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Cook the Book: 'Roast Chicken and Other Stories'

20080225-ctb.jpgThis week's Cook the Book is one we've mentioned before on the site—Roast Chicken and Other Stories by Simon Hopkinson. If you haven't heard of Hopkinson, chances are you aren't English; in Britain, this book was voted the most useful cookbook ever by a group of chefs, food writers, and readers. We've already featured Roast Chicken's namesake Roast Chicken recipe, so this week we'll be highlighting additional dishes each day. Monday's will be along shortly, but first ...

Win 'Roast Chicken and Other Stories'

And as is always the case with our weekly Cook the Book volume, we've got five (5) copies of this book to give away to our readers. Simply tell us your chicken story in the comments section below. We leave it up to you to interpret what a "chicken story" is and what it consists of. Good luck!

Winners will be chosen at random from among the commenters, and comments will be open until noon ET, Monday, March 3. The standard Serious Eats contest rules apply.

Comments are closed: 269 Comments:

Hmm...well, my favorite roast checken recipe is from the Zuni Cafe cookbook...does that count as a story?

I just began roasting chickens last fall, and have yet to completely perfect it. In an effort to save some time and try something new, I picked up one of those Perdue seasoned roasters in a bag and tried to cook it with some root vegetables.

Let's just say I'm going to go back to wrestling with my normal Fairway's free-range roasters and bucket of unnamed flavor concoctions until I get it right. Perdue, it's over.

My husband recently roasted a chicken and boiled off the bits for a chicken stock. He put the broth in a big plastic bowl with a lid and was moving it to the refrigerator so he could make soup with it the next day. I don't know whether the lid popped off or he banged it on the way in but I heard a large splash, a 'damnit!', and got up to find chicken stock all through the fridge and on the floor. At 10:30 pm.

I'm still finding bits of chicken stock in my fridge.

I love making and eating fried chicken

my husband makes the chicken in the house. the only time i made it i burnt it. baaaad. this book might save me ;)

I decided to teach my daughter how to spatchcock a bird prior to her heading off to college. (In my opinion it's the most foolproof roasting method) Let's just say that she was certain that she was about to be thoroughly embarrassed....

I became addicted to roasted pick-up-on-the-way-home supermarket chicken. I crave it. And I think all of the bones should be cooked for chicken stock. But I have no room in my freezer for all that stock. I need a freezer to keep up my supermarket chicken habit. :)

I made the Zuni Cafe roast chicken once, but it set off my smoke alarm wiht the high roasting temps; but it was the most delicious chicken I've ever had. It's not much of a story ...

my chicken coop is my story

After years of roasting chickens on a fairly regular basis (sometimes with butter tucked under the skin, sometimes with cilantro and limes stuffed in the cavity, etc.), we picked up Alice Waters' The Art of Simple Food. It was a revelation in chicken-roasting! But no sooner than we found what seemed to be the ultimate method did my husband begin angling to try Heston Blumenthal's version. Is the ultimate version still out there, somewhere?

ok this isnt my story, but a friends. it was during his days as a college student living in a somewhat seedy neighborhood with one roommate. he purchased a roast chicken and carved himself a sandwich, went to his living room to eat it and watch tv. when he returned to his kitchen his chicken was gone (and he left it with about half the meat still there). he then accused his roommate of eating it all without asking. the roommate denied this and as they turned looked to one of the adjoining rooms found a rather large rat with the the whole chicken carcass.

We consider roast chicken a "staple". Aromatics in the cavity, wings under and truss the legs to the butt. Pour dry sherry over all, add salt pepper and paprika and roast. It makes the most marvelous gravy...

my "chicken story" is about my favorite hen "Red." She used to ride on a shoulder as any of my family walked out to the garden or orchards when I was a child. She also would occasionally ride on bicycle handlebars.

I have cooked many a chicken. My favorite was at a football tailgate party last year. I cooked four little fryers on beer cans. I was sooo surprised at how moist the chickens turned out. Make sure that you put a potato in the top of the chicken while it is on the grill. This helps the moisture from the beer really infuse the chicken.

Freshman year of college, a bunch of friends and I decided to cook Thanksgiving dinner in the dorm kitchen. We got the largest chicken we could find at the local grocery store -- carrying it and all the other food on foot through the cold was a feat in itself. Of course, each person had their own idea of how the chicken should be cooked and for how long. Given all the arguing and people secretly adding oil or butter and this spice or that, it should have been a disaster, but somehow, everything turned out great!

