♪ ♪ - The flavor of this chutney on the chicken is ridiculously good.

It will really change your ideas of what a basic roast chicken is.

- You've got salad, you've got the bread stuffing.

And you've got this delicious chicken, so full of flavor.

- A really cool technique to get a ton of flavor into the chicken.

Some pantry powerhouses.

Definitely add this one to your weeknight repertoire.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ - This week on Milk Street, it's roast chicken.

We start with a spice-rubbed roasted chicken with green herb chutney, and then a skillet roast chicken inspired by San Francisco's Zuni Cafe.

And finally, a five-spice roast chicken with soy, lime juice, and a touch of sugar.

So please stay tuned as we transform a simple classic into a whole new dining experience.

♪ ♪ - Our spice-rubbed roasted chicken with green herb chutney was inspired by a recipe from Indian cookbook author Nik Sharma.

He confirmed for us that the word chutney refers to any type of sauce in India, whether sweet, savory, and everything in between.

Like his herb chutney, our green chutney is savory and bold, made with arugula, which has that spicy pepperiness, fresh cilantro, ground spices, and garlic and lime.

We'll start by mixing those ground herbs together.

We have a mixture of ground coriander; cumin; garam masala, which has a blend of spices in it; a little bit of cayenne; and, of course, some sweet paprika.

So those five spices go right together.

We add a teaspoon of salt.

And that's it for the rub.

This amount of rub is enough for a five- to six-pound chicken, which is great if you love leftovers like we do.

But if you're using a smaller, typical two-and-a-half to three-pound chicken, just use half the amount of rub.

We have patted this chicken dry.

You can see the surface is not wet at all.

And we're going to use this entire amount of rub all over the surface of the chicken.

I like to take just a little bit of it and put it inside the cavity.

This is optional.

But those juices, as they run through the bones and inside the cavity, mingle with those herbs and become really delicious.

Okay, so I'm just going to rub this over.

Don't forget the wings.

It's a lot of good thigh meat on the bottom of the chicken.

This is a lot of rub, but that's what you want.

Believe me, it does not overpower the chicken in any way.

It just makes that skin crisp and well-seasoned.

Now, these little wing tips tend to singe and burn in the oven when you're roasting.

So I just like to twist them over and tuck them under.

See, they stay under like that.

Then we'll transfer this to a wire rack set into a deeper roasting pan, and we'll tie the ankles together.

This is optional.

It just keeps the chicken nice and taut, and it helps prevent these narrow tips of the breast from overcooking.

Okay, the oven has been preheated to 425 degrees.

This will roast for about 70 to 80 minutes, and we want the skin to get nice and crisp and deeply roasted with all these spices.

We'll leave it at that temperature for the entire time, and we'll probably give it a check at the 70-minute mark, take its temperature and make sure it's cooking through all the way.

So while the chicken roasts, we'll make the green herb chutney.

Takes just a few minutes to make it, but it keeps really well in the fridge, and we'll chill it down a little bit while the chicken finishes cooking.

So we'll start with four cups of fresh arugula.

Like I said, it has a peppery bite.

Just a little bit of a bitterness to it.

Then we have a cup of fresh cilantro leaves.

If you want to throw some stems in there with that, you can do that too.

It's delicious.

Then we have two fresh serrano chilies.

We cut them in half.

All the seeds and the membrane are still in there.

If you prefer a little less heat, cut them in half lengthwise and just scrape out the seeds and that white membrane and you'll be fine.

One garlic clove, smashed up a little bit.

And remember the spice rub we made?

We have some of the same spices.

We have the coriander and the cumin from that, one tablespoon each.

Half a teaspoon of salt.

And then we will pulse that until this is coarsely chopped before we start adding the oil.

(pulsing, whirring) We'll turn this back on and drizzle the oil in in a slow stream.

(whirring) Oh, okay, beautiful.

So we'll transfer this to a bowl and stir the lime juice in by hand.

Sometimes, if you put the lime juice in the blender, it gets just a little bit extra bitter.

So, we'll refrigerate this until the chicken finishes roasting.

