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ON ROASTING CHICKENS

3/11/2005

There’s a scene in I’LL NEVER BE LONG GONE where Charlie interviews prospective chefs for Charlotte’s and he has them roast a chicken as part of the interview. I remember having read somewhere that the measure of a bistro in Paris was how well they roasted a chicken. In other words, if you can do that well, then everything else must be good, too. I’ve roasted a lot chickens in my time, and I’m constantly mixing it up and trying new things. I’ve always been a fan of the rosemary, lemons and olive oil in the cavity that Claire does in the book, but I don’t do that as much anymore. I’ve done real high heat the whole time, and I’ve done the classic high heat to seal, then low to finish. Recently, after a friend returned from a Christmas dinner with a jar of fluffy white goose fat, I did the old school bistro thing, covering the bird with the fat and cooking it for hours at low temperature. The meat was super tender and I loved it, though Tia thought it was a little too rich. Nowadays I’m more inclined to use a butter/herb mixture that I press under the skin and above the breast and then baste with. Thyme is good, as is rosemary. I cook it at high heat for twenty minutes then finish it in a low oven. Though sometimes I also red-cook them, in the Chinese style, which is more of a braise than a roast. The whole chicken goes in a pot with soy, rice wine, star anise, chilies, cinnamon, aqua, ginger and garlic. The chicken turns red and afterward, you take the meat off the bone and reduce a little of the sauce. The important thing, of course, is the chicken itself. Chickens should be white, not orange! We’re lucky here in Vermont in that we have Misty Knoll, a local producer that kicks out beautiful free range birds. Finally, the best thing about roast chicken is the leftovers. The meat becomes chicken salad for lunches, and the bones become the base for a stock, that then becomes French Onion Soup or risotto or in the case of the red-cooked chicken, an Asian style soup redolent of ginger and chilies. There’s a frugalness about this that I love. Three meals in one.