The perfect chicken is nearly impossible to find – the perfectly crispy skin with the moist meat. Breaking the chicken down into parts facilitates this, because with such a method you can combine a bit of Sous Vide with some flash frying and have that perfect chicken. The perfect chicken is made with great chicken and great technique. A great bird is where to start- finding a small roasting chicken – of about 3 pounds is perfect. Our local AJ’s market has these- but most grocery stores do not. The famous blue-foot chicken can be purchased on-line – great free range chickens that make for an outstanding meal (and the blue feet remind me of the days when I did vascular surgery). But it is technique that will take the great bird and make it into home made perfection.

Sous Vide will cook the chicken perfectly- but you need to do a flash fry for the Maillard Reaction

It is keeping that chicken together- cooking it whole, making the chicken in such a way that the aroma from the chicken will permeate the house. The ultimate comfort food- and yet, too often when people cook it the chicken skin is soggy, the chicken meat is dry – and we look to sauces to overcome it. But learn to make chicken well, and you will have great, healthy food.  When Jonathan Waxman was voted off Top Chef Masters – he had made chicken. The judges thought that the chicken was too simple, but it was done perfectly. Did those judges ever try to make chicken?
Some of my favorite restaurants for chicken include Zuni in San Francisco- the perfectly cooked whole chicken. That recipe was adapted in our recipe section- the key for that is salting the chicken a day or two ahead of time and allowing it to dry in the refrigerator. Ad Hoc and Bouchon – of Thomas Keller – who prefers to brine the chicken before roasting it (salting does the same chemical process without the messy brine). Tarbell’s has perfected the pan roasted chicken. Michael Mina’s Sous Vide Chicken provides an amazing flavor profile, that is difficult to find.
Jeffrey Steingarten, the food editor for Vogue magazine, noted how the roto-broil 400 made the perfect home rotisserie chicken. It became my mission to find one- which I did, and he is right- this is the perfect rotisserie unit for people. The problem is they don’t make that unit any longer. I found one on E-Bay and had the unit refurbished. The unit is a work horse, and will probably last another 54 years. Since most people can’t find these units to test a modern one I purchased the Ronco platinum unit (you may have seen Ron Propel’s set-it-and-forget-it infomercials). This produces a moist chicken, but the heat generated does not give the perfect crispy skin – still not a bad unit for the home cook.

The Roto-Broil 400 makes the perfect chicken

We go back and forth in our house- making the chicken on the rotisserie – which is simple, to the oven roasted whole chicken. Both have great qualities, and both leave the house with an aroma of the perfect comfort food. Learn to make a great chicken- and you will have one or two nights a week when you will have a great meals.

Skin cut away to reveal the perfect chicken- crispy skin, moist meat