We're... almost time to check the temperature of the chicken.

You want the thighs to reach about 175 and the breast to reach 160.

♪ ♪ The chicken is sitting here, it's been resting about 20 minutes.

it needs to rest a full 30 minutes.

Believe me, chicken on the bone stays hot a long time.

This is the roasting pan that the chicken came out of.

You can see all the nice juices and the drippings and the stuff stuck to the bottom of the pan-- that's the best part.

We're going to add about a half cup of water to that, stir it really well.

The water just helps loosen up the bits of meat that caramelize on the bottom of the pan and stick.

Now these juices have some of the essence of all those spices we put on the chicken in them.

Okay, we need to pour this into another container so the fat can rise to the top and we can skim some of it off.

The best thing to use, if you have one, is what's called a gravy separator.

This is called that because you pour the liquid in, the fat rises to the top.

The good stuff stays on the bottom.

And see, the spout comes from the bottom?

When you tilt it and pour, only the pure liquid juices come out, leaving the fat floating on the top.

If you don't have one of these, simply pour it into a measuring cup.

The fat will still rise to the top and you can skim it off from the top.

Our beautiful roast chicken is done resting.

It's been about 30 minutes here.

We took the chutney out of the refrigerator and let it come to room temperature.

Now, remember that gravy separator?

Here we have it.

We'll just pour that off...

There we go, just a little bit.

And then what you have left here, coming out, is pure chicken juice, which is great.

One... two... three.

More or less Stir that in, marry these flavors together.

Now that it is mixed with the juices-- you know, those juices had salt from the dry rub in it, the chutney has its own-- you need to taste it and make sure you have the right balance of salt.

Oh.

It does not even need any more salt and pepper.

We'll put that over here and we'll carve the chicken.

First thing you want to do is untie those legs, so just cut the string off.

Start by cutting between the leg and the breast.

We can cut this all off in one piece.

We'll place that right on the platter like that.

Don't forget the wings, there's a nice amount of meat on the drum part of the wing, which is the thicker part.

All right, here we go.

Now, we have clear reign to remove the breast off the bone.

To have it be a boneless piece, pull it open just a little bit.

We'll do that so you can see, and then you can run your knife along the rest of the cartilage from here.

This is beautiful.

Beautiful, juicy bird.

All right, I'm going to put this whole on the platter for now.

We can certainly slice the breast a little bit later at the table.

First, let's cut the other half off.

(slicing) Okay.

Oh, it's really, really, really nice.

Put that there like that.

All right, we'll take our beautiful green chutney, and we are now going to serve that on top of the chicken.

Sauce-like, just letting it drape over the chicken.

If you have any of this left over-- for instance, what if you do make a smaller chicken?

It's fantastic on leftovers or on another meal altogether.

Ooh, I want to taste this.

First I'm going to clean this up a little bit, and will be right back to taste the chicken.

Look at that sauce.

I mean, look at the drape and the hold of that green herb chutney.

It's quite fantastic.

Mm.

The flavor of this chutney on the chicken is ridiculously good.

So this is our spice-rubbed roasted chicken with a green herb chutney.

It will really change your ideas of what a basic roast chicken is.

You'll be happy you put this on the table.

♪ ♪ - Today we're going to be making skillet-roasted chicken with bread salad.

If this recipe seems a little familiar, it's because it's been adapted from the late Judy Rodgers's famous oven wood-roasted chicken from San Francisco's Zuni Cafe that's been served since 1987, and it's still wildly popular today.

It's that good.

We've adapted this recipe to make it a little bit more doable on a weeknight without losing any of its simple elegance and flavor.

We're going to be starting this recipe on the stovetop, finishing it in the oven, but it's all going to be done in one skillet.

You want to make sure that your 12-inch skillet is safe to use in a 475-degree oven.

So to get started, we're going to prepare our chicken.

You can see here, I have a nice three-and-a-half to four-pound chicken.

I've dried it really, really well so that it will bake up nice and crisp and brown in the oven.

So the first thing I'm going to do is just loosen the skin using my fingers.

You want to be sure that you don't poke holes through the skin on the breast and work around to the thighs.

