How to Roast Chicken in a Steam Oven

Why use a steam oven to roast chicken?

The very thing which makes for delicious chicken skin – high, dry heat – can make the meat underneath, especially the breast, feel a bit like you’re chewing on a piece of cotton wool. I don’t know about you, but bland, dry and tough are not words I want associated with anything I cook, especially not a chicken.

So, what to do? You do still need that high, dry heat, but you also need to retain as much moisture as possible in the chicken as it cooks.

That’s where your steam oven comes in. I have heard veteran steam oven cooks say they’d buy their appliance again just for the way it roasts a chicken, and though I might not go that far, it is a truly fantastic way to make this dish. The browning and crisping of the skin happens on top, while underneath, the moisture in the oven is working to make your chicken meat unbelievably tender.

Because steam cooks chicken faster than conventional dry heat, it hasn’t lost all its juices by the time it’s cooked through and you’ll get dinner on the table faster than you’d expect – steam oven roast chicken takes around 45 minutes for an average sized whole bird, and as little as 30 when you follow the butterflying method I’m talking about today.

Why is it better to butterfly your chicken instead of roasting a whole bird?

To answer this question, we need to talk first about the difficulties of roasting a whole bird.

By design, whole chickens are not things which roast evenly. The darker, fattier leg and thigh meat needs more cooking than the white breast meat, so without careful attention you’re always going to end up with overcooked breast by the time the legs are done. This isn’t helped by the fact that when you roast a chicken traditionally, breast side up, that breast meat sits high and proud in the oven while the thighs are tucked away underneath, getting less direct heat and taking longer to cook.

A steam oven does help keep things moist, but it can’t completely save an overcooked chicken breast while you wait for the legs to be done. There are tricks to overcome this issue, such as roasting the bird upside down for the majority of the cooking time, to protect the breast meat and expose the thighs to more direct heat. That works well, except you’ll have to contend with turning over a searing hot chicken partway through cooking. And you’ll have to do it without damaging any of the precious skin on the breasts, which will be soft and easily torn thanks to all the juices it’s been sitting in.

Another trick is to cover the chicken breast with a protective layer of streaky bacon. The fat in the bacon slowly melts out and bastes the meat during cooking, keeping it moist. It’s not a bad way to roast, but if you don’t actually want the taste of bacon permeating its way through your chicken, it’s not the way to go.

One of the whole-bird techniques I like best is to stuff a generous layer of flavoured butter just under the skin of the breast meat. It gives amazing flavour and the butter moistens and protects the chicken, but it’s fiddly and not something I’m willing to do for a weeknight meal very often.

All those methods above are good and worth both the purchase and effort to cook, but my favourite way to get even cooking is to deconstruct the chicken a bit, removing the backbone and rib cage and flattening the whole thing out. It’s better to roast because this partial deboning and flattening makes the meat more even in thickness, and splays the legs and thighs so they take the bigger hit of direct heat in the oven, slightly protecting the breast meat and making everything cook at about the same time. It might not be as traditional looking as a regular roast chicken, but I will sacrifice looks for taste anytime when the cooking is this easy.

Deboning and butterflying a chicken for roasting

You might think deboning a chicken is hard, but I can promise you it’s not as long as you’ve got a decent (sharp) knife. If you’re really worried about it, though, buy your chicken from a reputable butcher and ask them to take care of it for you. Although I’m comfortable doing the job at home, my local butcher puts my knife skills to shame and doesn’t charge any extra for the privilege of a bird that’s totally ready to season and roast.

If you do want to try deboning the chicken yourself, start by placing it breast side down on a board. Cut through the skin and down one side of the backbone with a sharp knife, then work your way carefully around the ribcage on that side, cutting as close as you can to the bones so you don’t cut away too much meat. When you get to the wing and leg joints, twist each one until the bone pops out, then cut between the joints and the ribcage/carcass. Keep working your way around, lifting the meat and skin away with one hand as you cut with the other, until you’ve cut to the breastbone. Be careful not to cut through the skin, and don’t worry too much if you cut away any small pieces of cartilage or bone as you go – you can trim these off afterwards.

You’ll now have cut away half of the ribcage. Turn the bird around and repeat the whole process from the other side, until you’ve removed the entire rib cage and are left with a large, flat chicken that has only the leg and wing bones attached.

Now that you’ve got a perfectly prepared chicken, it’s time to move on to the recipe.