Transcription
I'll be showing you a roast chicken recipe to die for. Hold the drum; the slices stay through. But first, like any good chef, I'm always looking to get great ingredients at the right price. My shopping mantra is simple: first, rely on your senses. Make sure whatever you're buying looks, smells, and really feels good. If you get the chance, taste it before you buy it.
Second, is to recognize that knowledge is crucial. The more you know about where your ingredients come from and how they're produced, the better. So ask lots of questions and learn—you're never too old to learn from experts. And when it comes to buying great birds, the one person who knows what to look for is award-winning, fifth-generation master butcher, Dani L Lib.
Game poultry is a great meat because there's many different types of birds. It's worth tasting the variation and flavors between different birds—the difference is massive. Turkey's a great lean meat that's available all year round, not just for Christmas. Anybody who's worried about eating fatty meats, it's a really healthy, flavorful meal. Game birds—people don't try them often enough. Once they're shot, they're hung up for a little while—a few days at least—it means that the meat's going to be more tender. All adds flavor to the birds. We've got a wood pigeon and a Red Lake Partridge, both really good and cooked really quickly.
When you're buying a chicken, some of the things to look out for is obviously the smell. And when you're smelling a good-quality chicken, you can tell the difference. The skin's a nice white color, and it smells like a fresh chicken—a fresh chicken smell. When you're buying from a good butcher, you'll find you tend to get the giblets as well, which is basically the neck and other organs. This is great for making gravy. Once you have cooked it, you can use all the offcuts for other things: stir-fries, curries, pasta dishes. Save the bones; use the bones for stocks and soups—a really packed full of flavor. And remember, there are lots of different breeds of chicken; all have different characteristics and flavors. So shop around and find the ones you love.
Here are three of my all-time favorites: the Label Anglais. These come from an old British breed; they've got smaller breasts, but the meat's delicious. The Black Leg—a fantastic French variety, succulent with bags of flavor and really meaty thighs. And the Poulet de Bresse—this is the Rolls-Royce of chickens, rich, gamey, and delicious—one for special occasions. I think people should maybe try and buy less meat, but aim for the best quality. You're only going to get out what you put in. By putting the best quality into a dish, you're going to get the best results, no matter how seasoned a chef you are. There are always new ingredients and recipes to get fired up about. So if a tired old recipe's getting you down, spice it up with fresh ideas and flavors.
My next recipe is an old classic: roast chicken, but with a simple twist. It takes on a new life, and it's guaranteed to impress. One of the things I love about cooking, and that keeps me excited after 25 years behind the stove, is that there's always something new to learn every day: new ingredients, new techniques, and new cuisines. Start off with a stuffing. It's amazing how exciting a stuffed roast chicken can be because it keeps the chicken incredibly moist and gives a delicious texture inside the bird.
We'll start off with cured chorizo. This is a traditional Spanish sausage, and it's garlicky, spicy, incredibly meaty; that gives a little bit of sort of richness to the stuffing. Get our chorizo in; start cooking that down and get all those oils out. Touch the water all over there to get it going right. Onions, chop the onions to the chorizo. And in a matter of seconds, they'll change color as they soak up all the flavor—but lovely spiciness has been stolen from that sausage. Now the onions smell incredible. Garlic—garlic in fresh thyme. Just hold it down and your fingers on there, and it's a really nice way. I've taken off all those nice, fragrant little thyme flowers. You can hear it cracking in the background; these are cannellini beans, and they're waxy, very soft, so delicious, but very dense. But for stuffing, they're so robust; nothing breaks down. Drain them off; in there, they're gonna take on all that juice as well from this chorizo. No season now because if they're dense, so they need some help. That looks like it's a dish on its own. I'm doing up sweet now—sweeten things up a little bit. Tomatoes, half-dried; in that sweetness up the stuffing, beautiful. The stuffing is ready. Look at the color; everything but Spanish; it looks delicious.
Now, stuffing the chicken. I like taking off these little knuckles; as the chicken cooks, the skin stretches over the bone; you can get a really nice drum. Take off those little wing tips as well. Salt, pepper—so important. Now your stuffing; when I go right inside the chicken, push it down. This really helps to cook the bird evenly because you're pushing out all the empty spaces in the carcass. Take a nice large lemon; push the lemon in. Pick up the parcels; nose and the skin over. Olive oil on top, salt, pepper, teaspoon of paprika; sprinkle it on, and then put your hands sort of rub that in. You see what the paprika is doing to the chicken—foot; it's like a sweet, spicy marinade. It's like you roasted yet, but it looks delicious. 400ml of white wine, same quantity of water—that helps the chicken to steam. Chicken in; be generous with the thyme sprigs. Make sure the foil is folded tightly around the roasting tray so the chicken steams in the oven, keeping it moist and juicy. Into the oven; cook for 1 hour at 180 degrees with a foil on. Advice: take it out and remove the foil lid, then give it another 30 minutes to crisp up that skin. It's so important to make sure you take that foil off with half an hour to go. Beautiful. Pierce the lemon; squeeze it in. That delicious gravy; mix that into the tray and sip that. That's a really nice, fragrant, lemony, spiced roasting juices to finish.
Before we cut up the chicken, take out amazing stuffing. Mm-hmm, incredible. I'll have that. We chicken over potatoes any day. And then just get your chicken roasting juices. Now to cut the chicken out: hold the drum; the slice straight through. And there's a wonderful drum under thigh; through the wishbone off; slice with the point at an angle so you can see the texture—that amazing roast chicken. Just take my cooking juices; it gives you a nice sort of lemony flavor over my chicken. There you go—a delicious, very charming stuffed roast chicken. Please Sub & Like. :) You