Hi all --
As promised on another thread -- this recipe is the closest I've found to being able to reproduce poulet roti like you find in the traiteurs, boucheries, and marches across France. It comes out perfectly brown and tender and juicy EVERY time!
This is actually the recipe titled "Turned Roasted Chicken" from the "Joy of Cooking" book. (My favorite - it's dogeared and stained, notes in the margins, and the binding busted...but I have yet to try a recipe that wasn't great!)
Position a rack in the center of the oven, and preheat the oven to 400°F (200C).
Remove the neck and giblets, then rise and pat dry 1 whole chicken (4-7 pounds - 2 to 3 kg) Rub with softened butter or olive oil, then season with salt and pepper (nothing more - you'll be amazed how good this is!)
Set a V-rack in a shallow roasting pan and lay the chicken on its side in the rack (no V-rack? Prop it on its side with balls of foil)
Roast 25 minutes for the first 4 pounds, (2kg) then 3 minutes more for each additional pound (1/2 kg). Pour a little water (just enough to cover the bottom of the pan) to keep the drippings from spattering and smoking.
Insert a long wooden spoon or heavy skewer into the cavity, or grab the chicken at both ends, protecting your fingers with paper towels. Turn the chicken onto its other side and baste well. Place scrubbed potatoes (or any combo of turnips, carrots, parsnips, and rutebagas/swedes, peeled and cut into small pieces and tossed with olive oil and salt) Roast again for 25 minutes for the first 4 pounds/2kg, then 3 minutes more for each addtional pound (1/2 kg).
Now turn the chicken breast side up, stir the veg a little, and roast 15-30 minutes more, until the thigh exudes clear juices when pricked deeply with a fork and registers 170-175F (75-80C) on a meat thermometer. If you prefer very well-done chicken, roast until the thigh registers 180F/82C.
Remove to a platter and let stand for 10-15 minutes.
Carve and serve - and enjoy!
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Post by Becky (Berkeleytravelers) on Jul 6, 2008 19:33:26 GMT -5
Wow, thanks so much - I shall prepare this, close my eyes, and dream I'm in Paris. (But, "swedes"? If not available, will Norwegians suffice?)
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Post by sunshine817 on Jul 6, 2008 19:38:30 GMT -5
No...but if you find a Swede to make it for you...!!!  Writing recipes for an international audience is a challenge at best...at least this one didn't rely on cups/ml, tablespoons/grams, etc. I used to have a list somewhere that translated veggies and fruits into UK English and into a couple of the Continental languages...I've misplaced it somewhere along the line, but it was a useful translator! As you'd guessed, a rutabaga here is a swede in the UK...but I'm not sure what it is on the continent! |
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Post by GitteK on Jul 6, 2008 22:34:16 GMT -5
An easier way to Paris chicken, is to scrub (if new/fresh, otherwise peel) potatoes and cut them in chunks the size of golfballs. Place in deep pan. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. I add a tiny little bit dried basil, thyme and paprika, because that's the way I recall them from Paris: not totally "neutral" in the taste. Then you take your chicken (3 kilos ?? ??  GEEZ, some kind of chickens you folks grow over there !!  I'd be afraid to encounter the mother hen !), clean it with kitchenpaper so all the icky stuff inside comes off. Cut in 8 parts. Put chicken parts directly on top of the potatoes, with the skin-side up, sprinkle with salt and pepper and put some small slices of butter on top, if you insist. But butter isn't strictly necessary, as there's plenty of fat and juices dripping from the chicken as it is. (You can also put a grid on top of the pan and place the chicken parts on that, if you prefer)Place the pan in lower half of the oven for about 1 hour 15 mins at 200 C. Tastes exactly (well, as good as it gets.....) as Paris chicken. And as to putting Swedes into the dish......... yeah, I can mention a few meanyhead Swedes I have come across at work, whom I'd like to roast, grrrr....  |
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Post by Anne on Jul 7, 2008 1:08:16 GMT -5
As you'd guessed, a rutabaga here is a swede in the UK...but I'm not sure what it is on the continent! It is a rutabaga too  . It is what we call a "rediscovered" vegetable : you now can find it rather easily in shops, but for a very long time it had almost disappeared . The reason is that this vegetable was one of the few staple food in France during WW2 shortage years . People would have either this vegetable or Jerusalem artichokes almost every day (don't even ask me why the other vegetables had almost disappeared) . So when the war was over, no one wanted to hear about those anymore . Then some years ago, famous chefs began to introduce those two forgotten vegetables in their cuisine, and this was the beginning of their (timid) revival . Hope you didn't mind this little food history lesson  . |
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Post by mez on Jul 7, 2008 6:17:35 GMT -5
Great recipe Sunshine...It might even tempt this single gal into the kitchen - lol. I am very fond of one pot/pan dishes.  |
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Post by sunshine817 on Jul 7, 2008 6:44:54 GMT -5
It's crazy easy, and gives you a gorgeous brown bird that looks like you've been slaving all day!
It's good for presentation -- and has that yummy crackly skin that we're not supposed to enjoy (but we do...!). I served it one time to the owners of a gite we'd let for holidays - they lived across the path from the gite, and we hit it off with them. The bird came out of the countertop oven looking like a photograph, and she blurted "but American women don't cook!" much to my amusement.
You can do about anything with this -- the olive oil or butter is mostly for browning (and to keep the skin from drying out entirely) -- you can slip herbs under the skin, add spices (I usually buy a free-range bird, so we enjoy the taste of the chicken!) -- tuck a lemon half and a few sprigs of thyme inside to season it from inside...the possibilities are endless!
