Christmas chicken - cooking time advice please

[MaggieMcGill]

I've bought an expensive 3.5Kg free range chicken to have on Christmas day. It will be wrapped in foil to rest for about 45 mins while the roast potatoes are cooking in the oven. Should I reduce the overall cooking time of the chicken by 5 or 10 mins? I'd imagine it will continue to cook while wrapped in the foil and dish towels and I don't want to spoil it by overcooking it. I don't have a thermometer and usually just go by times. Help! How would you cook it?

20 min per lb and 15 over. I thknk 1lb = 460g but check and do the maths.

Test buy stabbing the thickest part of the thigh and checking the juice is clear at 85% of the calculated time and have confidence. Chicken is safer to eat than it ever has been.

The foil is to allow the chicken (or whatever meat) to rest. It reabsorbs the juice. If you carve too soon, the juice flows out and the meat isn't as moist. Don't expect it to cook though. It won't stay up to cooking temp for long. It isn't like an egg or veg which needs iced-water to avoid over-cooking.

Well done for buying a chicken. I'll be cooking 3 large chickens and 3 ducks. Much nicer than turkey

Timing isn't the most reliable

That said, when I've used this site:

www.g7smy.co.uk/roast/

It's never let me down

I wouldn't reduce cooking time to allow for the standing

20 mins per lb or 40 mins per Kg + 20mins, so your chicken should be in the oven for 2 hours 20 minutes.

As PP said, it doesn't continue cooking once it's out of the oven (unlike some of its offspring ).

Thanks everyone. I heard something on the TV last week that a turkey will continue to cook when out the oven so I just assumed that a large chicken would be the same. I'll just stick to the recommended cooking times.

If it's still got a core temp above 60c then yes it will continue to "cook" outside of the oven

But it will be minimal and not worth factoring into cooking time