What are your preferred herbs, spices, or vegetables for cooking chicken?

garlic, miso, tamari

Salt, pepper, paprika on the skin. A few garlic cloves and cut up onions and lemon inside the cavity. Lay the chicken on a bed of carrots and celery, flat onion rounds if you're low on either. Strew fresh rosemary around. A little cooking spray (the buttery kind is best) or butter or margarine under the wings and where the legs meet the torso. If you have potatoes, quarter them and throw them in the pan, too.

Bake 450 for 20 minutes, then lower to 350 and bake 20 minutes per pound (and use fractions, so if your chicken is 4 1/2 pounds, there's an extra 10 minutes in there).

It's tasty and also makes a great soup.

If you are baking chicken...tarragon is an essential herb. Garlic, butter, white wine, or a rub of some kind is fine...but the tarragon is essential to a decent taste for baked chicken or chicken parts.

On the grill...almost any barbeque sauce (spiced up with extra brown sugar and a bit of Chinese duck sauce) is great.

1. I sometimes sometimes sprinkle on garlic (powder) when baking chicken in the oven.

2. I sometimes use garlic (cloves) when cooking chicken on the stove top.

3. I have never used the wet garlic that comes in a jar.

4. I have never heard of miso or tamari.

5. I will go out and purchase the miso and tamari to see how they taste.

Miso and tamari (similar to soy sauce) are fermented soy (or grain) products, used in Chinese, Japanese, and Korean cuisines. One of my standard lunches is to boil some egg noodles and while those are cooking make a mirapoix out of garlic, onion, carrots and celery and gently saute this with olive oil in a large frying pan. About five minutes before the noodles are done I add some miso and tamari to the pan, along with a cooked boneless, skinless chicken thigh, cut into small pieces, mixing everything together. When the noodles are done and drained I pour them into the pan and stir it up. It's quite savory.

I buy the skinless, boneless thighs by the dozen, season them (garlic salt and red pepper flakes) and sous-vide them in individual plastic bags, then put them on a tray and freeze them. When I want to make this dish, I take a frozen bagged thigh and put it in a saucepan with enough water to cover it (it will need to be weighted down). It'll be sufficiently defrosted in two hours to use in the dish.

1. Do you sprinkle the salt, pepper, and paprika onto the chicken?
2. Or do you rub the salt, pepper, and paprika onto the chicken?

1. I have baked chicken with onions and baby carrots.
2. My favorite onions to bake chicken with are the white onions.
3. But, I have never tried this technique with celery.
4. I have never really like the taste of eating celery, but maybe it might enhanced some good flavors when baking with the chicken.
5. I will give it a try.

1. I often use rosemary powder.
2. I will give the fresh rosemary a try.

1. I often bake chicken with butter after cutting off portions from a stick of butter.
2. Are you using cooking spray for the cooking pan or are you using the cooking spray onto the chicken?

1. I sometimes bake chicken with red potatoes or brown potatoes.
2. Sometimes I'm in the mood for red potatoes and sometimes I prefer brown potatoes.
3. I'm really not a fan of the yellow potatoes due to its texture and taste.

Do you bake it covered or uncovered?

1. I never tried tarragon.
2. I will give it a try.
3. You can't go wrong with with garlic and butter.
4. Garlic, butter, and rosemary is one of my favorite combination.

1. Some barbeque sauces already have brown sugar in the ingredients.
2. Should I still add extra brown sugar?
3. I never had a Chinese duck sauce, but I am willing to try it.

Over here there was a Kid’s TV programme called The Herbs.

It was a stop puppet animation with various characters named after herbs.

Sir Basil, Lady Rosemary, Bayleaf the gardener, Sage the owl, and the two most popular characters. Parsley, a very friendly lion and Dill the dog.

Tarragon is a dragon, I think the herb is called a dragon.

His song went as follows,

“I’m Tarragon the dragon, I’d better make it clear,
That nothing’s safe when I’m about,
Things seem to disappear.”

Sprinkle

I'm using spray for both the pan and the chicken but keep in mind I'm watching my weight so I also cut off any visible fat before I get started.

I bake the chicken uncovered.

This is all kind of a variant on how Tyler Florence makes chicken. One thing I really love is you don't baste, you don't check, you don't do anything beyond letting it cook.

For a whole chicken - I lift up the skin on the breast and rub with olive oil and also put in some balsamic maybe a couple small clove of garlic (smashed) - I do like rosemary and thyme. I will also brush the outside with some oil and sprinkle with these spices - and inside the cavity I will pour in a little more balsamic and bake.

For breast meat that is boneless and skinless - I will coat in mayo (yes it is a little fattening just use enough to coat and it won't be that bad and then dip in Italian breadcrumbs and bake - the mayo helps keep the chicken moist.

If I’m roasting a chicken I put it in a roasting bag with herbs and spices and roast at 100 degrees centigrade for a very long time.

Actually that’s how I do all my roasts, very tender, but not easy to carve.

Instead of mayo you can use horseradish and it makes a more zesty version of breaded chicken.