And then once I do that, I'm going to go ahead and just stick some thyme sprigs in there.

This adds a really, really nice flavor to the meat.

Just going to put a couple sprigs in each spot.

And again, just try to get it as far down you can without tearing the skin.

And you can use this technique with all sorts of different flavorings, different spices and herbs.

You can put a compound butter in here.

It's a really nice technique.

Adds a lot of flavor.

Now that that's done, I have a mixture here, equal parts salt and pepper.

I like to premix that in a bowl just so I don't contaminate any of my other seasonings.

I'm just going to season the bird all over, really well.

I'm going to rub it into the skin.

You also want to make sure that you get it inside the cavity.

All right, so that's all that we need to do for the chicken.

I'm going to go ahead and wash my hands, and then we're going to move on to the next step of the recipe.

Okay, so now we're ready to start on the next part of this recipe, and that is the bread salad.

So we're going to go ahead and toast the bread.

Here we have about eight ounces of crusty whole wheat bread.

We really liked whole wheat bread for this recipe.

It adds wonderful flavor and chew.

We're going to go ahead and start toasting this in our skillet.

I'm going to heat up a quarter-cup of extra virgin olive oil over medium-high heat.

We're going to heat that oil up until it's just shimmering.

Going to carefully add the bread.

(sizzling) And you'll notice that I tore this bread up.

And the reason we do that is it creates more bumpy surface areas, so we'll get more crispy edges.

I'm just going to go ahead and toss that, coat it with the oil.

I'm going to keep cooking this until it's nicely browned and crisp.

It's going to take about five minutes, stirring it occasionally.

Okay, the bread looks fabulous.

You can see we have a lot of nice dark brown spotting going on.

I can smell it.

It's going to have some great flavor.

I'm going to go ahead and transfer this to my bowl.

Okay, now I've reduced my heat down a little bit to medium.

I'm going to go ahead and quickly toast a couple of tablespoons of chopped pecans.

Just going to keep an eye on these and stir them frequently so they don't burn.

This is only going to take a couple minutes.

Okay, these look great.

I'm going to add these right to the bowl with my bread.

(scraping) Now, to go ahead and finish off our bread mixture here, I'm just going to add some thinly sliced scallions.

We have some wonderful sweet chopped dates.

Goes so well with the pecans.

Then last, I'm just going to add a little bit of water.

This may seem a little counterintuitive, since I just crisped up the bread, but this is actually going to add moisture back.

Essentially, this turns out to be kind of like a stuffing.

And that's all set.

Now we're going to go back to our skillet.

Just going to add a little bit more oil.

Just about a teaspoon.

(bottle clinks) Okay, now I'm going to move the chicken, transfer it over to the skillet.

I'm going to go ahead and put it in breast side up.

(sizzling) Beautiful.

You can hear that skin already starting to crisp up.

Okay, so now I'm going to go ahead and put the chicken in the skillet into our 475-degree oven.

I've got the rack set in the middle position.

It's going to roast for 15 minutes.

And you're going to carefully, using tongs, going to flip it over so it's breast side down.

We're going to let it roast for an additional 15 minutes.

Okay, so now our chicken has been roasting for a half-hour.

I have taken it out of the skillet.

So now I'm going to go ahead and add the bread mixture to the skillet that's full of all of these delicious chicken drippings.

And I'm just going to toss this together.

Okay, now that that's evenly coated, I'm going to carefully transfer my chicken.

Again.

I'm going to use tongs, and I'm going to be careful not to pierce the skin.

It's going back on breast side up.

♪ ♪ And then, these juices I have in this plate, I'm going to go ahead and pour right over.

that's all full of flavor.

Okay, so this is going to go right back into the oven, and we're going to finish cooking till the thickest part of the breast measures 160 degrees.

It's going to take about 12 to 18 minutes.

Okay, so our chicken is finished roasting.

And you can tell, it has a beautiful golden brown color.

and you can just see how crispy that skin is.

When I took it out of the oven, I made sure that I tilted the chicken, because while it was roasting, the inside of the cavity got full of all these delicious juices.

