Hello! My name is Shannon Overmiller, executive Chef at The Majestic.

Today, we’ll be demonstrating for you roasted chicken. And now I would like to show you how we roast the chicken properly on a bed of herbs. This is another layering stuff that enhances the flavor of the chicken and ensures the flavor seeps throughout the meat and the bones of the chicken. It’s just a method I think that adds one extra layer of flavor.

So now we have our chicken, it’s been seasoned, brined, coated with oil, and stuffed with butter on both sides. What I’d like to do while roasting at 3750, take a roasting pan. Of course you’ll use your roasting pan at home. And then you take a bed of herbs, herbs of your choice, a few sprigs of this, a few sprigs of that.

I like to put a couple of bay leaves, some fresh garlic, whole cloves of garlic, some sage, that is a wonderful bed of to roast your chicken on, the flavor comes throughout the skin. Simply take our chicken, after it’s been rubbed with canola, place it in the oven for approximately 35 to 40 minutes.

Once that is done, you don’t need to mess with it or leave it alone. You want to achieve a crispy skin and that’s what canola oil helps you with. Any other oil or fat it tends to have too much moisture in it and milk solids and olive oil has a lower smoking temperature so you’ll burn before you’ll get crisp.

Canola has a firm, crisp texture because of the high smoking point in it and lack of mild solids. Once your chicken is roasted, this is what you come out with which I’ve done previously. So we know this one is done, I checked it earlier. You must let this rest. What you want to do when you’re roasting a chicken is you see crisp skin. That’s what you want, that’s a beautiful roasted chicken.

You want to feel the breast, it’s still tender but it’s not hard because you don’t want it too dry. And a way to check the chicken, first you can feel your breast. You see a slight give to the breast. You don’t want it to be too firm because that means your chicken is dry, and it’s over cooked. This is about perfect, the tenderness of the chicken.

Also the method is, again, is to go to the thigh where the bone is. You want your juices to run clear. You do not want to see any pink or red in them, that means the chicken is not cooked yet. Another way to sample this is to insert a skewer or meat fork into the juice of the chicken and as you see, all of the juices are running clear. Another way to sample as well is to feel that, take it out and set it on the tip of your lip, and if it’s warm, then the chicken is cooked.