Rock Salt Roast Chicken Recipes

Steps:

• Preheat oven to 450 degrees F (230 degrees C).
• Dry the outside of chicken with paper towels. Tuck the wing tips underneath the chicken and place into a large oven-safe skillet. Use scissors to snip off the tail, if desired.
• Generously sprinkle kosher salt into the cavity and over the back and sides of chicken. Tie chicken legs together with kitchen twine. Sprinkle salt generously over the breasts, coating them thoroughly. Wipe excess salt out of skillet with paper towels.
• Bake chicken in the preheated oven until an instant-read meat thermometer inserted into a thigh, not touching bone, reads 160 degrees C (70 degrees C), 50 to 60 minutes. Remove from skillet to a serving platter and let rest 5 to 10 minutes.
• Blot about 90 percent of the chicken fat from the skillet with a paper towel held with tongs, leaving the browned bits of food in the skillet. Place skillet over medium-high heat and add thyme leaves. Cook and stir until thyme is wilted, 1 to 2 minutes. Pour lemon juice, chicken broth, and water into skillet, stirring until the browned bits dissolve and the sauce has reduced by about half, 1 to 2 minutes.
• Reduce heat to low, add cold butter, and stir until butter has begun to melt. Add any accumulated juices from the chicken to sauce and continue to stir until butter is incorporated and sauce is slightly thickened, about 1 minute. Remove from heat and season with salt, black pepper, and cayenne pepper to taste. Spoon sauce over chicken to serve.

Steps:

• Pat dry chicken with paper towels. Holding a 5-finger pinch of salt and positioning your hand at least 10" above chicken, evenly rain salt down over chicken. Repeat with several more pinches of salt until both inside and outside of chicken are covered with salt (be generous and make sure to get inside all the nooks and crannies). Place chicken on a wire rack set inside a rimmed baking sheet and chill uncovered at least 8 hours and up to 1 day.
• Let sit at room temperature 1 hour.
• Preheat oven to 425°F. Roast chicken until an instant-read thermometer inserted into the thickest part of chicken thigh registers 165°F, 40-55 minutes. Transfer chicken to a cutting board and let rest 15 minutes before carving.

Steps:

• Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Line a 9X13-inch pan with foil for easy cleanup and pour the rock salt into the pan, evening it into a thick, smooth layer. Remove and discard anything (like neck, gizzards, etc.) from inside the chicken, if included, and rinse the chicken inside and out, draining thoroughly. Generously salt and pepper the inside and outside of the chicken. With a fork, poke holes all over the lemon. Put the lemon, parsley and garlic into the cavity of the chicken. Secure the chicken closed with a toothpick or two. Place the chicken on the bed of salt. Bake for 40 minutes. Carefully flip the chicken over and bake for another 40-50 minutes until cooked through (the chicken should register 165 degrees on an instant-read thermometer at the thickest part of the chicken breast).

Steps:

• Season the chicken inside and out with salt and pepper. If you have time, refrigerate the chicken, uncovered, for an hour, or overnight.
• Heat oven to 450 degrees. Place chicken breast-side up in a roasting pan or large ovenproof skillet. Stuff cavity with herbs and tie the legs together with kitchen twine. (If you don't have twine, leave the legs as they are.)
• Roast 50 minutes, then baste chicken with pan juices. Continue roasting until chicken's juices run clear when skin is pierced with a knife, 5 to 10 minutes longer. Let stand 10 minutes before carving.

Steps:

• Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
• Season the meat with pepper.
• Insert a meat thermometer into the middle of the thickest part of the lean muscle.
• Slather the meat in mustard, until it is entirely covered.
• Cover a roasting pan in foil and then put a thick layer of rock salt on the bottom of the pan, about the size of the bottom of the roast.
• Set the bottom of the roast on the salt, and press down to embed the salt into the mustard.
• Completely cover the remainder of the roast with rock salt, pressing it into the mustard.
• A lot of salt will fall off into the pan, but that doesn't hurt.
• Roast eighteen minutes per pound for rare beef, twenty-two minutes for medium, and twenty-five minutes for well done.
• After the first fifteen minutes of roasting time, check the roast to make sure that the coating is still intact.
• Repair any cracks or holes, using any left over salt and mustard.
• Double check the degree of doneness on the meat thermometer near the end of the roasting time.
• Let stand 15 minutes.
• The roast will be encased in a'shell'.
• Hit the shell sharply with the back of a knife, and it will crack open and start to fall off.
• Remove the shell, and place the roast on a cutting board.
• Slice, and serve with horseradish sauce.
• Note: The roast will continue to cook if the hard shell is left on after roast is removed from the oven.
• One six-and-one-half-pound roast removed after roasting for fifteen minutes per pound reached a rare degree of doneness in twenty-five minutes with the coating left on.