So I just tilted it to pour those juices out, and I transferred it here to this carving platter, and I let it rest for ten minutes.

It's important to let it rest before we carve it.

But before we do that, I'm going to go ahead and finish the salad part of our bread salad.

And you can see our bread is also looking fabulous.

It's soaked up all of those chicken juices, and it's nice and crispy on the edge.

I have these beautiful hearty yet bitter greens.

And we have a mixture here of frisée and radicchio.

I love the radicchio for the color it adds, and it really holds up well to the rich bread stuffing that we have here.

This is about four cups.

And then we're also going to add three tablespoons of white wine vinegar.

This acidity really brightens up the salad.

Okay, just going to toss this together.

Now I'm going to go ahead and transfer this to our serving platter.

There, looks fabulous.

Okay, and now... we're going to go ahead and carve the chicken.

Okay, this looks gorgeous, and I am ready to taste it now.

Going to go ahead and serve up some of this beautiful salad.

♪ ♪ Mm.

This is so good.

I love serving this at dinner parties, because it's basically a one-dish meal, right?

We made the entire thing in the same skillet.

Got salad, you've got the bread stuffing.

You've got this delicious chicken.

So full of flavor.

Mm, absolutely delicious.

This is our skillet-roasted chicken with bread salad.

♪ ♪ - So you've roasted a nice chicken for a Sunday supper.

It's out of the oven, it's been sitting for 20, 25 minutes, so you don't burn yourself when you handle it.

And also it has time to reabsorb some of those juices.

The first thing is a knife.

I would like to use probably a six-inch knife or a five-inch knife.

A big eight or ten-inch chef's knife is just too much knife, it's hard to use.

It's nice if the blade is a little flexible, like a boning knife in particular is good.

So what we're not going to do is cut through bone.

We're going to find the joints, as you would if you were cutting up a raw chicken.

So I'm going to turn it over and start with the wings.

When you do this-- again, we're not cutting through bone, we're just trying to separate, and you find the joint.

So there's the joint, and we'll just cut through like that.

Okay, I'll do the same thing with this as well.

Just cut through a little bit.

You want to find the joint, there's the joint.

and you cut through.

Okay, so that's fine.

Now we're going to do the legs.

Same thing.

We're going to just separate here.

And now the chicken is cooked, it's going to be really easy to pull it back and look for the joint.

There's the joint.

Cut through.

Do the same with this side.

Just cut through the skin a little bit, pull it back.

Find the joint.

You can see the joint right there.

And separate it.

So now we have the breasts.

Now I like to take the breasts off and then slice them for serving.

There's obviously the breast bone in the center.

So I'm going to go just to one side and make a cut down like this.

Now what happens is the bone goes down like this and starts to curve out.

So as you go down, you start to curve your knife as well.

Along the bone, trying to get off as much of the meat as you can.

And we'll do the other breast as well.

So then we have the two whole breasts.

And we'll just slice through.

So there you have both legs.

You can separate the leg from the thigh if you like, the breast cut, and then you have the wings.

So, it's simple to do.

It's easy to eat that way.

You can actually cut the breasts and leave them on the bone.

But I think for serving, it's better to take them off.

So, when you roast a chicken, let it sit for about 25 minutes.

Use a boning knife, six-inch boning knife, if you have one.

Don't use an eight- or ten-inch chef's knife.

And simply look for the joints by pulling the pieces out, using the knife to expose the joints.

Cut through the joints.

Take the breasts off whole, each half, slice them, put them on a platter and you're good to go.

♪ ♪ - So, if you're like me and it's a Tuesday or Wednesday night, you open up the fridge and you see the chicken you bought a few days ago, and you think, "Ugh, chicken, "what am I going to do with you this time to make you more exciting and tasty?"

Well, I've got just the recipe for you.

This is five-spice roasted chicken.

We're going to use this really cool technique to get a ton of flavor into the meat.

And we're going to use some of our favorite pantry powerhouse ingredients, including Chinese five spice powder, to really amp up the flavor.

It's going to get dinner on the table really, really fast.

