Can anyone tell me about food bags (the ones you cook food in) please?

[whomovedmychocolate]

I've bought some and want to do a chicken a la M&S rotisserie style chicken with maple marinade. Do I just do the marinade and whack it in the bag and then just cook it or what? Is there a special trick - this all looks too easy?

I have tried the exact same thing!

it didn't work terribly well. the food bags I bought said that they should be slitted and then I cooked it for aboout the same time as the M&S bird and it was still raw inside. I bunged it back in and it ended up dried out. No comparison to the M&S one! I'm going to try again, but I do think need to allow extra cooking time.

I marinated overnight too, I don't think you would get the flavour if you bunged it straight in.

Yes I was planning to marinate overnight. What should be slitted - the bag? How odd!

I have a fan oven and intend to cook it as I would a regular chicken, but I think M&S inject their birds with something to make them wetter and that's how they cook evenly. I have a syringe though so I may see what I can do.....

Will post success or otherwise tomorrow so you can have a laugh

if you have a syringe, then I would inject the marinate!
where did you get them from? I've been considering it, but wondering where on earth I can obtain syringes without appearing like a drug addict!

Boots! Seriously. Or any decent kitchen shop. Debenhams used to sell them but I don't think they do anymore. They are much bigger than drug syringes if you get them from the kitchen shops (frankly you want one which takes 30 mil and the small drug ones only take 10mil).

You also need a wider bore pack of needles.

I expect you can also get them on ebay if you don't want to explain (though if you go in a decent kitchenalia shop they won't bat an eyelid).

ChopsTheDuck - it worked it was fabulous - actually better than the M&S one because it didn't have all the salt in. Okay here's what I did. This is for a 1.6kg chook

(1) Lob some honey in a jug - about a tablespoon. Lob in 30g of butter, nuke in microwave for 30 seconds to melt butter. Stir
(2) Shove a whole lemon up chicken
(3) Get a culinary syringe and make little holes all over the chicken and inject as much of the marinade as you can.
(4) Flour bag (stick a tablespoon of flour in - I used cornflour) and then stick chicken in bag.
(5) Shake it a bit to get the flour to coat the chicken
(6) Close bag with sealing tie
(7) Put it in a baking pan and give it a good prod to ensure the marinade is not just sitting under the skin.
(8) Cook for an hour normal way up in the oven having preheated to 180
(9) Turn the bird over breast down to absorb the juices
(10) Cook for another hour (so 90 minutes total)
(11) Turn bird back right way up, and slit down top of back to reveal crown
(12) Cook for another 10 -15 minutes.
(13) Serve.

It literally fell off the bone and was absolutely delish - even the monsters asked for seconds and they scarcely eat unless it comes in chocolate form.

ooh I am gonna try that!

so you didn't slit the bag at the start of cooking at all? That was on the instructions for the bags I bought, and I was scared it was going to explode or soemthing if I didnt!

I've actually recently replaced my crappy old convection oven with a fan oven, so maybe that will help too!

Oh I didn't use the fan oven, I used the top oven and no, no slitting - is it Baco bags you are using? About £2 for 8?