Roasted Chicken with Stuffing cost- $7.30
Cooking with a whole chicken can be intimidating. How do you season it? How do you know when it is done? How do you cut it? So why use a whole chicken rather than just the breast in a package? There are a few really good reasons. Whole chickens go on great sales, are always in stock at the grocery stores regardless of the time of year, and they have great flavor, just to name a few.
Chances are if you have been to my house for dinner more than once you have been served from a whole chicken. We cook with it a lot because it is versatile, affordable, healthy, easy to cook, and is a large portion.
There are many, many ways to cook a whole chicken from deboning it and cutting it up, to roasting it whole, to BBQ, even deep-frying it. In this recipe we opened the chicken flat so it would cook faster. By doing this you will save some time but you will lose some of the flavor that is gained by cooking the chicken on the bone.
We will post other recipes where we will roast the chicken whole.
This meal costs $7.30 or about $1.83 per person for our family of 4. You could easily leave the mushrooms out of the stuffing to bring the cost down to $5.31 or $1.33 a person. After everyone ate dinner we still had one serving of stuffing left and one leg, one thigh, and two wings left over.
Check out the two part video for the step by step part one http://www.youtube.com/user/troberts43?feature=mhee#p/a/u/1/8yKNZ34sEH4 and part two http://www.youtube.com/user/troberts43?feature=mhee#p/a/u/0/9iOe1aTsmgw
Ingredients
Chicken
1 whole chicken-$2.67
salt- nominal cost
pepper- nominal cost
Lemon juice $.10
Stock
all chicken innards including the backbone
water- nominal cost
salt- nominal cost
Gravy
chicken drippings- no cost
salt- nominal cost
red pepper- nominal cost
poultry seasoning- nominal cost
1 tbls corn starch- $.02
1 cup stock- no cost
ice- no cost
Stuffing
1/2 small to medium onion- $.35
1/2 bell pepper- $.39
1 garlic clove- $.03
1 package button mushrooms $1.99
salt- nominal cost
pepper- nominal cost
1 box of Stove Top- $1.00
1/2 cup butter- $.75
Instructions
Chicken
remove all the innards from the chicken and put into a pot
using kitchen shears or scissors cut out the backbone and add to the pot
open the chicken up so it is flat
season with salt, pepper, and lemon juice
turn the chicken over and put the open side your oven safe pan
season the other side of the chicken
put the chicken into a 400 degree oven for 40-60 minutes depending on the oven. The chicken needs to reach an internal temperature of at least 170 degrees
chicken should rest for about 10-15 minutes after cooking before you cut
Stock
put all chicken innards and backbone in a pot and fill with water
cook on high heat until it reaches a boil then turn the heat down to medium
cook until the liquid is about half of what you started with
make sure you spoon off the oil from the top of the pot as it builds up
Gravy
in a bowl mix together corn starch, ice and about a half cup of stock until disolved
bring the other half cup of stock and chicken drippings to a boil use a wooden spatula to scrape off the stuck on chicken bits
slowly mix in the stock and corn starch mixture
spice with salt, red pepper, and poultry seasoning to taste
Stuffing
melt butter in a pan add small diced onion and salt let cook about 1 minute
add small diced bell pepper salt again let cook about 1 minute
add small diced garlic let cook about 5 minutes on medium low heat stir occasionally
add sliced mushrooms cook until mushrooms reduce in size at least 5 minutes
add 1 and 1/2 cups stock and stir raise the heat to high to bring to a rapid boil
add stuffing mix from the box and stir
cover and remove from heat and let stand at least 5 minutes