I roast a chicken several times a month and love using the leftovers to make stock - i can never go back to canned.

A friend almost burned his apartment down when he left the roast chicken remnants simmering in the stockpot overnight and forgot about it. All turned out well, though!

I was vegan until the day I could no longer resist the siren song of a poulet rôti in a Paris restaurant. It's been one slippery (and delicious!) slope back to being an omnivore.

i made chicken last night, does that count?

When I was younger my brother and I decided to make my mother a birthday dinner from scratch. We decided on baking a chicken, because we figured that it would be hard to mess up. Well, in fact we almost burned the house down and ended up with a charcoal briquette instead of a bird.

Kind of mean but I used to hate chicken! I found it was always dry and had no flavor--until I started making my own. I realized my mom was just cooking it way too long and my sister's and I now call it chicken jerky! (not to her face of course!)

I had no idea the stuff could be so tasty, I'm a true convert!

My mom wanted an Auracana chicken after seeing them on a Martha Stewart show, so when she visited me in college she bought one from a feed store and snuck it home on the plane, hidden in a scarf around her neck. This chicken grew up with her dogs, pecked at everyone's feet, slept with the dogs, ate with the dogs, and eventually did lay some pretty blue-green eggs. In addition to her chicken feed, she also ate ground beef and scrambled eggs but always refused to eat cooked chicken.

Being a Southern girl, I once decided I would try to make fried chicken the real, old fashioned way. I was following a time-consuming Southern Living ultimate recipe that included marinating in buttermilk, dredging, letting the pieces rest again, and then frying them up in batches.

And after the entire day spent with that chicken, it still didn't taste like Grandma's!

A Dinner to Remember

I undertook a quiet approach to the crackling-glazed large bird, so lovingly roasted. The candle flickered and glowed. Warmly basted, softly brushed all over with smooth melting careful rich buttery caresses, brushed with long full licks of the brush, with little barely touching kisses of its mane. A barely audible noise, a rich fragrance of the earth, gently diffused the muted atmosphere of the amiable, dusk filled country kitchen. I made close, and with a touch of my longing hand upon that so-succulent and emboldened leg, it suddenly, joyously, released spinning droplets of hot flavrous juices at me. Airbound they flew, bursting, spurting, upwards towards the sky in delicious glorious escape. Then, dripping drizzling oozing with a glistening fullness the sweet juices puddled, lovingly hot and torpid, onto the heated vessel laying in wait for them to gather, en masse. Dinnertime, dear! I called out. And we feasted well and fully.

Not my personal story but my church sponsored a vietnamise family years ago and their first visit to an a American grocery store was both overwhelming and educational. They bought what they thought was a canned chicken then learned upon opening it that what they had was Crisco. They did not read english and bought it because of the picture of fried chicken on the label.

In a roasting rack, high off the floor of the roasting pan, stuffed with aromatics, gently salted, dried well, and skin well buttered. Then sift flour all over the buttered skin, and roast at 375 about an hour for a 3-4 pound chicken. You may raise the temp to 425 for the last 30 min to brown the skin some more.

Keep warm, deglaze the pan with a bit of dry vermouth, and serve the drippings with the sliced roast chicken.

Learned this from a Quebecois gentleman named Pierre in 1979.

My horse has befriended his boarding farm's chickens. They eat his grain and sleep in his hay. I don't like them much, actually. They get very huffy when I rudely enter their cozy dwelling!

Just made my first roast chicken a couple of weeks ago. I don't know why I was so intimidated by it - it was super easy to make and puts grocery story chickens to shame!

I found a recipe in a crockpot cookbook for Chicken Tortilla Soup. I prep the boneless chicken breasts the night before, and then all I have to do in the morning to make the soup is open cans of broth, beans, corn, and a jar of salsa. The recipe turned out to be so stupendous, that my family asks for it every week, and my newly-married daughter said her husband insists on it too. The chicken is so easy to make: season well with chili powder, salt, pepper, paprika, seasoned salt, and garlic powder. Saute in olive oil, turn, cook til done. Let cool, and shred for the soup. The soup cooks all day, and I serve it with a side of shredded cheddar. The chicken is so delicious.

my husband makes it, i just eat it :)

The first time I ever roasted a chicken just happened to be the evening after I had microsurgery on my right index finger. I had decided to stay home from class since I was still a little out of it from the anesthetics that I was given. My parents had taken me to get groceries early in the afternoon, post-surgery, and I had bought a whole chicken for some reason (I guess I could chalk that up to the drugs too, but really I'm just that obsessed with food).

