With the warmer summer months coming upon us, the thought of having the oven on for hours to cook a whole chicken was not appealing at all. Especially on Christmas day! Steaming a whole chook in the Varoma sounds like such a much better idea. I followed the basic technique for cooking a whole chicken in the Varoma from the Thermomix A Taste of Asia cook book, pg 50. I just made my own variations in preparing it.
The chicken skin contains amines, so I removed most of the skin. If you don’t have any problems or reactions to amines you can leave it on, although it does cook better steaming it without the skin on.
Vanilla salt
160g Sea Salt
2 vanilla beans
Place salt and vanilla beans in the Thermomix bowl and mix together on for 10 seconds on speed 7. Keep stored in an air tight container. The Vanilla salt is also great over potatoes, and as used as a seasoning in cooking.
Stuffing
100g cashews
2 tablespoons fresh or dried chives
2 stalks celery, approx 150g
2 spring onions
2 cloves garlic
1 teaspoon salt
3 slices bread
1 egg (optional)
After making the salt, don’t clean the Thermomix bowl, just add the cashews, chives, celery, spring onions, garlic and salt. Chop for 5 seconds on speed 6, scrape down sides. Break up bread and place in TM bowl, mix for 5 seconds on speed 6. Add egg and combine for 5 seconds on speed 3 (the mixture can hold together well enough without the egg, so if you can not tolerate egg, leave it out).
The Chicken
1 whole Chicken (about 1.5 – 1.7kg)
1ltr of water.
Remove skin from chicken. Fill cavity with the stuffing.
Place 2 chop sticks in the base of the Varoma bowl to help with steam circulation. Place chicken on top of the chop sticks. Sprinkle generously with Vanilla salt.
Add water to Thermomix bowl. Set Varoma bowl in place on top.
Cook at Varoma temperature for 40 -60 minutes depending upon the size of the chicken on speed 3. Mine took approx 55 minutes.
Notes: I prepared the chicken right before school afternoon pick up. It was ready to go in the varoma dish and I sat it on the black Thermoserver tray in the fridge in case it leaked juices. All I had to do was place it on the Thermomix and cook it once home. The chicken was beautiful, cooked through and moist from steaming it in the Varoma.
Chicken prepped ready to be cooked in the Varoma.
That looks great, Rona!
Okay, this is radical. I’ve never even heard of vanilla salt before. I think I’m going to roast a vanilla bean or two, and grind them up with salt to try this concept of yours. Thanks for the inspiring post!