You barely even have to think about it.

So the first thing that we're going to do is make a marinade, but it's actually more of a seasoning paste.

And we want to do that because it's really nice and thick.

And that's going to kind of cling to the chicken really well and add a lot of flavor.

So the first thing I'm going to put in is some ginger.

I just peeled it and chopped it into smaller pieces.

And then I have a million cloves of garlic.

Just kidding, this is 12 cloves of garlic.

Not only is this going to add a ton of flavor, but this garlic and ginger is going to kind of be the base of this paste and make it really nice and thick.

A little bit of oil, Some soy sauce, which is probably our favorite pantry powerhouse.

It adds salt and umami.

And then our spices.

Chinese five spice powder is a spice blend really popular in Chinese cooking.

Usually has cinnamon, cloves, fennel seeds, sichuan peppercorns, and star anise.

Can sometimes have other spices mixed in, but those are sort of the core ones.

So you're getting all of those different spices with one ingredient.

Then we have some turmeric, a little bit of sugar, and some salt.

So I'm just going to blend this up until it's really nice and mixed together.

(whirring) All right, that looks great.

And if there was any doubt that this was going to season your chicken, you should just smell it, because it smells amazing.

So, we'll just set this aside and come back and prepare our chicken.

All right, so for the chicken, you can use any combination of bone-in, skin-on chicken parts that you would like.

Just keep in mind that breasts and thighs will cook at different rates, so as soon as they come up to temperature, you want to pull them out.

So we've got a combination of breasts, leg, thigh here, and the key technique here is borrowed from a Vietnamese technique for slashing the chicken.

So I'm just going to take each piece of chicken and cut it all the way down, right to the bone.

So that's going to open up more surface area that's going to be able to be seasoned by our seasoning paste.

So this is a great technique for making chicken.

You can also use different seasonings in the seasoning paste to change up the flavors.

It's a good kind of core technique to use the slashing combined with a seasoning paste.

All right, now we're just going to toss this together, get really messy, and make sure that you're getting all of the pieces of chicken coated.

You want to get it under the skin.

You want to get it all over.

All right, so I'm just going to let this sit.

You don't have to let this go very long.

That seasoning paste is really getting deep into the meat.

This will take only a few minutes, just as long as it takes to heat up your oven to 450 degrees.

All right, so oven is heated up to 450, and we're going to transfer the chicken onto a wire rack, which I've misted with cooking spray.

That'll prevent it from sticking and kind of help with cleanup, which is also an important part of a Tuesday night meal.

So you just want to shake off any excess.

But you do want to leave some of that paste on there because that's where all of that flavor is.

♪ ♪ So this will go into the oven until the white meat is 160 degrees.

The dark meat should be 175.

Again, a reminder, if you're cooking different parts, you want to make sure to pull them out as soon as they come up to temperature.

That should take about 30 minutes or so.

And then when they come out, we'll let them rest for a few minutes.

♪ ♪ All right, so the chicken has come out.

I've let it rest for about five minutes.

You can see it's gotten really nice and brown, and you can smell every single one of those spices from that Chinese five spice powder.

It looks fantastic, so I'm going to transfer it onto our serving platter.

Now, I'm a sucker for a dipping sauce with chicken, and this is my favorite kind.

It's spicy, sweet, sour, salty.

And, best of all, it's just going to get whisked together, which is amazing.

So we've got a little bit of soy sauce.

Some sugar.

Lime juice.

A little bit of water, And that's going to kind of help that sugar dissolve.

And give it a whisk.

And then we've got some sliced serrano chili.

The spiciness of that is so nice, and it's got such balance of flavors.

It's a perfect complement to the chicken.

So if you're looking for something to round out the meal, we've got some steamed veggies and some steamed rice.

You could also pile some chopped up veg and potatoes onto a sheet tray and shove it in with the chicken at the same time.

That would be a great option, too.

This is five-spice roasted chicken, my favorite way to make weeknight chicken.

Definitely add this one to your weeknight repertoire.

You can get this recipe and all of the recipes from this season of Milk Street at MilkStreetTV.com.

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