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Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Roasted chicken goodness

Cooks weigh in on making the perfect roasted chicken.

By Lindsey Nair

food writer Lindsey Nair

Food writer Lindsey Nair

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A raw, whole chicken is the cook's equivalent of a blank canvas.

It is clean, pure and ready to absorb whatever flavors are on the chef's palette that day, whether they be salty rubs, smoky spices, sweet glazes or good, old-fashioned barbecue sauce.

But I would argue that before any artist can create a masterpiece, he or she must be capable of producing a basic sketch. In the world of poultry, the sketch is synonymous with a basic roasted bird, unadulterated by overpowering ingredients.

Like a sketch, though, a simple roasted chicken can be done so many different ways. Of the dozen or more chefs and home cooks I talked to, no two use the same recipe to turn out juicy meat and golden brown skin.

Some grease the inside, some the outside. Some stuff ingredients under the skin, some stuff the cavity. Some use a roasting rack, some go flat on the pan. Some roast it breast up, some down; some turn it all around.

At the risk of inducing shudders, I'll admit how I cooked a whole chicken as a young, green college grad: I plopped that baby down

in the slow cooker, tossed in some potatoes, onions, celery, carrots, salt and pepper, poured water over the top and let it go.

This method is great if the goal is soup or chicken stock, but nobody wants to see that pale, rubbery critter splayed out on a serving platter.

Fast forward to a recent Sunday, when I stood in the kitchen gazing down at a lovely raw chicken purchased from Angie LeNoir and Patricia Whitt of the Blue Ridge Poultry Co-op.

Even though this privileged bird spent its life wandering in and out of the coop and grazing on open pasture, I still wanted to honor it by not screwing it up.

A little real butter, some fresh herbs from the garden and a digital thermometer were my friends in that endeavor. It was truly one of the best roasted chickens I've ever tasted, but it was not perfection.

Perfection, as any good cook knows, takes practice.

The chicken spectrum

Jeff Bland, a chef with U.S. Foodservice, sprinkles his chickens with salt and pepper before sliding them into a 400-degree oven until the temperature reads 165 degrees in the thigh.

That's it. He doesn't even serve it with gravy.

"I am a roasted chicken purist," he said. "As far as a chef goes, probably as pure as it gets."

In Bland's opinion, the single most important tip for roasting a tasty bird is to read that thermometer. He takes his poultry out at 165 degrees because it will continue to cook outside the oven for a while (in the industry, they call this carry-over cooking.)

If the bird doesn't come out of the oven until the thermometer reads 180, it could turn out dry, he said.

Then there's Tucker Yoder, head chef at The Red Hen in Lexington, who likes to stuff bacon fat or butter and herbs under the skin. If he's cooking it for the restaurant, he might even brine the bird first.

Separating the skin from the flesh can be tricky without tearing it, but that layer of air in between is key for crispier skin, Yoder said. In fact, Peking duck is made by pumping air between the skin and flesh for this very reason.

Bland and Yoder represent opposite points on the roasted chicken spectrum. In between fall many, many variations. Here are a few examples:

n Josh Smith at Local Roots Cafe in Roanoke brines and trusses his bird, then roasts it at a high heat in a preheated saute pan, basting with butter and thyme in the final stages.

n One of my blog readers uses an Alton Brown method that includes cramming a mixture of vegetables, herbs and butter inside the cavity and roasting the chicken breast-side down for half the time, then flipping it over.

Advocates of the breast-down method say it keeps the white meat from drying out. Turning halfway through allows the skin to brown on all sides.

n My dad, wonderful cook that he is, mixes softened butter with poultry seasoning and minced garlic, then rubs that under the skin and outside the skin. He then squeezes lemon juice all over the chicken and tosses the lemon halves inside the bird.

Do any of these methods really sound bad? To me, they all sound leagues better than my boiled bird in a bath.

Bok-bok-beautiful

I will admit that I went into this project thinking I'd find the recipe for the ultimate roasted chicken.

As it turns out, I should probably start working on a cookbook called "101 Ways to Roast a Chicken." Oh, wait. I just checked and there are about a dozen of those cookbooks in existence already.

Plan C: Gather the best tips from every method and create my own hybrid recipe.

The next time I'm standing face to neck with a raw chicken, I'll stuff butter and herbs under the skin like Tucker Yoder, rub the outside with more butter and some lemon juice like dad, start it breast-down like my blog reader, baste it as Josh Smith does and use a rack and a thermometer like Jeff Bland.

With so many heads working together, it's bound to be a beautiful bird.

If not, well, I'll just get another canvas and try again.

Lindsey Nair's column runs every Wednesday in Extra.

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