Sunday Gravy with yeah right: Slow Roasted Gochujang Chicken!

Good morning all!

Welcome back to Sunday Gravy.

I was curious if you good folks who are on quarantine duty or just being smart and staying home have developed any structure or habits that you’ve enacted in order to maintain a modicum of sanity?

Since I’m only stuck at home on weekends my habit is easy. I’m in the damn kitchen. Some of our previous episodes spoke on that but in addition to being a productive space, as well as my goddamn “happy zone,” being in the kitchen absolutely eases some of the day-to-day anxiety of being alive and sentient during this Year of Our Fucking Lord 2020.

Goddamn this fucking year.

The kitchen, to me, is a place for creativity. A place where you can feel productive and a place where focusing on the meal production narrows the scope of your brain waves and allows you to focus on something positive.

Plus the beer is in the refrigerator in the kitchen.

Over the past few months we’ve been doing a lot of baking, a lot of rice and a whole fucking shitload of beans. I figured we could give you a slight break from that today and give you something from one of my favorite ethnic quisines. Korean inspired food.

While this dish isn’t completely authentic Korean fare, per se, it does indeed feature one of my favorite Korean ingredients.

Gochujang!

You long time readers know that I’ve fucked around with gochujang – or fermented chile paste – in the past.

The beauty of gochujang is the multiple levels of flavor it brings to a dish. It brings the spicy heat, it’s got a layer of sweet, it’s got a bit of sour and it’s got a whole new level of funk due to it’s fermentation.

Rather than fucking around with meat “bits” like wings or ribs, how about we drop this loveliness on a whole goddamn bird?

Yeah, that shit works for me.

Today we are going to make – as the headline says – “slow roasted gochujang chicken.”

Recipe inspiration from BonAppetit.com.

And shit howdy is this a good one. If you’ve got the tools and the ingredients, this is super fucking simple and well worth trying out.

This is a cool preparation in that it roasts at a slow temp (300 degrees) for a long time (2 and 1/2 to 3 hours) thus imparting a more tender, denser flavor while delivering some fall-off-the-goddamn-bone chicken that’s simply fucking delicious.

Plus we get to show off a kick ass cast iron skillet technique in the process.

Slow Roasted Gochujang Chicken!

1 3½–4-lb. whole chicken

1¾ tsp. kosher salt, plus more to finish

Freshly ground black pepper

5 Tbsp. gochujang

¼ cup plus 2 Tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil

2 heads of garlic – whole – plus 3 cloves – minced.

1 ½” piece fresh ginger grated

1½ lb. baby Yukon Gold potatoes (about 1½” in diameter) or if the store doesn’t have them any small, firm potato will do. We used white potatoes today, red would be fantastic as well. Not russet potatoes though. They wouldn’t hold up for the entire cooking time.

5 scallions – if the store isn’t out of them. BASTARDS!

1 lime

2 tsp. honey

Let’s begin.

Score yourself a whole chicken.

Thought the gochujang would make a nice visual there.

When working with a whole chicken you are going to need to be cognizant of a couple of things. First off there will be giblets, or the internal bits of the chicken (heart, liver, gizzard and maybe a spleen and such) already stuffed inside the chicken cavity. Remove before cooking and do with them what you will. They work in a stock, you can cook them up and eat them or feed them to the dog. Your choice.

Secondly, make sure this fucker is room temperature. Most whole chickens have been previously frozen and similar to turkey, these fuckers freeze HARD. If you were to have a partially frozen bird, say on the inside and not on the outside?

That’s your one way ticket to E-coli Land, Boyo!

And ain’t we got enough other health concerns going on right now without contracting a food born illness?

Thirdly: check the chicken carefully since there may be a few remaining bits of feather still attached. Remove them prior to cooking.

Let’s proceed.

We start our assembly. Season that chicken up with some salt and pepper.

Make sure you season it really thoroughly in the body cavity as well.

Slice the 2 heads of garlic in half crosswise and place two of the half heads of garlic inside the body cavity and reserve the other two halves. You want the garlic cut in half to impart additional garlicky deliciousness while the chicken is slow roasting.

Now let’s get to work on the sauce solution.

Take the gochujang and 1/4 cup of olive oil and whisk together in a bowl. Next we are going to add in the 3 cloves of minced garlic and the grated ginger. Whisk again. Use a basting brush and just slather that shit on the chicken.

Don’t use all of it since we’ll also be tossing the potatoes in the sauce.

Get that shit all over, don’t be scared.

