If you watch cable in the
middle of the day - and you've seen every episode of every Star Trek
series on Spike TV, you know every answer on every rerun of Jeopardy
and the soaps have strangled all but the last glimmer of hope from
your life - you are probably going to find yourself watching the Food
Network. And if you are watching the Food Network in the middle of
the day, you are going to start getting some very bad ideas regarding
chicken.
If you mixed yourself a
strong cocktail, and took a drink every time some bleach-blond,
suburbanite, wanna-be chef said “boneless, skinless chicken
breast,” you would be dead from alcohol poisoning before Rachel Ray
got the chance to smother you with American cheese and blandness. And
that would still be better than getting off the couch, brushing the
Cheeto dust from your bathrobe and actually cooking a boneless,
skinless chicken breast in your non-stick pan with a tablespoon of
E.V.O.O. With just a pinch of salt and a little freshly ground black
pepper to make you go “hmm” and a pint of your own tears born
from the pain and misery of your horrible, lonely existence.
“What's
wrong with boneless skinless chicken breast?” You might ask,
“chicken is chicken, right?” If you are asking questions like
this, reading food blogs might not be for you. You may go back to
enjoying your mechanically separated, extrusion-molded, deep-fried
not-chicken snack from McDonald’s and let the grown-ups talk.
Chicken
is not just chicken. What I mean to say is that each cut of chicken –
the legs, the breasts, the wings and the offal – have a distinct,
but harmonious flavor. The thighs and drumsticks, being the darkest
pieces, have the strongest flavor. The wings are milder, but have an
excellent flavor because of their higher fat content. Finally, the
breast - the most fought-over cut in many families - is prized for
it's moisture and subtle, delicate flavor, and therein lies the
problem. The moment you overcook your chicken breast it's game over,
you might as well make chicken jerky.
If
you're one of those people who likes to eat “exotic” meat and
then say “why, this tastes just like chicken!” Then chances are
you have been eating over-cooked, bone-dry, skinless, boneless
chicken breast for your entire life, and you don't actually know what
chicken tastes like. Let me help you find out.
Most
chefs will extoll the virtues of cooking your chicken whole, and I
wouldn't dare to argue with them. Indeed, cooking a chicken whole
requires almost as little thought and effort as buying a rotisserie
chicken at the super market, and the result is infinitely better.
Start by preheating your oven (almost any temperature between 350 and
450 will do). Next, tie the ends of the drumsticks together with
cotton twine, and fold the tips of the wings under the breast (you
can also tie the wings to the rest of the bird with a big loop of
twine, but I've never seen the point). Last, put your bird in a heavy
lidded roasting pan (or large casserole), surround it with aromatic
vegetables (carrots, celery and onions spring to mind) season with
salt, pepper, herbs and spices (there are about a billion ways to do
this, I'll get to some of them later) and throw it in the oven. Cook
until done. I'm not going to tell you when
that is, but according to the USDA; chicken is safe to eat at 165
degrees F, and that wont be dry if your roasting pan has a nice,
heavy lid. If you want an exact time when your chicken will be done,
every cook book I own has a cooking time based on weight, and they
are all
wrong. Use some common sense; This isn't a 30 minute meal. Check the
meat after an hour, it wont be done but it will tell you when you
need to start working on your side-dishes.
Tune
in next time and learn about the economics of buying whole chicken.
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