Did I mention the blizzard? Yeah. While I was in the hospital (from about 4 am to 10 am) about 8 inches of snow fell. Then, as we were leaving, we noticed that we had a flat tire. So we went to get that fixed. *Then* they took me to get some food.

I'm not sure what inspired me to roast a chicken while my right hand was almost completely useless and covered in bandages, but I had several hours of free time and not a lot to do. So I decided to follow the recipe from "How to Cook Everything". I rested the bird on a cooling rack, over a skillet full of onion, carrots, and potatoes, and roasted away. The chicken juices dripped down and got absorbed by the vegetables. By dinner time, I was ravenous. I ate both thighs, both wings, and all of the lovely chicken infused vegetables. Despite everything, that day ended relatively well.

i have yet to roast a chicken!

My husband doesn't like chicken on the bones....but I roast it whole anyways and make him eat it.

roasted lots of chickens over not so many years,

...but it was Ed Levine's desire to make the Zuni chicken that inspired me to try a new method and now my 10 inch cast iron skillet is pretty much the only pan I use to roast a nice young bird.

thanks ed, and thanks judy rodgers.

I am not much of a cook but I did once put the entire chicken in boiling water with salt and 2 cups of rice and it was the best meal that I really enjoyed. ;-) Oh yes...forgot the chicken broth. No fuss and so easy. Extra seasoning was added to taste. I forgot to add dumplings which my mom always added to her soups but next time I did and YUM YUM!!!!

taking a chicken, season it an hour or so before, keeping it simple
hot oven, about an hour, crispy skinned, full of juice
leftovers, meat for anything, bones for stock
stock for soup, crusty bread, thank you chicken

I once at a chicken dinner for 4, by myself.

Fried Chicken breast it is great in salads or soups.

Why did the chicken cross the road?

To play "people" with the passing cars.

I was in high school home alone and decided to cook a frozen chicken tender. I followed the microwave instructions on the bag exactly and what came out was a piece of cardboard that was still bloody. I threw that away and resorted to easy mac. I'm still afraid to cook meat and rely on my trusty george foreman for never failed veggie burgers.

The first time I roasted a chicken, it was nearly done, and my dad walked in and looked at it and informed me my chicken was upside down. I had no idea. I simply flipped over the chicken, crisped up the skin, and it was done. The roast chicken and its accompaniments were actually a gift for my neighbor, who had just had a baby. I brought it over to her, and later she called to thank me and tell me it was the moistest, most delicious roast chicken she had ever had. She wanted to know my secret. I now roast all my chickens upside down until they are nearly done. I always get compliments, and my chicken is never too dry.

Roast chicken always means it's the first Sunday of the month.

I slice onions to line my crock pot, sea salt two whole chickens inside and out, and set the temp on low for 10+ hours. Mmmmm...

The leftovers are recycled, rarely lasting more than 2 weeks. Pot pies, broth, soup, lunches, salads, chili, on and on.

Haven't roasted one yet - need a roasting pan first!

I swear by Thomas Keller's method on Epicurious. Perfect every time (I leave off the butter and thyme) and I've passed it on to many people who love it as much as I do.

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/231348

I love chicken and am constantly looking for new tastey recipes

My favorite chicken story is Chicken Little. Does that count?

Oh. And then there's the story of the devil chicken my wacky dad somehow adopted when I was five years old. This was only the latest addition to a very long line of odd creatures he's taken in over the years (three racoons, various snakes, a hawk, an owl, two crows, a desert tortoise, and so on). Anyway. I passionately hated that chicken. It was mean, mean, mean. Used to chase me around the yard trying to peck my legs to shreds, or would flutter up onto my shoulders pecking at my head. One weekend, I was playing in the backyard. I couldn't go in through the back door, because my mom was mopping and waxing the floors. I couldn't go in through the front door, because my dad was spraying the rose bushes around the front porch. The chicken suddenly decided to start its torture the little girl routine. I remember climbing on top of the car to get away. Of course, it simply followed me. Finally, my dad took pity and let me in through the front door. Shortly after that the chicken was gone, donated to some new owner.

Oh. Did I mention we lived in the city? On a busy boulevard? Well, that's my dad.

The idea of raising and slaughtering my own chickens for cooking has never bothered me in the least. Baggage? I expect so.

I love roasted chicken! My smoke-alarm must be disconnected before I start, but that crispy skin is SO good!

