BETTER YET, quit trying to screw with tradition and make it the right way. Only in America can you have a hard time finding a bird, or a ham, that hasn't been injected with some chemical or other. It's why food in this country tastes like crap.

Seriously. Buy something that hasn't been screwed with, then cook it the old way. You'll like it better...

There's this town in France and once a year they celebrate what they think is the world's best chicken. It's on my to-do list to get there...

JR

Lots O'the food we enjoyed on the olden days aint available any mo.

I remember back when pork had some fat and juices and wasn't all dry like an over-done turkey breast.
Hams ain't what they used to be, unless you plop down $50 or $60 on a real cured country ham.
Chickens, turkeys, they're all mass-produced and generic.
Even cows aren't as good as they used to be.
They've selectively bread the ani-mules so much that they just aint the same.

A lot of ethnic neighborhoods around the city have "live markets". You pick the bird, and they bring it in the back an processes it. They do carry different breeds of chickens, with some costing more..

And yes, pigs have been bread tho be low fat and they are fed on soybeans and corn the same as feedlot cows, mass produced poultry and even farm raised fish..

two products that are "farmed" i can get behind. imho, better than mother nature..Catfish and Mussels.

farmed catfish taste cleaner. none of that muddy flavor of it's wild cousin.
and farmed mussels are also super clean. raised on those strings in flowing ocean currents. zero sediment, and are HUGE, and consistent in sizing. i love em.

the pig that my neighbor gave me..she raised it using grassroots methods. feeding them watermelons, pumpkins, fresh veggies too ugly for market. i admit it is much fattier than storebought. but the flavor is amazing.

I think there are plenty of animals that taste better from farms. Just not the huge, Tyson chicken kind of farms we normally think of.

John, If you can't find a cajun injector local I'll mail you one. Think of it as my way of saying thank you for helping me with the date night. SmileWavy

Flowerpot Roasted Chicken

Brine chicken.
Clean chicken.
Coat chicken with olive oil or butter. Get some butter under the skin if possible.
Season chicken to taste. Salt, pepper, garlic.
Put some cut up apple and onion pieces inside chicken. Pour a little bourbon in as well.

Take large flowerpot and set the drip pan down like a plate. Put the flowerpot down upsidedown on the drip pan with the hole up.
Preheat oven with flowerpot to 500 degrees.
Remove flowerpot from oven and set in chicken breast up.
Put cover back on over chicken. Put flowerpot in oven.

For a 4.5lb bird 30 minutes at 500 degrees. Turn off oven and let alone for 25 minutes.
For a 3.5lb bird 20 minutes at 500 degrees. Turn off oven and let alone for 20 minutes.
Take flowerpot out of oven, and bird out of flowerpot. The skin should be perfectly crisp, and the meat perfectly juicy. Test for temperature at thigh.
Let bird cool on plate for 5 minutes before serving.




Brine For Poultry

Brine (quantity for turkey):
1 qt of water with 6 cloves of garlic (smashed) and peppercorns (cracked) steeped for 20 minutes.
Turn off heat, add 1lb kosher salt and 1 lb dark brown sugar, and 5 quarts of water, stir until completely mixed, add a little more water if necessary.
Ice for a few minutes until very cold.
Put bird in for 8 – 15 hours. Make sure the skin has been pulled away from the meat on the bird.

¼ recipe of brine for chicken. Brine for 6 hours.

Calif. has to have some old fashioned chickens & etc. sammy - the tasty organic chickens are all over the place here. Even running around loose in my neighborhood (no, I did not knab one - yet).

there is plenty of good beeves for sale too; also the local butcher has Waygu (the breed used for Kobe beef); got to be a guy near you


re Country ham - I had to mail order one.

Thank you, I'm pretty equipped with injectors - I could shoot up King Kong - but as long as you're in a giving mood . . . how did the dinner go?

The best chicken I've ever eaten was simply salted, peppered, rubbed with veg oil in & out & roasted over a wood fire with a half-can of good beer shoved into the cavity - it's roasted "sitting" in a pan on the beer can - aka "Beer Butt Chicken."

Please post pics from the roast chicken throwdown!

quick note, went to her place last night with one, 4-pound chicken, bourbon-honey-meyer lemon butter under the skin, meyer lemons and roasted garlic and more butter inside, sweet onions outside, extra basting butter.

Brushed on butter, covered with foil, 20 minutes at 400

Basted, covered with foil, 20 minutes at 400

Basted, no foil, 20 minute at 350

Basted, no foil 20 minutes at 350.


This would win a roast chicken throwdown. The onion sauce (quite a lot produced in bottom of glass dish) was one of the best sauces I've ever "made." Reduced and added to a beurre blanc and it would be a top 5 for any fish. We were just ladling it into our mouths. Devoured chicken, just sat at the coffee take and started cutting away, leaving chunks in the sauce, like lobster in a butter dish. Ate all of it save for 1/2 a breast.

Throwdown party won't be for some time (after Valentine's Day) based on our schedules and dinner/travel plans already made, but she was ready to concede anyway. A damn good night! Looking forward to making some of the recipes posted here.

No pics? Bad boy!

sorry about that, it became all about eating as soon as it came out of the oven.

Shaun, we're going to need photos of the chicken, the girlfriend and the meyer lemons.

So much depends on the chicken, where did you get it?

I got permission for the photo of gf. Sadly, no pics of the chicken or lemons. So just imagine a fresh (killed that morning) chicken from Whole Foods (only $1.59/lb...and tasted fresher and finer than any hormone-inject force-fed Purdue bird) in a glass baking dish, skin brown all over, tail and legs tied up to keep what's inside, inside, 1/2 inch+ of liquid and nearly liquified onions, some of the lemons pulled out. Note that I peeled the lemons, cut down with a knife. Those were little bursts of flavor on their own.

Sitting on the floor cutting and gobbling down the chicken, thought I was 24 again. Bring a girl a chicken = very romantic evening.

Ahh, but it is better to wait. Let the chicken rest at least 15 minutes before cutting into it. While waiting, feel free to take the pan juices and make a proper sauce out of them. Then, pour some of said sauce on the mashed potatoes that are mandatory for this meal.

JR

good tip, thank you. if it's any consolation, just arranging and getting silverware and water and stuff, it sat a good 5-10 minutes. if the sauce had been reduced and thickened into a gravy, it would have been out of this world.

I was going to do red bliss quartered, boiled, sautéed with garlic, dill and butter, little olive oil. We just had chicken though. sugar snap peas would have gone well with it too.

See the Tony Bourdain recipe link I posted earlier, for a basic sauce. You really need to try that recipe... the moistness of the white meat will amaze you. Do it right and every cubic inch of the chicken will taste of herbs.

I'm tellin' ya, mashed, mashed, mashed. Do them right (cooked properly, mashed properly or riced, cold butter and hot, reduced cream....lots of salt, some fine ground fresh pepper) and you will see why I am persistent about this. With the sauce, even the most health conscious woman on a diet will say, screw it, I'm eating all of it...

JR

fixed it

Extra parts, onion, celery, garlic and carrots roasting now..

When they are done I will add to water and start some stock.

You guys have inspired me, let's see how today turns out.


So what is a nice wine with roasted chicken??