Cooking For Engineers

[AManetti]

When oven-roasting a chicken, is there a way to prevent the drippings from smoking up the house?

I have a recipe that requires cooking the bird at 500 degrees for over twenty minutes. Although the result looks and tastes great, obnoxious fumes from the drippings that hit the bottom of the roasting tray ruin an otherwise delicious meal.

The problem, of course, is to prevent the melting chicken fat from touching the hot surface. I've thought of using aluminum foil but, other than making cleanup easier, I can't see what good that would do.

[McDee]

Roasting over a bed of thick-cut mirepoix does wonders for preserving and flavoring your juices for later use in a gravy and should resolve your smoking issue.

[rexmo]

would serve the purpose of the mirepoix noted above, be a little simpler to assemble. I usually line the pan I bake a brisket in with such to prevent scorching. The onions caramelized in the dripping fat are usually better than the brisket itself.

[kgb1001001]

I picked this up from the Cooks Illustrated book on Chicken (and just did this when roasting a chicken today). If you add 1/2 cup of water (or an equal amount of chicken broth) to the roasting pan it will keep the drippings from burning. You may need to add more as the roasting progresses, depending upon how big your chicken is. If you add broth, then you get the added benefit that you've just performed a double reduction on the broth and it makes a richer pan sauce or gravy

[ktexp2]

Make sure your oven is fairly clean as well - obvious, I know, but a good thing to remember.

My roommate regularly gets drippings all over the inside of the oven whenever she cooks (drives me insane!!!) and I usually don't notice until I go to cook something at 450 or higher. It gets all smoky in there, and starts to set the kitchen smoke alarm off. Very irritating. I cleaned it to an immaculate state and almost immediately after she made ham and got ham juice all over the door.

[DrBiggles]