Roast a Whole Bird

A classic weekend meal for us is to roast a whole chicken. Cooking a whole chicken has a few advantages-a whole bird is cheaper pound per pound, easy to cook, almost impossible to overcook, generally more delicious than individual pieces and there are always leftovers meat for other meals.

There is a lot of fear about cooking whole birds stemming from overcooked Thanksgiving turkeys. This is generally caused by huge birds which will have overcooked breasts by the time the dark meat has reached temperature. The solution is to cook a smaller bird; cooking two turkeys for Thanksgiving if needed. (And why not deep-fry or barbecue that second bird? But that's a topic for another day).

The chicken should be at room temperature, which will help cook the bird faster and more evenly. You can achieve this more quickly by giving the bird a bath in room temperature water, refreshing the water regularly.

The Joy of Cooking says to preheat the oven to 450, place the bird in the oven, immediately reduce heat to 350 degrees, cook for 20 minutes per pound cooking until the bird is 185 degrees. The more intense initial heat will give the bird a crispy skin-as will seasoning the bird with salt and pepper inside and out. A properly cooked bird will also be incredibly easy to carve. The wings and legs will loosen, making it easy to find the joints allowing you to cut through them. The breast meat is best cut away from the ribs in two large chunks (one from each side) and then sliced.

Once the meal is over, the real fun begins-leftovers. Preparing for future meals is one of the keys to timesaving. One whole bird will allow you to make several other meals over the next few days-sandwiches, chicken salad, chicken pot pies, enchiladas, tacos, the carcass for soup and the list goes on.

The same applies to leftovers from barbecued chicken with the addition that barbecued food generally tastes better on later days because the flavor of the smoke will continue to infuse deeper into the bird.

One minor word of caution-if planning to use meat for additional meals, it might be best to not give the bird too strong a flavor. I've tried Moroccan, jerk and other uniquely flavored chickens in leftovers and often those flavor don't lend themselves to many of the dishes mentioned above. Or, simply gives the impression you are eating the same meal again and again which defeats the idea repurposing the chicken in other dishes.