Starting to get pretty fucking sexy already, yes?

You’ll notice I’m doing the prep work on a baking sheet, we’ll transfer to the cast iron just prior to cooking.

Now let’s address them taters.

Again, those are “white” potatoes although the original recipe called for Yukon Gold. The supply chain still hasn’t completely returned to pre-pandemic levels at my local Ralph’s just yet, so you’ve got to use whatever the fuck is on hand, man! White potatoes are a little larger than Yukon Gold but are similar in their waxy texture.

Place the potatoes and the 2 remaining halves of garlic in your cast iron skillet. You’re going to need a solid 12″ skillet here.

Next add the remaining basting sauce, and the last 2 tablespoons of olive oil to the cast iron and get to tossing.

Same thing as the chicken, get ’em sauced up. Then season the potatoes with some salt and pepper.

Make sure the chicken will be cooking on top of the garlic halves but not on top of the potatoes. Get them taters on the side of the chicken or you won’t have proper cookage.

Preheat your oven to 300 degrees and place the oven rack in the dead center of the oven.

Let’s get that thing in the garage.

At this point the bulk of the prep work is done and you now have a full 2 1/2 plus hours to simply fuck off. Have drinks! Watch what passes for sports these days. Comment on DFO, get baked as a motherfucker since the only thing left to do is make a simple sauce with the honey, lime juice and scallions (if you can find them. DAMMIT!)

Shit man, if you’ve got someone you can recruit to make the honey/lime/ scallion sauce for you, then you can get good and right proper shitty! Enjoy the down time.

Although it’s a good idea every hour to turn the potatoes over so they cook evenly. You only have to do this once or twice.

Now. Three hours or so later? Remove from the oven. It should go without saying that this motherfucker will be hot.

Oven mitts are your friend!

What have we here? There’s a reason that photo was the banner image for this post.

Just. Fucking. Look!

Carefully remove the chicken to a cutting board. Remember this is pretty goddamn tender and you don’t want it to fall apart on the way out of the skillet.

That’s the sexiness right there. Oh sweet Jesus just look at her. Mahogany crusted glory!

Now CRITICAL step alert! Let that bird rest on a cutting board for a full 15-20 minutes! I mean it, dammit! No sneaking a piece of skin much less ripping off a wing or a leg to sample. The juices need to settle which means… A juicier bird!

Don’t skip this step.

Let’s smash those potatoes into the pan juices. I used a couple of large wooden spoons and just mashed them potatoes down into the juice. This helps them soak up the cooking solution.

Let’s push this fucker towards the finish line.

Slice your lime in half. Cut one half into wedges and reserve them for service.

This is where we make the lime/honey solution. Place the honey in a small bowl and squeeze the juice from the remaining lime-half into the bowl with the honey.

Toss with the veggies.

Give the sauce a taste and season with a little more salt and pepper if desired. This is also where we would have tossed the diced scallions into the potato/garlic/sauce mixture IF WE HAD SOME!

Carve the chicken how you see fit. I cut the breast into slices, removed the wings as individual pieces and served the leg/thigh as a single piece.

Then it’s time to plate the fuck up.

Obviously I went for the leg/thigh and it was indeed the preferred slab of this delicious beastie!

You may want to get a small bowl and ladle in some of the left over pan juices into it. It’s fucking special to dip pieces of the chicken in there. Also notice that I squeezed some of the what is now “roasted” garlic cloves right onto my plate as well.

If you want, give the whole thing a squeeze of lime.

Let’s get a closer look at the chicken.

This meal is a fucking knock-out! Simply outstanding. It’s got all the flavors represented here in abundance. Simple, delicious and will blow your guests fucking minds! A damn keeper meal for sure.

When I first read the recipe for this meal and saw it was cooked in cast iron, I had a little trepidation. Having experienced some chronic fucking sticking using sweet/spicy sauce combos in the past I really didn’t want anthing “sticky” to happen to my cast iron skillet.

Well guess what?

This baby cleaned up perfectly! No sticking at all. A simple wipe with a paper towel, a quick rinse in some lukewarm water and she was back to her old self.

Treat your tools with respect and you will be rewarded!

That’s all I’ve got for today.

If you’re actively participating in the ongoing push for social change? Keep it up! Don’t lose the momentum that we have now. We have a real chance here for positive change! Just be sure to wear your masks and practice your distancing. Staying safe is pretty damn key too.

Be well my friends.

Can’t wait to cook some more beans for you next week!

PEACE and UNITY!