That is an excellent question and one that I'd like to know the answer to. If it were my chicken, I think I'd roast it anyway and then look up what temperature the inside is supposed to be to be sure it's done. I have a meat thermometer so I'd use that. It'll probably take longer but I don't see why you couldn't roast it anyway.

The giblet thing has me stumped though. See, I have a raw chicken sort of phobia .. I hate to touch it. So I couldn't stick my hand in and feel around for it. I have heard of people roasting their Thanksgiving turkeys and then carving only to find the little bag inside. Maybe start the chicken roasting and then check it in a bit to see if the gibbies are inside?

Good luck. I hope you're having some mashed potatoes and green beans on the side. And chocolate for dessert.

I don't mind sticking my hand in...it's just kind of frozen shut.

Your idea is a good one - wait until it warms a bit and then check it out.

It it's a brown paper bag, probably no biggie. But if it's plastic...uh oh.

One possible concern about the little bag of giblets offal!:

- if it's in there, it can sharply increase the cooking time. A semi-frozen bird with a hollow center cooks through pretty fast. A bird with a center frozen around a similarly-frozen bag of parts could easily stay raw at the center.

Now, having said that (and with the disclaimer that I rarely cook meat anymore, so you might not want my advice anyway), I would cook that sucker right now. Yum.

Or... you could defrost it using the Alton Brown method: put a bowl in the sink. Put the chicken in the bowl. Fill the bowl with cool water. Leave the tap just barely streaming. The circulating water thaws the chicken much faster than circulating air would. SCIENCE!

Put it in a big container of water. Water will melt it faster than anything else, at least enough to check for guts.
i've put less than fully defrosted chicken in the oven, but at, say 325 instead of 350 or 400. It depends on how you're doing it, fully enclosed or somewhat exposed, with a sauce or flavor coat, crisping the skin at the end, etc. blah.
You can always turn it up at the end.
i do not fear the chicken and have to run.

Cold water helps. Sounds strange, but to hasten defrosting, you can put the chicken in a pot (or the sink) full of cold water. You have to change the water every half hour (or else the water gets too cold to do any good). I've even been known to run the chicken under warmish water to get the darned giblets out. Most of the time, the giblets are in paper, and if I'm not mistaken Mr. V once cooked a chicken that way, and no harm was done.

Alton promises that just a tiny bit of running water pouring into the cool-water-filled vessel provides a combination of conductivity and convection that will thaw your fowl faster.

*sigh* Alton...

Sorry, where was I?

Right. Uh. Chicken. You could just thaw it enough to yoink out the bag of offal, if any, then roast it.

If you decide to just gamble and pop it in the oven, I will admit that in my youth I more than once roasted a chicken halfway before discovering the little plastic bag of parts and wrestling the drippy hot parcel out with a pair of tongs and a towelled hand. We ate the plastic-roasted chicken and never grew no extra eyes 'r nothing.

I, for one, wonder about the people who have to excavate and then replace said guts we are checking for inside of said checked chicken.

If it's good enough for Alton, it's good enough for me. Actually, I did this method and it worked fine. Only about 45 minutes in the water and it was softish and pliable enough, and I was able to check for the bag o'guts, and there wasn't one. And now it's in the oven. Smelling good. Gettin' happy.

Do you even know whether the giblets are from the same chicken they are stuffed inside?

Moving water is faster but then you're wasting water, which isn't always an option.

i'd think the giblets are almost definitely not from the same bird if it's a commercial chicken. That's a big ol' conveyor belt factory thing, so i'd be surprised.

All Hail Elsa,
and Alton

Correct. Definitely thaw that bird [hey, Kangaroo, don't call it dirty bird] and get the giblets/liver and all Out before cooking.

Would you chew on plastic¿
Then don't cook it neither then eat it./ There is no such thing as well done plastic being even close to being cooked, savvy¿

offal offal offal.

Some words are more offal awesome than others.

Thanks for the advice and moral support, everyone!

It came out very, very well. Moist! And now I have days' worth of chicken projects ahead. Yay.

As far as giblets being from the same bird: looks like if the bird is processed manually, possibly. If it's from a large-scale slaughterhouse, probably not. The sources I'm looking at says that the giblets themselves have to be processed - they have to separate the stuff you "want" - heart and gizzard - from stuff you don't - lungs and intestines and such. So they usually send them through two separate lines and process bird and giblet separately, then unite any bird with any baggie at the end.