Skinless Roast Chicken???

Hey,

I was wondering 2 things today:

1) If you cook chicken with the skin on, but then don't eat the skin, will its nutritional value be any different from if you had cooked the chicken skinless in the first place (e.g. due to fat absorption)?

2) If I were to make a whole roast chicken with the skin off, would I have to change the recipe (e.g. lower temperature, shorter cooking time...) and would it just become really dry?

Many thanks!

I'm not for certain sure about the first one, but I think the calories for a roast chicken cooked with skin but with skin removed would be similar to skinless chicken, cooked. Probably a little higher, since some rendered fat will sink into the crevices of the meat, but not a lot higher.

And I'm *sure* that if you baked a whole chicken without skin long enough to thoroughly cook the thighs that the breast meat would be like sawdust.

My suggestion would be to roast it skin-on, then take the skin off and just eat the meat. Second to that (a distant second!), I'd buy the chicken cut into 8 parts ( or just buy the parts, although most butcher counters will do this for you - ask to keep the backs for stock making) and cook the pieces without their skin. That way you can cook the white meat separate from the dark, since it needs less time, and overall, everything will cook more quickly.

you MIGHT be able to cook bone-in chicken breasts without the skin by roasting them in the oven wrapped in foil, similar to what is done when roasting a whole Turkey for Thanksgiving (the breasts are wrapped in foil so they don't dry out).  If you chose to do this, you'd also want to keep a close eye on the cooking time and perhaps even slightly undercook the breasts, letting them rest (and finish cooking) in the warm oven .  Theoretically, the foil should lock the moisture in and you wouldn't have to wonder about the skin adding extra fat. Additionally, letting the breasts rest and finish cooking with the oven turned off should prevent them from getting overcooked.

However, that being said, you need fat in your diet - and any fat added by the (uneaten & discarded) skin would not be a lot and would add lots of yummy flavor.  So, if I were you, I would go for just roasting the whole chicken skin on and removing the skin before eating it.