Roast Chook Thermy Style!

Hi Guys,

So a couple of weeks ago Meg’s rang me and said I had the best dinner last night! It was the Soy Sauce Chicken from the asian recipe book – she said it was beautiful and the best part was seeing the chook spinning around in the bowl 🙂 SO of course I did what any good friend would do – raced to the shops and cooked it for dinner that night. She was right it was really yummy! It got me thinking about steaming a whole chook in the Varoma. I had been thinking about it for a while and then the other day on a what’s cooking at your house post Narelle mentioned that she was doing it! So I picked her brains and got cracking to see what I could come up with. And here it is my Garlic, Herb and Porcini Butter ‘Roast’ Chicken.

INGREDIENTS:

2 Cloves of Garlic (For herb butter)

1/2 bunch of parsley

10g (1 little packet) of Dried Porcini Mushrooms

100g cold butter cubed.

1 whole Chicken – I used one that was 1.1 kg but small ones can be hard to find. Go for as small as you can get to make sure it fits in the varoma.

1 Lemon

3 Cloves of Garlic (whole for inside of the chook)

1 Bottle (375ml) Verjuice

Ingredients All ready to Go.

Sides – 

Greens

Potato

Pumpkin

METHOD – 

BUTTER STUFFING – 

1. Add the garlic cloves (ONLY 2 OF THEM), parsley and dried porcini to the TM bowl and blitz on speed 7 for 10 seconds.
2. Add the chopped cold butter and mix on speed 5 for 10 seconds. Remove from the TM bowl but no need to wash bowl.
3. Prepare Chook.

Garlic, Parsley and Porcini butter.

PREPARING THE CHOOK

1.  Remove the neck. Best to do it with a sharp knife and be careful not to damage the skin on the breast area.
2. Separate the skin from the breast. Be gentle at first – once you start to separate the skin from the meat it should loosen up quickly. Be sure not to damage the skin. I used my fingers but you could use the backside of a teaspoon.
3. Once the skin is separated stuff the herb butter into the chook between the skin and breast. Use all of the mix half on each side. You can now rub the top of the chook to help smooth all of the butter out into the chicken.
4. Chop your lemon into 1/4’s stuff this into the inside of the chook cavity. Add the garlic (3 cloves) into there as well. I could only fit 3/4 of the lemon into my chook as it was a bit smaller.
5. Using a bamboo skewer try to close the neck opening. I did this by passing the skewer through, twisting it and going back through both sides (See pic)
6. If you have some twine you can tie the two legs together to keep the chook tight.

Stuffing the butter into the Chicken.

Showing you the inside 🙂

1. Weigh the Verjuice (Leaving a little to tip over the chook) into the TM bowl.
2. Add water to make it up to 1000g.
3. Place the lid on. Put the Varoma in place.
4. Tip remaining Verjuice over the chook. (see pic)
5. Cook for 40 minutes on Varoma Temp, speed 3.
6. I then added in potatoes and pumpkin in the basket to the TM bowl to lightly cook them. Check the water levels at this time. Cook for a further 20 minutes on Varoma temp, speed 3. At this stage I placed the baking dish in the oven to pre-heat with olive oil in it.
7. Remove from TM and drizzle with olive oil – you can use a brush to make sure the chook is lightly coated. Place into the oven for 20 – 30 minutes to crisp up. I sat the chook onto a (cooling) rack in the tray so that it was elevated from the baking tray. (I hope that makes sense)
8. Place potatoes into hot olive oil baking tray as well. Sprinkle with salt to season.
9. Serve with greens. I have served it with Hong Kong Choy Sum. The sauce was a winner but I am going to find some Kai Lan for the sauce (Recipe to follow)

Sprinkle some Verjuice over the Chook before Cooking.

All snug in the Varoma.

All Ready to Eat! YUM!

So there you have it! The meat was beautiful juicy and tender. I gave the Kids the drumsticks and they loved them. The mushrooms gave it a really earthy flavour. You can mix this recipe any way you feel. You could go an asian flavour with coriander, chilli and garlic or go for a spinach ricotta and garlic if that is something that you would like. Either way to steam it and crisp it up in the oven is a definite winner!!!!

So what flavours do you use to steam up your chook????

Cass

xx