Chicken

A New Genius Recipe for Wildly Juicy Roast Chicken—Without Preheating the Oven

June  6, 2018

My favorite roast chicken method will always be my first love, a merit badge in confident cooking. Its notoriously high oven temperature and crisp skin are the legacies of Barbara Kafka, the pioneering cooking expert who changed how we think about roasting and much more, and who sadly passed away last week at the age of 84.

But I roast a lot of chickens, and Kafka never was one to take “enough” for an answer. For the first time since I latched onto her technique six years ago, I recently added another, very different roast chicken recipe to my any-old-night rotation (pre-requisites for any-old-night status: no advance prep required, an absolute minimum amount of fuss).

This newcomer also happens to be a boon in warm weather, because you don’t preheat the oven at a ripping 500° F as in Kafka’s recipe. In fact, you don’t preheat the oven at all.

The recipe comes from Paris Picnic Club, a lovely new cookbook by Shaheen Peerbhai and Jennie Levitt, and goes like this: You start the chicken—plopped on a twiggy bed of herb sprigs, whole garlic cloves, and lemon zest strips—in a lidded pot, in a cold oven. (Then turn it on.) As the heat rises, the flesh cooks through gently, drinking in garlicky-herby steam and staying astonishingly moist.

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Then you take off the lid for the last 15 minutes to brown the skin and reduce the lemony chicken juices down to a sticky sauce. I would make this recipe just to get this sauce. The recipe was originally written primarily for bone-in, skin-on breasts, but is especially wonderful for whole chickens and thighs (more sauce).

Incidentally, the recipe has nothing to do with another famous cold-oven chicken technique from chef Joël Robuchon, which requires flipping the bird rather incessantly, and which no one seems to want to actually start in a cold oven—at least not Patricia Wells, Diana Henry, or America’s Test Kitchen.

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Top Comment:
“I love that this recipe requires you to put a lid on the pot for most of the cooking, which probably also helps keep your oven clean from the chicken grease splattering! Thanks for the find, Kristen!”
— Eunice C.
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Instead, just as Peerbhai and Levitt did every week in planning their Friday Lunch picnic series in Paris, they wove together a number of influences from across the globe.

Peerbhai was unintentionally riffing on an Indian technique for biryani, in which marinated raw meat is layered with par-cooked rice in a covered dish, then baked starting in a cold oven. Levitt had grown up with a similar method for clay-pot chicken, picked up from her aunt in Sausalito, California. Though the herbs were dried rather than fresh, everything was chucked in the clay pot, covered, and roasted starting from cold.

We couldn't tell the breast pieces apart from the thigh pieces because everything was so tender and juicy!
Priyal Chitle, a baking student of Shaheen Peerbhai, on cold-oven roast chicken magic

The technique they spun together is one that they now use for every gently cooked chicken salad or sandwich, for picnics and beyond—and it’s already become one of the most popular recipes in their book. As Priyal Chitle, one of Peerbhai’s baking students wrote to her, “We couldn't tell the breast pieces apart from the thigh pieces because everything was so tender and juicy!"

I have to confess: It took me some time—and the vocal recommendations of both of my bosses (the Amanda one and the Merrill one)—to get comfortable with the whole cold-oven idea. I learned the hard way that ovens can vary dramatically in speed and heat retention—let’s just say that Ann Seranne’s Rib Roast of Beef from 1966 behaves much differently in modern, energy-efficient models, and the ghosts of some expensive medium-well roasts haunt me to this day.

So I’ve shied away from endorsing cold-oven pound cakes and crunchy cookies that finish baking with the oven shut off—really any recipes whose success hinges on ovens uniformly doing anything other than just existing at a temperature.

But as I started making this recipe more (and more and more), I relaxed. Unlike in baking—where leaveners and other chemical processes have legitimate needs—or recipes that require you to keep the oven shut without peeking, this chicken forgives. Most importantly, you get the chance to check in on it, to account for inevitable differences in birds, pots, and—yes—ovens. This will come in handy, because you will be making it a lot.

Photos by James Ransom

Got a genius recipe to share—from a classic cookbook, an online source, or anywhere, really? Please send it my way (and tell me what's so smart about it) at [email protected]—thank you to my bosses Amanda & Merrill this one!

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15 Comments

Ken1Lutheran January 11, 2023
that recipe with the chicken and the lemon zest; I'd bet it would be even better using orange zest.
 
jenny February 27, 2021
Do you take the chicken out of the oven somewhere at the mid way point in time to check it, just to make sure it's not burning on the bottom (requiring the addition of some liquid?)
 
Nancy B. June 17, 2020
I have made this recipe 4 or 5 times. It comes out crisp amd tender every time. It gets crisp when you take the lid off in the last stag. The sauce is soo good. You have to spoon it in when you serve it. This is my favorite chicken re recipe.
 
Maryann June 17, 2020
Hi Kristen,

I have two concerns: does the chicken taste steamed rather than roasted; and, given that the chicken is in a pot, how well does it crisp the skin beyond the breasts, etc.?
 
susan K. June 17, 2020
Any chance that this technique be used with boneless, skinless chicken thighs? They seem to have multiplied in my freezer!
 
Iris B. September 13, 2019
My oven preheats by cycling through heating from below and above -- that is, bake and broil. I don't think that would do the pot lid a bit of good. Does no one else have an oven that works that way?
 
Nancy B. December 24, 2018
I made this and I must say it was delicious! Left overs were very good as well. I'm only sorry I didn't save the sauce as well. Going into my regular menu.
 
Cornyrawrs June 7, 2018
This technique is called my “Mama doesn’t have time to preheat the oven” trick. Works every time. But I’m all seriousness, I never thought to roast a whole chicken like that. Sounds beautiful.
 
Kristen M. June 7, 2018
Love this.
 
Tedmom June 6, 2018
Made this as written except used a whole spatchcocked chicken. It was delicious and perfectly cooked at 45 minutes with the 15 minute browning time without the pan lid. The sauce was not sticky at all. May try reducing the sauce or using a bigger pan next time for more evaporation to achieve the sticky sauce described in the recipe intro (used a low sided, covered Le Creuset braiser this time).
 
Kristen M. June 7, 2018
Hi Tedmom, thanks for reporting back—and that's exactly what I'd do if my juices weren't sticky enough: just stick the pan back in the oven for a bit without the chicken, or move it to the stovetop to reduce.
 
Christine B. June 6, 2018
Hi
Is the reason you mention that some chefs are "shy/hesitant" to use the cold oven method is because of safety issues with the meat or is it just a matter of technique preferences? Thank You!
 
Kristen M. June 6, 2018
Hi Christine—I was nervous about it because you can't guarantee consistent preheating speed from oven to oven so I didn't want to recommend a technique that might not work well in some ovens. But I realized that this particular technique is forgiving enough that variation in ovens is okay. No concerns about food safety (the chicken cooks through pretty quickly still) and I haven't spoken to anyone else who was wary, just me the worry-wart!
 
Eunice C. June 6, 2018
So excited to try this one! I love that this recipe requires you to put a lid on the pot for most of the cooking, which probably also helps keep your oven clean from the chicken grease splattering! Thanks for the find, Kristen!
 
Kristen M. June 6, 2018
Thank you Eunice—you're absolutely right! You don't lose the delicious juices and schmaltz and you get to eat them all :)