The Easiest Cast-Iron Roast Chicken & Potatoes Ever | From The Test Kitchen | Bon Appétit

like this like incredible [Music] the Genesis of this dish came about because we were trying to think of what is the simplest possible recipe for roast chicken like so simple that you could text it to a friend oven temperature enough salt and the cooking vessel I think have a lot to do with your ultimate outcome so first step before you season the bird is to Pat it dry this is already looking fairly dry drier meat is going to get Browner the other thing that you can do is to season the chicken in advance I like to season the cavity first there's no real art or science to this but just kind of get it in there that is going to season the meat from the inside out so now that's just going to sit there and rest for a sec okay so tying the legs it's as much like a presentation thing you know as anything else also that'll mean the chicken's a little bit more upright and um and I like to tuck the wingtips behind and underneath the breast an additional little coating of fat is not essential but fat helps transfer heat and a light coating like this is going to better channel the heat of the oven to the skin of the chicken it's going to give you a little bit more rendering and it's going to give you a little bit more Browning oh we didn't even do the most important thing we got to turn the oven on hot oven all right and I'm going to preheat the oven with the cast iron right in there all right let's go get a cast iron I'm usually looking for one it's like nicely seasoned you know but no like kind of like too many crusties like around the edge there this is looking pretty good actually you know what adjust the rack now okay like before the oven's hot this is a little bit higher than I need it to be all right so we're good there wait no we're not good there the cast iron needs to go in the oven great talk all right now we're good I thought this was a simple roast chicken so we're just gonna melt some butter so it's like melted and just like slightly cooled okay wonderful now thinly slicing the potatoes so thinner sliced potatoes are gonna equal crispier potatoes up to a point you don't have to stress making these as thin as possible it's more about getting them like a pretty consistent 1 8 of an inch thick than it is about anything else don't try to saw back and forth try you know to just start at the tip and work your way down okay next step picking leaves off of time you can basically just like run your fingers down and strip the whole thing like in one go that is like the time dream it will never ever be this good I have peaked and this video is now over got our melted butter going in obviously the reason for melting the butter is it's going to allow the butter to be dispersed evenly through the potatoes so that's just a tablespoon of olive oil and we just want like a critical mass of fat coating all of these potatoes it's going to create crispier edges it's going to create more Browning and it's frankly worth taking the time so I'm going to put the time in here it's worth taking the time um to really move these around by hand and make sure the fat is coating all of the cut faces some freshly ground back pepper maybe a pinch more salt okay so we are ready to put all this in the oven so this is a hot Skillet it's preheated we can drop this chicken in using a hot preheated cast iron you're starting the cooking process underneath the chicken very quickly rather than putting it into a cold pan and having to have the whole thing come up together just giving it like a little squirt of oil just it's going to be further insurance that the chicken's not going to stick to the skillet so now potatoes can just go in there they're going to cook for a good long time so they will cook through so it starts out looking like a lot of potatoes but they're going to shrink okay and then this can go back in and it's heavy so just be careful oh oh wow this is what I'm talking about you've got like these wonderful Crispy Crunchy edges top and bottom because like you've also got the potatoes that are in contact with that hot Skillet color looks nice skin looks good everything's like pleasantly rendered you know Underside looks good feeling it know what I love about this like you know normally you roast chicken with vegetables one thing is kind of excelling at the expense of another both things here are looking pretty slamming okay the other thing that I like about this recipe even though you know of course like you're going to get a little bit of like excess sort of liquid coming out of the chicken here but that you can just use to sort of dress the carved meat and potatoes like as it goes onto your plate it's going to be concentrated it's going to be super flavor some in fact we don't have to wonder right usually so it's easy to be intimidated by carving a chicken frankly however you do it even if the way you do it is by like ripping hunks of meat off of the bird that's fine I prefer generally speaking um to start by taking the legs off okay you can see there's still plenty of moisture in there okay and resting it not carving into it immediately after it comes out of the oven is going to help retain that moisture now once the legs are out of the way it's a lot easier to carve the breast meat off the bones honestly my favorite part is just like when your hands are all like chickeny it just like run them along the bird and just like grab a little bite honestly that's like the benefit of like you know being the one who cooks all the time you get all those like tasty little bites nobody even has to know about so now you've got like your beautiful carved roast chicken and you still have all that wonderful potatoey business now this looks like a little bit of like a scene from Dexter but that's cool we're gonna get cleaned up and then we can uh plate all right these undersides of potato where it's kind of roasted you know and like captured like the direct heat at the bottom of the cast iron the range of flavors and textures here is just absolutely Supreme all right chicken is plated and as do you want to come over try some roast chicken I guess this is as good a time as any to ask do you like roast chicken I love roast chicken okay because I was about to get real awkward if you said anything else do you want the wing or do you want like no wings I'll take no Wing okay I'm definitely intrigued by the sort of like crispy potato action going on here really loving the crunch in there the butter the herb sometimes you get like great roast chicken but it's hard to build in like a side dish with it at the risk of puffing myself up here I feel like you've like you know you like you're able to get both it's very family meal it feels very like I'm about to sit down with my family you know everyone's getting a little part I think there's something in it for everyone but it comes together very well I think it's really genius to have the potatoes under the chicken and sort of like all of those juices and like that fat coming down this is a really simple very approachable recipe that I truly think most people can tackle and you know doing it like in the cast iron setup like that's something that's like an easy like very inexpensive tool to have in your kitchen that is gonna completely change the way you do like more than just roast chicken but also roast chicken just drew this Jessica Drew this oh it's a diagram of the chicken I need like a compass Legend on there is this North where's true north

Channel: Bon Appétit

Views: 341,004

Keywords: best roast chicken, best roast chicken recipe, bon app, bon appetit, bon appetit test kitchen, cast iron chicken, cast iron roast chicken, cast-iron chicken, chicken recipe, chris morocco, crispy potatoes, crispy potatoes recipe, easy recipe, easy roast chicken, easy roast chicken recipe, food, from the test kitchen, how to make roast chicken, make crispy potatoes, make roast chicken, roast chicken, roast chicken in cast iron, roast chicken recipe

Id: jCMz9RSotZM

Length: 8min 32sec (512 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 05 2022