[Sca-cooks] 7 lb roasting hen questions

[Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius]

On Jan 16, 2009, at 11:59 AM, Michael Gunter wrote:

>
> We are having our Heirs over for dinner tonight so I figured
> a nice comforting meal would be good. I found a 7 1/2 lb
> roasting hen at the grocery store and figured that would be
> about perfect. Looking at the cooking instructions on the
> wrapper it says to put the hen on a rack in a dutch oven or
> roaster with a tight fitting lid, add water to bottom of the
> pan then cover and roast for around 3 1/2 hours. Once
> cooked to discard the skin and serve.
>
> I figured I would just roast it like a small turkey or a really
> big chicken so this kind of set me back. Is the skin bad on
> a large roasting chicken other than dietary restrictions?
>
> I was planning on making a lemon-sage butter and rubbing
> that on the meat under the skin, stuffing the cavity with
> onion, lemon and herbs then roasting it in the usual fashion.
>
> Does anyone have any experience with large roasting chickens?

It sounds as if you might have some sort of large baking fowl,  
something in between a roaster and a boiling fowl. Note the  
instructions for a tight-fitting lid and added water; I suspect this  
bird will be somewhere in between braised and steamed.

If this isn't just your typical "oven-stuffer roaster" with a slightly  
odd set of instructions, it may need that long, moist cooking to  
tenderize it, in which case the skin might not be all that appetizing  
-- not as tender as boiled chicken skin, but also not as brown and  
tasty as the skin of a roast chicken.

Or maybe you've got some instructions written by someone with an odd  
sense of humor...

Sounds to me like a good candidate for fricassee.

Adamantius






"Most men worry about their own bellies, and other people's souls,  
when we all ought to worry about our own souls, and other people's  
bellies."
			-- Rabbi Israel Salanter