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Sunday, May 12, 2024

Buttermilk-Brined Roast Chicken Crown

After 24 hours of marinating, and a hour + in a hot oven, this buttermilk-brined roast chicken crown is tender and juicy inside with the most delectable golden skin outside!

Food Lust People Love: After 24 hours of marinating, and a hour + in a hot oven, this buttermilk-brined roast chicken crown is tender and juicy inside with the most delectable golden skin outside!

We love a good Sunday roast dinner, especially for a special occasion like Mother’s Day and, frankly, I am much more likely to roast chicken than an expensive cut of beef. No pressure to get it exactly the right amount of rare! Add some roast potatoes, tasty onion gravy and some young peas and I’m happy. 

I don’t know why but it’s hard to find chicken crowns, an all-breast cut that still has the bones underneath left on. I was jumping around in my local grocery store when I happened to come across one, on sale no less, because my mom was never a fan of chicken legs or thighs. A chicken crown was pretty much her ideal bird for roasting. She loved this dish!

Buttermilk-Brined Roast Chicken Crown

This recipe is adapted from one on New York Time Cooking, where it was in turn adapted from the fabulous cookbook, Salt Fat Acid Heat, Mastering the Elements of Good Cooking by Samin Nosrat. If you haven’t read the book or watched the show on Netflix, I highly recommend both. 

Ingredients
1 chicken crown, weight about 4 lbs 4 oz or 1966g
Kosher salt or fine sea salt
2 cups or 480ml buttermilk (or substitute 3 tablespoons white vinegar in measuring cup filled to 2 cups with milk)
2 medium onions
1 small lemon

Method
The day before you want to roast it, season the chicken crown generously with salt and let it sit for 30 minutes.


Stir 2 tablespoons kosher salt or 4 teaspoons fine sea salt into the buttermilk to dissolve. Place the crown in a gallon-size resealable plastic bag and pour in the buttermilk. 

Seal the bag, squish the salty buttermilk all around the chicken, place on a rimmed plate, and refrigerate for 12 to 24 hours, turning the bag every once in a while. 


Pull the chicken from the fridge an hour before you plan to cook it. 

Heat the oven to 400°F or 180°C with your degrees with an iron skillet on a rack set in the center position.

Slice the onions in thick slices to act as a baking trivet. Poke the lemon all over with the sharp point of a knife. 


Remove the chicken crown from the plastic bag and scrape off as much buttermilk as you can. If the skin is riding up a little bit at the pointy end, use a toothpick or two to secure it.


Carefully lay the sliced onions in the hot cast-iron skillet. 


Place the chicken on top, tucking the lemon underneath it. Put the hot skillet back in the oven. 

If you have eagle eyes, you might notice that I also put my Meater thermometer into the chicken crown at the thickest part. (The silver thing on the top left, with the black top.) It was a Christmas gift from my husband a few years back. The Meater runs with an app and tells me when the internal temperature has reached whatever I set it on. Like magic.


After about 20 minutes, when the chicken starts to brown, reduce the heat to 350°F or 180°C and turn the pan around. Cook until the internal temperature of the crown reaches 165°F or 74°C, about another hour.  

If the skin is getting too brown before it is cooked through, use a foil tent to protect it.  

Food Lust People Love: After 24 hours of marinating, and a hour + in a hot oven, this buttermilk-brined roast chicken crown is tender and juicy inside with the most delectable golden skin outside!

Once the chicken crown is cooked to the desired temperature, take it out of the skillet and put it on a board covered with a foil tent to rest for 10 minutes.

Carve to serve. Enjoy! 

Food Lust People Love: After 24 hours of marinating, and a hour + in a hot oven, this buttermilk-brined roast chicken crown is tender and juicy inside with the most delectable golden skin outside!

It's Sunday FunDay as well as Mother's Day in the United States so my friends and I are sharing recipes for a mom pleasing brunch! Many thanks to our host, Amy of Amy's Cooking Adventures. Check out the Mother's Day brunch links:

We are a group of food bloggers who believe that Sunday should be a family fun day, so every Sunday we share recipes that will help you to enjoy your day. If you're a blogger interested in joining us, just visit our Facebook group and request to join.


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Food Lust People Love: After 24 hours of marinating, and a hour + in a hot oven, this buttermilk-brined roast chicken crown is tender and juicy inside with the most delectable golden skin outside!

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