Oh, I did learn the hard way not to use one of those vertical roasting racks in a convection oven! What a mess! :-)

Chicken is a real basic in our house. When I roast a chicken I add peeled, quartered potatoes to the pan and bake along with the chicken. Yummy!

I love roast chicken and have finally got the perfect (for me) method down. I buy the chicken a couple days in advance, so I can salt it as soon as I get it home and let it hang out in the fridge and get all juicy and full of flavor. The big day I take it out an hour or so before it goes in the oven, rub it with butter, maybe some lemons, maybe some herbs, but nothing more fancy than that. Place in my roasting pan with a v-rack, put a bit of stock in the pan, and start it out the oven around 450-475 for twenty minutes. Turn the heat wayyyyy down, a la Paula Wolfert, and let it slowly slowly finish roasting to perfection. Give it a rest out of the oven while we make the gravy and finish roasting veggies.

My husband calls me the queen of white meat! I can make chicken come out so moist and juicy no matter which method of cooking. I try to tell him he just cooks his too long and then it is dry. I keep close watch on the cooking until it is done perfectly. In my home, I have the chicken detail but not the burgers...those I burn every time.

My Mom was trying to cook a dinner for my dad in the early days.
My parents had me when they were 16 and 17 and they lived with their parents for a few years. my mother's mother was a big fan of French cooking as was the style in the post 50's early 60's and was trying to show Mom how to make some dish from a cookbook called Chicken Under Glass. As Mom was putting the pyrex pan in the oven, she dropped it and it shattered everywhere. They were both shocked by the crash and since they lived at the time quite a way form a store, they tried to make the best of it and clean off the chicken and get it in the oven anyway.
I guess they weren't so good at finding all the glass shards as this story became a family legend and chicken with Glass is often mentioned in our family as a dinner option - with a laugh.

I was broiling chicken for a friend in college, a friend I was trying to impress with my cooking prowess and overall suave-ness. The broiler set off the smoke alarm, so I reached for the first thing I could to wave in front of the alarm. I picked up a box of wheat thins (this was the 80's) and waved it in front of the sensor. Unfortunately, it was a box of wheat thins that I had already opened, and as I waved the box, an arc of wheat thins emerged in the air, landing all over the apartment. I was finding them for months. Been leery of broilers ever since.

When I was in third grade we hatched chicks in the classroom. Then they gave the chicks away. You had to bring a note from home giving permission to bring home a chick and then they had a drawing. My mom sent a note because it made me happy and she didn't think I'd win. Well, I did and named her Becky. Becky lived in a warm box in the house for a while and then as she grew, she was moved out to an old dog kennel behind our garage. One sad day she started cock-a-doodle-dooing. Becky was soon christened Becky Charley. It became clear he couldn't stay in the neighborhood. Through friends of friends, we found a farm that raised chickens and they said they would take him. Their kids were thrilled that they were getting a city chicken. I don't know what happened to him after that and I don't think I wanted to know. I just pictured the farm kids adopting Becky Charley as their pet city chicken and left it at that.

The first whole roast chicken I ever made was The Chicken Who Would Not Thaw. Admittedly, we should have dug it outof the freezer a little earlier, but removing the innard took pots of boiling water, a several knives, a giant saute pan, predictable bouts of tug of war that ended with limbs akimbo and the chicken on the floor, and far more time with my hand up a very cold chicken rear than feels healthy. I rubbed it in salt and herbs, stuffed it with an onion and it was heavenly.

Almost forgot. There's another chicken story.

I was married to this Italian guy who loved to eat. His mother was a fantastic home cook - raised six kids, and there was always something put on the kitchen table in front of anyone who entered the house, with friendly and quite definite instructions to "eat, eat!"

Nothing was fancy but everything was good, and there was always a lot of it.

Her son was accustomed to warmth and generosity in matters of food. But he had a surprise coming when he had a girlfriend in high school who was a WASP. He went to her house for a picnic one day . . . the entire family sat around the picnic table, out came the WASP mother with a platter of chicken.

As he was the guest, she passed it to him. He put in down in front of himself, saying "thank you!".

All of a sudden he noticed that everyone was staring at him oddly. Nobody was moving or doing anything. He just did not know what was wrong.

The mother said to him "Uh . . . that chicken is for everybody."

Poor fellow almost died of embarrassment. He quickly reached down and passed the platter on, with its four scrawny pieces of chicken that was the feast-to-be.

He never forgot that day.

We roast a whole chicken once a week. We call it "chicken in the oven," as in "What should we have for dinner tonight? How about chicken in the oven?"

