Last night I believe I came up with a decent upside down roast chicken. Sure it always tastes great, the dark meat cooks faster, the breast meat is juicy, but this time it LOOKED decent.
Yeah yeah, I know. For years people have been roasting birds upside down to help with browning, cooking and juicy tenderness. But every time "I" did it, the darned bird came out looking like hell. The breast was always imprinted with the damn wire rack. Or the breast meat was parboiled in it's own juices and was soggy (like the back or thighs normally are).
I have a solution! And it cost less than ten dollars.
Drum roll please! You need a trivet that isn't a damn wire rack. And Lodge Cast Iron has what you need. Lodge's cast iron trivet is a low slung little rig that keeps the breast meat out of the fat, allows hot air to circulate and best of all, doesn't imprint the roasty chick chick.
The chicken you see above you is an Empire Kosher Chicken that has some extra virgin olive oil, coarse ground sea salt and some fancy Gilroy Garlic Festival spicey rub massaged into the skin of the chicken. The oven was set to 350 for an hour on the upside down chicken, then yanked the heat to 375 (ooooh I'm so daring) with the chicken sitting upright for the last half hour. Other than the breast meat being a little FLAT, it looks fine. The taste of the meat itself was remarkable, and by that I mean my wife made a remark that the chicken this time was quite juicy and yummy. We eat a lot of chickens and it must take a good chicken for her to say something positive.
Upside down chicken. Is that related to "individually wrapped!" It is definitely special attention. Have to agree, the photo of the chicken above is very decent and the meat looks perfect, not wrecked in any way. You have discovered a simple but sure method. Even rotisseried chickens don't always make it through the cooking process without some damage. But your sample looks good enough to eat! I like the spices and herbs you use too, especially the Gilroy garlic rub. Doesn't your web site come with taste samplers???
See... I *knew* there was a reason why I married you!
;)