What happened to the flavor? (white wine, beer, ingredients, healthy)

[shiphead]

So... I made baked chicken tonight and it smelled wonderful the entire time it cooked. Its two halves of a whole chicken. So... I put this rosemary and garlic rub all over each of the chicken. Baked them for 20 on each side. The skin came out fine, inside achieved 165 degrees, but... the meat inside has no flavor.

I was hoping the rub would sink into the chicken or is this a 24 hours in a zip lock bag thing? help!

[Spraynard Kruger]

Sometimes, people just end up with a flavorless piece of meat or whole chicken.

The big chicken conglomerates randomly select chickens to extract all the flavor from and use that to inject other birds. You got unlucky.

The truth is that wet rubs don't penetrate much more than the skin on a bird, even after 24 hours.


If you can plan a head 24 hours time, brine the bird. Most commercially sold chickens are already brined (usually described as having up to some percentage of the weight as a solution) and are tasty, but brining usually dosn't hurt. Brines are wonderful for whole chickens because the process of osmosis works a little better, especially if you make a few incisions by poking the breast meat with a fork. The brining also helps denature some of the proteins allowing the flavor of the brine to penetrate. You can flavor the brine with rosemary, garlic, citrus, wine, chili, what have you, just make sure to use kosher or sea salt. The brining time should be around 24 hours and maybe slightly less for a bird that has the solution added.

You could also inject the bird with spices, but I'm not a big fan of that process. Most of the injection seeps out. I skip that.

Another thing to do with roast chicken is to create something like a pan sauce (in this case, you could use rosemary, garlic, lemon and butter or oil). Take the ingredients you wanted to infuse the bird with by combining a little bit of each with the drippings over low heat.

I like to carve up a roast chicken, make medallions out of the breast meat, separate the wings, thighs and legs, arrange them on a platter and then coat the meat with the seasoned drippings. It's much lighter than a gravy and tastes good.

I also like making something really flavorful as a side for chicken, like baked parsley garlic fries. I have even used tater tots with the same application. With something garlicky and savory on the side, it can make the chicken a little more enjoyable.

If you are short for time, you might want to consider something like a full force, in your face chimichurri sauce.

[Miaiam]

A marinade would probably fix this.

You might also want to add a little white wine to your chicken. I usually add just a bit, and it significantly enhances its flavor, imo.

Or you can always make chicken cacciatore, imo the best recipe when you want to cook chicken. Now that is a flavorful dish.

[notfriedkasei]

I like to do several things at once, haha. First, roughly chop up some onion and garlic - plenty of it - to fill the cavity of the bird. (Yes, this requires a whole chicken.) You can put in whatever spices you want as well, obviously. Anything aromatic or strongly flavored. I've been wondering about ginger lately ... anyway. Make a tasty marinade of some sort, lots of wine or vinegar and spices, a little sugar is how I do it, and rub it all over the chicken *underneath* the skin. Olive oil and spices outside the skin. I cover it for the first part of the cooking and then broil it for ten minutes or so toward the end until the skin is crispy.

If you aren't doing the whole bird, there are only two things I've found will ensure good tasting meat. First, you can marinate ahead of time. I like to do overnight, some people only like an hour. The other thing is to buy good-quality meat from healthy chickens raised on proper farms, not giant chicken factories. A healthy bird that spent its life doing chicken things, getting proper nutrition from eating grass and bugs and seeds, will taste much better than something that could barely move and got some unnatural soy/corn feed that doesn't resemble anything it should be eating.

[Pivot Point]

Season and rub seasonings into the bird with a bit of oil, cover, and let it sit over night. Stuff the bird with chopped onions, garlic, bell pepper & whatever other aromatics you like. As it cooks, baste it with the drippings. Try adding a little white wine or orange juice to the drippings for extra flavor.

[le roi]

i usually brine the chicken. saturate warm water with salt, herbs, and a bit of sugar. let the water cool, and then immerse the bird in the water. overnight is the max.. i think a few hours for a fowl would be fine.

i also like the idea of stuffing the cavity. lemons, limes, or oranges cut into quarters work well. or you can open a beer can, drink half, and put the other half in the cavity while cooking.. just make sure it doesn't spill inside the bird.

[TheJagMan]

What assuming the increase of consumption of garlic over the year. People are using more of it and using it dishes didn't normally contain garlic. Point being, our garlic tolerance has increased

[Spraynard Kruger]

The only dilemma that arises from stuffing the cavity of any bird is the longer cooking times required, which can dry out the breast and legs. This also creates steam which can interfere with browning. But it can be flavorful, sometimes it helps to tent the bird with foil to prevent a stuffed bird from drying out. Remove the tent in the final 20 min of cooking to help browning.