I just started cooking 6 months ago, and my cooking repertoire has been limited to pastas, rice, and vegetables - once a month, tilapia. The fear of handling raw meat has kept me away until I came across a simple recipe of roast chicken in January. It sounded simple - salt, pepper, and an oven. So, I proceeded, and mid-way thru cooking, the smoke alarm goes off. But I didn't see any smoke - so I waved a newspaper frantically to stop the alarm. But to no avail. My next door neighbor knocks, and I explain. The doorman knocks, and I explain. Couple of other neighbors on the other side of my apt come by to complain, and I explain. With all this explaining and waving frantically in between, I lost all sense of time. By the time, I came to my senses - the chicken was charred black. I was soo disappointed, but I had to laugh at the situation.
I am resolved to try it again, but I told my husband to find a way to turn off the smoke alarm before I do.

Once upon a time in Southern California, a middle-aged mother tossed a chicken on a beer can, having seen it done on the Food Network just days before. After just a few minutes, the backyard was filled with black smoke. The back fence still has scorch marks!

The second time I ever roasted a chicken on my own, I roasted it upside down and then when I cut into the "breast" and it was full of bones and dark meat, I freaked out and called my mom. Sigh. I figured out my error in short order and still enjoyed the chicken - upside down or right side up, you can't go wrong.


The first time I roasted a chicken, it was for a dinner I invited my viola teacher to as a thanks for helping me struggle through a tough concert. I served Amanda Hesser's Arborio rice salad and sliced mangos, but we ended up waiting half an hour for the chicken. It was pretty good, but I will always remember those awkward minutes spent nibbling around the edges of our plates in my quiet, quiet kitchen.

A friend of mine was in the US Army Special Forces where he learned how to hypnotize chickens

years ago a friend was having a party at his apartment in Spanish Harlem. this was before the wave of gentrification that's currently happening. a young guy fresh into town from the South got off the subway on 116th st. into dark & unfamiliar surroundings. he was gently stopped by an old man holding a chicken wing and asked if he had a quarter. before he knew it, the old man had steered the guy around the corner of a building into an alley and now *all* of his money was politely requested. the old man then quickly slipped away, leaving his half-eaten drumstick in the hands of the young man. dazed, he was still carrying it when he walked into the party.

I love my rotisserie for roasting chicken. We can watch it turn on the spit as it browns and it always comes out perfect.

My husband is the King of the Broiling Pan. Our default dinner protein is chicken breast pounded flat and then seasoned, basted or breaded in whatever he thinks is a good idea at the time. Almost no time under the broiler later, we have a real meal. Amazing.

We have dozens of free-range chickens. We don't eat them though; we feed them and in turn, they fertilize the plants.

butterflied is so much easier than whole

This story isn't about cooking per se, but it does include a chicken. Over some beers with friends one night, my friends and I decided to tell amusing stories to help pass the time. My roommate, who shall remain anonymous, is from the jungles of Indonesia. She's not the type to exaggerate or tell lies, so I assume that it's not a fictionalized tale created under the influence of alcohol. But that night she told us how she once saw a monkey fornicate with a chicken, and that later had the chicken for dinner.

We just moved into our new house last summer. I was roasting a chicken, but forgot to turn on the oven fan. All of a sudden every smoke alarm in the house went off. It was deafening. We opened all the windows and doors and turned on all the ceiling fans in addition to the oven fan. Still the alarms could not be stopped. Soon neighbors started coming over to see what was wrong. It was a very dramatic way to meet our new neighbors.

When I was much younger, a little kid even, my brother challenged me to a game of chicken, he on a plank of plywood on his skateboard, me on my big wheel. As we rolled toward each other he leaned to avoid the collision, and I not wanting to lose, steered toward him, hitting him and sending him off into the grass on the side of the road.

Or did you mean the bird? In that case, my friend and I still talk about the chicken wings I cooked up almost 12 years ago now. They were darn good, I tell ya!

I have 9 chickens that my kids adore...the chickens would be mortified to know I am entering a chicken COOKbook contest:-)

When I make chicken, our three cats sit by the counter in anticipation of the morsels they'll get. Tiger(a cat I rescued from outside and has food issues, in that he always wants it) has been known to sit for a half hour waiting for it to finish cooking. The three of them always lick their plates clean.

when my daughter was 3, she was eating chicken for dinner and asked me "What's the difference between food chicken and animal chicken?" I paused and said "they're the same thing." Fortunately, the carnivore genes were strong and she's still a happy meat eater

I'm still too scared to make a roast chicken recipe! Hopefully this book will cure me.

