I'd like to bake a chicken. Let's say it's already washed, marinated, sitting on tray and ready to bake. I usually do it at 180 degrees C, for 1 hour. My main problem is that the skin is not crunchy enough and the meat is kind of "wet" and watery.
I'd like to know what will change if I bake it longer at this temperature, or if I bake it for the same time at higher temperature. Basically, how does temperature, baking time and air flow (optional ventilation in the oven) affect the meat. I guess I should experiment, but I'd like to understand the underlying processes a bit.
Best Answer
If the question is crispy skin, these related questions (1 and 2) provide a lot of tips and tricks to get what you want. As you can see in this answer, the trick is to start at a lower temperature to render all the fat - you also want your chicken sitting on a rack or on top of vegetables so it's not sitting in the fat once it's rendered. Towards the end of your cooking you want to turn up the heat to crisp up the skin after the fat has rendered.
Note that watery meat isn't good, but you do want to keep your meat moist, so you don't want to cook it so long at a high heat that it dries out. Tender meat is greatly helped by using a brine.