[00:02] roast chicken with a chicken jus. The audio track FYI is from Wholesome, the Patreon show that I make with my friends Ben and Adam. Enjoy. did last night. Mhm. I took a whole chicken, you see,
[00:16] and I spatchcocked that baby. >> Mhm. Cut out the wishbone for ease of Went up along the backbone with the kitchen shears, shattering ribs with the mere clenching of my mighty fist. Go up [snorts] the other side of the spine.
[00:32] Take it out, keep it for the gravy. Mhm. I used to cut out the breastbone, too, you know, the keelbone. Probably because Alton Brown told me to do that many years ago, but now I just leave it in because it's hard to cut out.
[00:47] It also adds mass to the white meat, thereby slowing its cooking, thereby giving the dark meat more time to get soft and sticky and I laid that bird on a baking sheet like you lay your lady on a motel bedspread when the mood has
[01:03] a motel bedspread when the mood has become a mutual emergency. Olive oil, lots of salt and pepper all over, oven at 400° F convection. Never touch it at 400° F convection. Never touch it again. No basting. Basting can be good,
[01:16] but it tends to make the skin wet. If you just leave it, and especially if you use a convection fan, the skin gets dry and blistered and the skin gets dry and blistered and crackly as this skin did on this night.
[01:33] >> [laughter] [snorts] >> That's some Borscht Belt humor for Ben. >> [laughter] >> Benjamin Harrison, constitutionally one of the WASPiest
[01:47] human beings I've ever met. [laughter] And yet, other nights? Because of what I did with the gravy.
[02:01] Mhm. Or rather, what I didn't do. When you roast your chicken on a big, wide baking sheet, there's tons of hot surface area to evaporate all the juice that comes gushing out. When there's wide surface
[02:15] area available, the water in the juice evaporates, leaving the dissolved solids behind to aggregate and brown on the pan surface. When you take the chicken out, there's no juice to separate from the rendered
[02:31] fat. There's just the fat because fat doesn't evaporate. And then there's delicious fried browned solids, mostly proteins, adhered to the bottom. Normally what I do is is I stir some some flour into that grease
[02:47] to make a schmaltzy roux. Let that brown for a few minutes. Then I start working in a carton of chicken stock, deglazing the pan as I go. And there, that's your gravy, a meaty
[03:01] And there, that's your gravy, a meaty liquid thickened with starch. Gravy. liquid thickened with starch. Gravy. But on this night, I thought, "Nay." The mood calls for something simpler, more elegant, more
[03:15] continental. I took the bird away to rest. And then I just poured off the grease. All of the juices being solidified and sheet. Poured off the grease. And then I took water.
[03:33] Bless the maker and his water. That water, of course, is also a key beverage that is currently being revolutionized by Cometeer, sponsor of this video. You know, for thousands of years we roasted chickens over open
[03:48] fires, and that was good, but we invented ovens for a reason. And I kind inflection point right now when it comes to making our coffee. Cometeer has developed this novel process by which they can precision brew coffee at 10
[04:02] times strength. And then they flash freeze it in here, so it preserves all those aromas. And all you have to do is pop it out and melt it in water. No machine, no waiting. You can make hot coffee, iced coffee, espresso drinks,
[04:16] just treat it like an espresso shot, and the flavor and the mouthfeel is so smooth and fresh and good as to almost be a a new thing relative to the conventional coffee that I've always had. Oh, and be aware, each cup has like
[04:29] >> twice as much caffeine than you're used to. I mean, they do have decaf. The beans come from award-winning roasters. Check this variety pack. You got your Intelligentsia, Black and White, Proud Mary. And I can have just one cup
[04:42] without committing myself to an entire bag of beans. The capsules are aluminum, haven't tried Cometeer yet, you can save link in the description, cometeer.com/adamragusea.
[05:00] Thank you, Cometeer. Anyway, I took tray and I added nothing but pure water. Bless the maker and his water. Pure, Pure, simple, uncorrupted, unfluoridated
[05:14] water. Water from the sky meets the browned solidified water from the bird. His water shall mingle with our water and produce that most elemental of sauces.
[05:31] >> [laughter] >> The sauce that is the mother to the mother sauces. The sauce equivalent of Eru Ilúvatar,
[05:44] possessor of the Flame Imperishable who dwells in the timeless halls of Eä and whose music begat the Ainur. >> [laughter] those little brown bits with plain water to make jus. Jus being dissolved fond.
[06:02] Is that more Borscht Belt humor? >> [laughter] >> [laughter] >> Jus, dissolved fond.
[06:14] >> Jus, dissolved fond. Actually, Adam, jus is just French for >> [snorts] [sighs] >> Crema is a Mexican condiment of lightly fermented or otherwise acid-thickened
[06:28] cream. Actually, Adam, crema is just Spanish for cream. There are comments I get on this internet that require guided breathing exercises to overcome.
[06:43] >> Yes, [snorts] jus just means juice in French. But in a culinary context, it means dissolved fond.
[06:57] Dough is just English for dough, but in a fiscal, >> [laughter] >> dough means money. This is not an
[07:09] pal. >> [laughter] I put that baking sheet on the hot stovetop, water in, sizzle sizzle. Scrape with the wooden spoon to get those brown bits off. Boil for a few
[07:23] minutes to fully dissolve all those bits. You see the liquid go from bits. You see the liquid go from translucent tan and chunky to like translucent tan and chunky to like opaque amber and smooth.
[07:36] Then what I did was I transferred the liquid to a small pot where I could more easily reduce it by about half until it became a little thick and glossy from the dissolved collagen that we call gelatin, from which the word gel was
[07:50] derived in the late 19th century. I got this enchanting amber liquid I got this enchanting amber liquid reduced to a light, loose gel. And then as I ate my roasted chicken, I dipped the pieces into my little
[08:07] the pieces into my little cup of jus, my au jus. Actually, Adam, >> [laughter] >> [laughter] >> au jus means with juice, so it's an
[08:20] adjectival phrase, not a noun like you're using it. Is this going to be an episode about not reading the comments? >> [laughter] >> Oh, you know [snorts] what it's I would gladly drown in a warm bath of
[08:34] this golden chicken jus. This was a good move on my part. From the French dip sandwich to the leavings of a sliced steak on my seasoned cutting board, the juice is the
[08:48] best part. That most [music] wholesome of meat products. I have prepared a list of [music] different kinds of juice that I will present to the boys for their consideration.
[09:03] off there. Again, that audio was from Wholesome, the weekly show that I make with my buddies. Of all of the media properties with which I'm associated, I kind of think that's the best one these days, and it's Patreon only. Link is in
[09:16] the description. As little as $5 a month gets you everything, including a year and a half of back episodes now. We've done shows on Old Country Buffets, obscure Schwarzenegger movies, gardening, drumming, Anglophilia. We
[09:30] just go really, really deep on the things that bring us joy, and we do it for a small group of people behind the paywall where we feel comfortable being community, the Patreon link is in the description. New episodes drop every
[09:43] Wednesday. Bye-bye. That's a joke that you'll get if you start listening to the show.