Vertical Roaster for Oven Use -- Would it be better to roast the chicken upside down?
All right, so I succumbed to the hype and ordered a ceramic vertical chicken roaster. Up until now, I have been using simple beer cans on my Weber gas grill with usually great results (one casualty, I might post the picture for laughs).
Rain caused me to try to rig something for indoor use one day, and it was far harder to balance a bird in a roasting pan on a beer can than it was to "tripod it" on the grill. I really didn't want spilled beer in my veggies, so I ended up using two pans. That was when I decided to take a recommendation and order the roaster.
So, I filled the center with beer, arranged some aromatic veggies around the side and propped the bird, legs down, in the roaster. Guess what? The legs are still white while the rest of the bird has browned nicely. One of the things I appreciate most about the primitive grill and beer can approach is that the dark meat is closer to the grill and cooks more, but this does not seem to be the case with oven cooking.
Do you think turning it upside down and forcing the bird "legs up" on the center hole might be a better strategy next time? Has anyone tried this, or am I going to end up reverting to my hard-to-handle beer can in a roasting pan set up once again?
