Salt Crust Roasted Chicken with Salsa Lucia
Thursday, July 23, 2009 at 9:59AM
If you been wondering what to do with those 9lbs of Kosher salt you bought on sale that have been sitting in your pantry. Well...wonder no more. I have brought you the solution!
What you do is take those 9lbs of kosher salt, pour it all in a huge bowl, add some water. Then mix it until it looks like snow, slap it on a chicken, and shove it in the oven. Easy, after about an hour presto...a super moist flavorful chicken. Sure there’s a lot of hard salt left over and a bit of a mess. But worth it? Yes, it was. Not an everyday way to roast a chicken, but like I said; if you have a spare 9lbs of salt hanging around and at a loss of what to do with it...try this! Also, make the salsa to go with the chicken; it’s a nice mix of new and fresh flavors. Makes a really cool presentation as well.
Serves 4
Ingredients
1 chicken, about 3 ½ lbs
8-10 fresh thyme sprigs
8-10 whole garlic cloves, unpeeled
1 orange, cut in half
9 lbs kosher salt
2 – 2 ½ cups of water
Preheat oven to 500°F. Rinse chicken and pat dry. Stuff cavity with thyme, garlic, orange (use the leftover orange from the salsa) and truss.
Empty all the salt into a large bowl. Add two cups of water and mix using your hands (make sure you don’t have any sort of cut even the tiniest or you’ll hit the kitchen ceiling when you star mixing...trust me!) until it looks like fluffy damp snow.
Make a 1-inch bed of snow in a roasting pan. Place chicken on top. Insert a thermometer into the thickest part of the thigh.
Cover chicken completely with remaining salt-snow. Pat down so that the bird is completely encased. Roast uncovered for about 1 hour or until the thermometer reads 175°F.
Remove and let rest until the temp rises to 185°F, about 10 minutes.
Crack salt crust with a mallet (it will take a few goes). Lift of large pieces and discard and brush off any remaining salt.
Pull skin from breast and legs and slice off meat. Serve with Salsa.
Salsa Lucia
Makes about 2 cups
Ingredients
½ cup pitted Kalamata olives, minced
1 tablespoon fresh thyme leaves, minced
1 garlic clove, peeled and minced
½ red bell pepper, minced
½ yellow bell pepper, minced
½ small red onion, minced
Grated peel of one orange
Juice of one orange
½ teaspoon red pepper flakes
1-tablespoon light brown sugar
½ cup extra virgin olive oil
Combine the first 8 ingredients. Sprinkle with sugar, stir then whisk in the olive oil at the end. Refrigerate until ready to serve.
It’s All Delicious Notes: This recipe was inspired by Francis Mallmann, one of South America’s finest chefs. The salsa recipe is an adaptation from his book Seven Fires: Grilling the Argentine Way.
Reader Comments (1)
Hi Sally! I really thought you were crazy but as I was flipping through a Joy Of Cooking last night for some ideas on flounder I saw this salt technique for fish! Some kind of thing! It made me realize though it make LOOK crazy--you are a genious!