Zuni-Style Chicken

Howdy Food Friends!

Today I'm going to introduce you to different style of cooking chicken. There's more prep involved, but far less cooking time, and the taste is just unbelievable. It's nice to, cause you don't have to roast a huge chicken, it's perfect for a couple or a small family.

This isn't necessarily a unique style of cooking, but just one of many, many ways that you can cook chicken to perfection - depending on your taste. This particular brined high-heat method has been perfected, so it is said, by the Zuni Cafe in New York, hence the name.

Let's get to it, shall we?



Zuni-Style Chicken


Serves 2-4

Ingredients
1 small chicken (max 5lbs or it may not cook properly)
1 tbl sea salt
1 tsp pepper
Handful of FRESH herbs - recommended mix: rosemary, sage, basil, thyme (you can get fresh herbs in the veggie section of most grocery stores now), bunched together and divided into 4 "packets"

OPTIONAL:
2 cloves of fresh garlic, minced and mixed in with the salt and pepper
3/4 tsp celery salt mixed with the salt/pepper
3/4 tsp smoked paprika mixed with the salt/pepper

Directions
1. Prep your chicken: 

Remove any giblets from the cavity, pat chicken dry with paper towel, inside and out, and chuck it on a plate.
   
2. Prep seasonings/herbs:

Put the salt/pepper and any optional spices in the mortar pestle and grind em up good. If you don't have a mortar/pestle put them in a bowl and mix as well as you can, using the back of a spoon to crush larger pieces. Bunch all your herbs together and cut into 4 equal sized bunches.

3. Season the bird:

Slide your finger up under the skin of the chicken around its tail and up near its shoulders to create little pockets, 4 in total. Stick a packet of herbs into each little pocket. If you have extra herbs I recommend sticking them under the skin over the breast and inside the bird. Take the salt/pepper spice mix and rub it all over the chicken, especially where the bird is fattest
   
4. Let the magic happen:

Cover bird loosely with plastic wrap and stick in the fridge for 24 - 48 hours. Now science works its magic, sucking the moisture out of the bird, seasoning it with all the spices and herbs you used, then putting it back. YUM!

5. Cook the bird:

Preheat oven to 475° F for 90 minutes, with the empty pie pan in the oven. This is an important step. Take chicken out of fridge and pat it dry again. When 90 minutes at 475° have passed, take the pie pan out of the oven and put the chicken in it, breast-side up. Chuck in oven for 25 minutes. The chicken will sizzle when you put it in the pan, this is good.

After 25 minutes, or if the exterior of the chicken is all golden, flip the chicken. This may require some jiggery-pokery on your part. Try sticking a poultry fork in the cavity and shimmying a spatula underneath to get you there.

Roast for 15 minutes, flip again, roast for 10 minutes.

Check the temperature in the thick part of the thigh. We're looking for 180° F. If you have hit it, pull out the chicken. If not, stick the bird back in for 5 minutes then check again.

Pull out the bird and immediately tent with foil. 

Let it rest for at least 30 minutes, then enjoy!


And that's Zuni Chicken. You will not regret cooking your bird this way. Your friends and family will ask for it again and again.