Experiment: Will my family love a chicken cooked in milk?

Experiment Taken From: Notebook Entry 04.02.09

Materials Needed: Please see The Kitchn for specific directions on how to make Jamie Oliver’s chicken cooked in milk & lemon. I followed the instructions outlined by The Kitchn and left the lid on for the first hour of the cooking time, versus the chicken uncovered as Jamie outlines in his recipe. I also omitted the cinnamon stick to go with a more traditional flavor, but might give that a try next time.

Results: I love roasted chicken and it is the ultimate Sunday dinner for our family. When I saw this recipe, I knew I would have to try it. I happened to be out at Target so I picked up all the ingredients there including an organic bird since they had them on sale.

The main difficulty I had with the recipe was frying the bird in the butter. I think the butter could have been easily reduced to half the amount and still brought out a lot of flavor. I had a hard time flipping the bird without splattering myself, but got a good start on the skin before it went into the oven.

I added all the ingredients to the pot and then put the lid on it. It cooked for the first hour with the lid on and then I basted it and removed the lid for the last half hour.

Here is what you need to know about this recipe that makes it worth the little bit of effort. First, it made the whole house smell amazing and I literally wanted to eat it within the first fifteen minutes of cooking because the house smelled that good. Second, the meat literally falls off of the bone. There is no carving, it literally falls off. Third, the sauce is delicious and the “curdled” appearance was barely noticeable at all in the sauce.

All of that being said, the breast meat was drier than I would have liked so I am not sure if that could be remedied with a shorter cooking time or cooking it with the lid on the entire time. I am going to try a few different scenarios until I perfect this one because it is truly that good.

Make sure to have lots of bread for mopping up all that great sauce. If you pair this with a good white wine, a pile of mashed potatoes, and a great Etta James CD (like our family did), you will love every minute and bite that happens during that dinner!

Update: We tried this chicken again. This time I did not brown it, omitted the butter entirely, and cut the lemons in half and added two halves around the chicken and two halves stuffed in the chicken. I sprinkled the outside of the chicken with cinnamon instead of the cinnamon stick (which costs quite a bit more at our supermarket). I cooked it covered and then gave it twenty minutes with the lid off. The second time…absolutely perfect and lower calorie to boot!

Conclusion: This recipe will be repeated again and again! I thank The Kitchn for highlighting it and I can’t wait to try some different variations to make this chicken the ultimate chicken in our house!
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I am so excited to open our Notebook Experiments up to everyone and I hope that you will be able to participate this week or in weeks to come! I will be posting this each Wednesday so please mark your calendars if you plan to participate. You can post your entries at any time throughout the week and then leave your entry in the links below.

We have this handy banner that you are more than welcome to use, but it is not a requirement! It is just something you can add to add a little sparkle to your entry.

Rules for Participation:

1. Choose anything from any of our notebook entries (past or present) to do with your family. We have hundreds of bookmarked links of crafts, ways to save money, and organizing ideas.
2. Complete an experiment from the notebook and share about it on your blog or website. We would love to see pictures of what you accomplished or a detailed description of how your projects turned out. Please include a link to this entry, a link to the original posting of the entry (at the original craftster’s blog), and (to help us relocate the project) the date or link of the notebook entry where you found it. You can use the same formatting as our entries or you can just include that information in your post in your own unique way!
3. Post a link below. Please include your name or blog name & a fast description of your project. Example- MomAdvice (WHO bread)

I can’t wait to see what you create and what you find inspiring!