Sometimes I use just potatoes, sometimes I use mixed root vegetables, sometimes I add cippolini onions or baby portobella mushrooms or garlic...whatever I feel like and whatever looked good in the produce bins. Tossing the veg in some olive oil keeps them from drying out and going leathery in the corners -- and they're scrumptious tossed in some thyme and parsley.
Gitte, yes, we can buy chickens that big - and they would be scary indeed! But I usually only buy 1.5-2kg for us, as the flavor definitely is not as good with the enormous birds. (I will buy one on occasion if we have a busy week, because then I have leftover roasted chicken to put in a pie for a quick easy supper later in the week.)
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Post by Jody on Jul 7, 2008 7:19:33 GMT -5
I love rutabagas! One day while driving thru Belgium with a Belgian friend , I spied great piles of them along the roadside. She was shocked to hear we eat them. She said Belgians only use them for cattle feed! I'm going to try both recipes though I usually just end up buying a rotisserie chicken at Costco, but you don't get the potatoes with those.
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Post by Anne on Jul 7, 2008 8:02:31 GMT -5
Sunshine, what is a V-rack ? And do you put the chicken directly on the vegetables once you have added those ? Using birds' parts like in Gitte's receipe is better for small families, or for difficult families like mine where everyone mostly loves the breast( ), but cooking the bird as a whole like you do must result in a meat being more tender and juicy . |
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Post by Jody on Jul 7, 2008 8:56:55 GMT -5
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Post by annettecinca on Jul 7, 2008 9:01:10 GMT -5
Oh, I know what I'm having for dinner tonight! ! (Unless daughter #1 goes into labor...if so, I'm not cooking!) |
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Post by sunshine817 on Jul 7, 2008 9:11:02 GMT -5
Cooking the pieces would also mean that it's done faster -- although I don't know if they would brown quite so beautifully. I suppose it depends on how deep the pan is -- a very deep pan blocks the heat and keeps things from browning as nicely as they would otherwise.
A V-rack is an oven rack shaped like a V -- some are fixed in the V position. I have one of those, and I also have one that adjusts -- which is very good for different sized birds or roasts (Lamb roasted on the Vrack comes out beautifully,too -- but I usually just put hot water in the bottom of the pan -- veg roasted in lamb drippings taste a little odd.
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Post by Darcy on Jul 7, 2008 9:19:05 GMT -5
Another rutabaga lover here! Thanks, Sunshine and Gitte.
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Post by Anne on Jul 7, 2008 10:39:43 GMT -5
Thanks for the information, I had never seen a V-rack before . I guess that I will have to resolve to those balls of foil, or better, try a home-made V-rack device of my own ;D ...
Sorry sunshine, but my other question was : do you put the chicken directly on the vegetables (i.e. without the V-rack) after you've added them ?
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Post by sunshine817 on Jul 7, 2008 11:28:29 GMT -5
No, Anne, I leave the chicken on the rack, above the veggies.
I think you could, actually, put the chicken directly on the veggies to hold it on its sides (and if you cannot find a v-rack) -- the only caution would be to cut the veggies in bigger pieces so that they're not all overcooked with the extra 25-30 minutes of roasting time.
(The 40-45 minutes with the rack leaves walnut-sized chunks of veg cooked just to tender, with a little tooth to them. ) Sometimes hubby and I only sample the chicken, and eat the veggies instead!
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Post by Becky (Berkeleytravelers) on Jul 7, 2008 11:45:10 GMT -5
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Post by Anne on Jul 7, 2008 14:15:58 GMT -5
Thanks a lot . I thought that Amazon was about books and CDs only ... |
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Post by Becky (Berkeleytravelers) on Jul 7, 2008 14:21:01 GMT -5
Anne, in France that's definitely true (I tried to order a house-type item for friends in France from the amazon.fr site and it had nothing of that type). The UK site has some things (but there seem to be restrictions on shipping to France for some items, I suppose tax related or whatever). The US site, however, has amazingly diverse selections of all types of things.
I'm sure not everything you see on the US site can be sent to France, because many items are actually sold by third persons and merely made available through Amazon (so it may depend on whether you are dealing with a sophisticated retailer that doesn't mind shipping internationally). But, if you check you will find at least some things that are possible to ship to France if you wish. (If you are a member on the French site, it also will carry over your shipping and credit card information when you visit one of the other sites. I often order books from the UK site that I can't get here, with no problem.)
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Post by sunshine817 on Jul 7, 2008 15:46:49 GMT -5
Barring that, I'm sure there's *someone* here who would be willing to receive your order and forward it to you!
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Post by Anne on Jul 8, 2008 1:02:59 GMT -5
Sunshine, if by "forward it" you mean bringing it personnally from America to my place with all travel expenses paid for, I guess that there will be quite a few applicants indeed ;D ... |
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GEEZ, some kind of chickens you folks grow over there !! 
I'd be afraid to encounter the mother hen !), clean it with kitchenpaper so all the icky stuff inside comes off. Cut in 8 parts.
. It is what we call a "rediscovered" vegetable : you now can find it rather easily in shops, but for a very long time it had almost disappeared . The reason is that this vegetable was one of the few staple food in France during WW2 shortage years . People would have either this vegetable or Jerusalem artichokes almost every day (don't even ask me why the other vegetables had almost disappeared) . So when the war was over, no one wanted to hear about those anymore . Then some years ago, famous chefs began to introduce those two forgotten vegetables in their cuisine, and this was the beginning of their (timid) revival . 
.
hahahha