Hi! I am chef Todd Gray and I am showing you how to prepare Whole Roasted Chili Rub Chicken. So let's get started. I have got a beautiful three pound chicken here from Harris Teeter. I will get this opened up, and I will show you what to look for in a good fresh bird. I remove the packaging, and we can see it is a nice, fresh, plump bird.
You have got no discoloration in the skin, smells nice and fresh, nothing sticky. Look how nice and plump the bird is? Put it back on the tray here. The first thing I want to do is to take this chicken and open up the carcass slightly. Take these rosemary branches, I have about three. Stick those snuggly inside the cavity, and then just reposition the legs to keep that secure.
So now that we have the bird stuffed, we are going to make our rub. Let's get started by combining a little brown sugar, chilli powder, almost a little South Western inspiration here, olive oil. Create this rub now, it almost becomes a paste. We need salt and pepper, of course. Okay, our sea salt. So let's get all these combined being sure that the brown sugar is nice and dissolved with the chili powder. We have got about a teaspoon of brown sugar and a tablespoon of chili powder and about two tablespoons of olive oil and season to taste.
So now that all this sugar, and chili powder, and olive oil, and salt, and pepper is well combined, I am going to take it and evenly pour it over the chicken, rubbing it in with our spoon here. I think it fall naturally. Make sure that we cover all of the meat. Make sure that it worked that into the skin, working on the legs, almost working it into the bird itself.
We just finished putting the rub on to the chicken. Now let's place it into our pot. Taking our bird very carefully, putting it down inside the casserole and then beginning to start with the butter. So we start placing these little knobs of butter over and around the chicken, rubbing some of it in. The butter is going to help the caramelization. It can also provide richness, gives us a little nuttiness to the finished product. You don't have to put too much on there. It will melt as it roasts our chicken on the knob up inside that leg there. Here we go. A little bit more on this side.
So now that our chicken has its rub, I am going to place the chicken into a 350 degree convection oven. I am going to leave the lid off for the first half of the cooking time to get good caramelization and good color, and halfway through the cooking I will place the lid on the top.
So our chicken has been in the oven for about an hour. We will take off the lid. Oh! Look at that. Beautiful roasted bird. So we can see we have nice, good caramelization. Check the breast, be sure it's tight. Be sure that the juices are running clear from the leg. If you want to check to make sure, you can always use a meat thermometer. Insert the thermometer between the breast and the leg and it should be up to a 160 degrees internal temperature on the chicken.
Now, let's take our chicken out. Getting it by the carcass inside, I am moving it carefully on to the platter. For a little presentation, we will put a little rosemary around as to give it some color. We can serve this family style at the table. Take a little of this natural braising liquid, pour a little bit more over the chicken. A little bit of that melted almost chili butter. Here we have it, Whole Roasted Chilly Rub Chicken. There is nothing quite as good as a roasted bird, perfect.