How to roast a chicken

1. Use a 2½ to 3½ pound chicken for juicy roasting
2. Remove innards
3. Wash the chicken
4. Remove wishbone.
5. Cut off the wing tips
6. Season well with salt and pepper, inside and out
7. Slide herbs in between the skin and the breast, and also the legs. Try not to rip the skin.
8. Place butter under the skin with the same technique
9. Tie drumsticks together and pull string to the neck, tying between neck and breast for a snug knot.
10. In a shallow roasting pan, roast chicken in a 425° degree oven for 45 minutes to an hour, depending on the size of the bird.

• 2½ to 3½-pound chicken
• Butter
• Fresh herbs, rosemary, thyme or sage if you like
• Salt
• Pepper
• String

Boning knife

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Cotton butcher's twine

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Roasting pan

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Plastic cutting board

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Hi, I’m Mark Bauer from the French Culinary Institute. I’m going to show how to roast a chicken. First, we are going to remove the wishbone by pulling the skin back and scraping along the side of each side of the breast. Same thing on the other side. Once you hear the squishing noise, you are ready to go. I put my fingers along the side of the wishbone and go all the way to the top and remove it.

Then I remove the wings, the wing tips. At this point, I’m ready to season it. These are the basic ingredients to season with: oil, salt, pepper. Sometimes some rosemary or some garlic. With garlic, you have to be careful because it tends not to be cooking if you put it too deep into the chicken. You can wash it first if you want. I season it very well on the inside with salt and pepper, and on the outside, even though a lot of the salt will come off while roasting. I can add some herbs if I want to by sliding, see my finger goes right below the skin, sliding the herb right below. I actually like that the best because you will give a scent to the breast meat as well as — on the legs I can do that also. Go as deep as you can with the herb without ripping the skin, if possible.

At this point, I could use rosemary for the legs. I will come from the breast side, from the back and put my finger right on the thigh over here, so I slide my rosemary right along, all the way up to the thigh and this will give a beautiful scent. Same on the other side, up the back, pull my finger all the way through and then slide the rosemary through on the thigh. Here we go, right on the thigh.

And you can use some butter under the skin by just using the same steps as earlier for the herbs. You can put garlic if you want to, but I don’t like the garlic because it doesn’t cook as evenly; so it is better to use herbs and butter.

Great, at this point, I am going to use a string. I slide the string right below the drumsticks, then change sides, do a criss-cross and tie it together; and then I pull the string between the neck and the breast, tie it firmly a couple of times, and it will stay that way. Double knot and finished. I just want to show you that the string is placed between the breast and the neck so it is nice and snug.

So now the chicken is ready to be roasted in an oven at 425 degrees for about 45 minutes to an hour — that is for a bird about 2-1/2 to 3-1/2 pounds. That is how you prepare a roasted chicken.