Pot Roast with Le Creuset

Since the last giveaway in December, I’ve had people asking me what’s the fuss about Le Creuset ? Even my cousin and aunty!

Well I haven’t been cooking a million things in it to give it justification, but I’ve made some stuffs, like pot roast, stew etc. In fact, lately I haven’t cooked much. But LC is a gem in the kitchen. Before you go around saying, aiyah it’s so expensive… Well it is! It’s only so expensive in Malaysia because of tax.

Le Creuset (pronounced as Lay Crew-Say) is a French cookware manufacturer best known for its colorful enameled cast iron French ovens, also known as “casseroles”, or “dutch ovens”. The company also makes many other types of premium cookware, from sauce pans to tagines. Having being around for 85 years, these pots are forged by hand in the original foundry in Northern France.

The enameled cast iron absorbs and spreads heat evenly, creating a balanced (read: forgiving) cooking environment. And its sand-colored interior is easy on the eyes — in more ways than one — making it easier to monitor food as it cooks, preventing burning or sticking. Cooking for friends and family is a pleasure, and thanks to the smooth, glass-like surface of our enameled cast iron that prevents foods from sticking, so is cleaning up.*
*All it takes is warm soapy water.

When Le Creuset first started, there was hardly such a thing as color in the kitchen. I can imagine! Today they are probably the oldest continuous manufacturer of enameled cast iron cookware, and to own Le Creuset is to be in the company of passionate cooking enthusiasts around the globe. Le Creuset’s products are used the world over, from chefs in the finest restaurant kitchens to in-the-know home cooks, and is lovingly passed down for future generations to discover and enjoy. *hello future children, please use with care*

This recipe of ‘roast’ chicken, is more of a pot roast, where the chook is buried in the pot, then covered with a lid and roast. Because  one of Le Creuset’s pros is it retains the flavour and smell in the pot itself, the aroma is intoxicatingly good when you lift the lid up. And, because there’s a lid, it retains the water content, thus making the chicken more tender and soft. On the last 10 minutes, I lifted the lid away and pumped up the temperature to give it come colour.

And to make it more yummeh, I stuffed herbs (tarragon, thyme & rosemary) butter between the skin and flesh. Giving it an extra moist-ness (if that word even exist) but really, who can deny butter. 😉

Herbs Butter Pot Roast Chicken

 

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Ingredients

• 1.5kg free range whole chicken
• 60g butter
• bunch of mixed herbs (mainly tarragon, bits of rosemary and thyme)
• pinch of salt
• 2 carrots
• 3 sticks celery
• 1 big red onion
• 2 whole garlic
• 1 whole lemon
• 1 clove
• 1 bayleaf
• 2 sprigs thyme
• ¼ cup chicken broth
• extra butter
• salt & pepper to season
• olive oil

Instructions

1. Wash and pat dry chicken. Preheat oven to 200 C
2. Finely chop herbs and mix with butter with a spoon. Add a pinch of salt.
3. Lightly, using fingers, rub in the herb butter between the skin and flesh of the chicken, massaging it as well.
4. Use a fork and poke the lemon all over. Stuff it inside the cavity of the chicken.
5. Once done, truss the chicken legs and wings (optional).
6. Roughly chop carrots, celery and onion and lay it at the bottom of the french oven.
7. Slice the whole garlic horizontally and mix in with the carrots and celery. Using the end of a clove, poke thru a bayleaf and onto a carrot piece Lightly bruise thyme and place it in the pot.
8. (optional) Heat a pan with olive oil. Colour the skin of the chicken by slightly pan frying it. If you skip this step, you probably need to let it cook longer (for the colour) once you remove the lid in the oven.
9. Place the chicken into the pot and add in chicken broth. (I was told not to dry cook in a LC pot? So I guess adding some broth also makes the chicken more moist)
10. Cover the lid and let it roast in the oven for 15 mins. Then reduce the heat to 180 C and roast another 50 mins. Remove the lid, crank the temperature up to 220 C, roast for another 10 minutes.

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So verdict? I actually did 2 versions of this, one with a french oven with a lid covered, and another was on a LC cast iron pan. Using a french oven to roast, the chicken tastes more tender as there were no moisture escaped till the very last 10 minutes of cooking. Thus making it a little like steamed chicken ? I do also like one on a cast iron because it chars better and a roast chicken is not a roast chicken if it’s not … charred 😛

(uhm… my dogs got the benefit of eating the carrots and celery from this dish, they gave paws up!)