Cold roast chicken is my favorite food. Yum!

homemade buttermilk fried chicken is what i'm known for

Roast Chicken was one of the first "grown up" meals I learned to make when I moved out of my parents' house into an apartment in 1979. I didn't have much in the way of cookware or kitchen, but I had an old cast aluminum roasting pan and an oven. I would rub butter all over the bird, then salt it. I put an apple and an onion in the cavity, tuck the wings under, and pop it into the oven. The smell filled the two tiny little rooms. I would sit in my only upholstered chair and read, inhaling deeply, until I just had to take it out of the oven. I have no idea how I knew when it was done; I am sure I didn't have a meat thermometer back then. But it was always perfect. It made me feel like I was more than just "scraping along" - I was living!

this recipe is great
the Zuni recipe is great, too!
there are many ways to get a good roast chicken....

My chicken story is the libretto for the opera La Pulcina Piccola! You could look it up!

My husband tells the story of the time his mother prepared the family's Sunday dinner - a whole chicken in the roasting pan with vegetables - and left it on the kitchen counter ready to pop in the oven. Off they went for a short drive, deciding not to take Clancy, their Irish Setter, with them. When they came home, his mother thought she had lost her mind as she had remembered preparing dinner but only found a very clean raosting pan on the kitchen counter. Clancy, clever dog, had managed to eat the entire chicken and made sure there was no trace of his dastardly deed!

Used to be really bad at roasting chicken either leaving it raw enough to kill everybody at the table or roasting for so long that the bones were the only edible part. My epiphany came from Richard Sax and now I turn out perfect roast chicken and the story is the prep. My wife just shakes her head at my compulsiveness at sterilizing everything in sight after the chicken goes in the oven and scrubbing as though I'm going to perform surgery.

I made the Zuni Café chicken once (without the bread salad--a sin, I know) and burnt my arm on the pan handle when it was just sort of hanging out on my counter after being in a 400-degree oven. I scar really easily and my scars take YEARS to fade (I still have one on my arm from 5 years ago) so I will remember that experience forever.

When I was growing up in the '50s in the wilds of Brooklyn, Friday night was always the night for roast chicken. We weren't religious but for some reason I knew it was shabbos (sabbath) and it was a special night.
I would spend the afternoon helping my mother - I would grind up chicken livers, eggs, and bread crumbs to make her chopped liver using a cast iron grinder that we clipped to the edge of the table. Sometimes she would make her own blintzes - she would cover the dining room table with striped kitchen towels, make her blintz pancakes, then let them dry out on the towels. Then we would fill them with cheese or fruit, fold them up, and fry them in a skillet when we were ready to sit down to eat.
It was a night that my father came home from work a bit earlier than usual - he was an auto mechanic working in his own gas station garage - and we would all sit down to dinner together. He worked six days a week and this was the only night we would all be able to sit down together at a meal.
I've never had anyone duplicate a roast chicken dinner like that. Memory just makes everything served that much sweeter.

my roommate works at a poultry farm and has occassionally brought home whole chickens that he proudly declares that he "butchered" himself. We then proceed to bake it up in the oven. Mmmm good.

I love making chicken salad tostadas from scratch with hot sauce and sour cream to top it....very yummy. I'm making myself hungry just talking about it...lol.

I've been told by several Dr's. "eat whitemeat parts only, baked without the skin". Heh, heh.

Chicken Chinese style is great- get a really fresh quality chicken(Murray's chicken); steam in a wok; cut up into pieces and serve with dipping sauce of soy sauce, grated ginger, green onions.

One of the earliest food-related stories about me (there are actually several!) involves a chicken, although I don't remember it myself. As a small child, my parents went through some sort of back-to-the-earth phase, and owned a small hobby farm with sheep, a cow, a mid-sized garden, and chickens. Most of the meat went to the butcher for processing, but my father handled the chickens himself. One day when I was probably three or four years old, I INSISTED that I wanted to see what he was doing in the back yard with the chickens, and I wouldn't be persuaded otherwise. I was taken outside where I stood back and watched the proceedings, then I came in, played until dinner, and ate my chicken... and never asked about it again.

Last year, in an attempt to assuage a guy friend's hurt feelings over an unrequited love, 3 of us rounded him up and talked him through why he wasn't getting the right signals and what he could do to make himself more attractive to her. my friend had suggested that yes, playing the guitar could be one way to her heart, but that these days, the greatest way to a girl's heart was to show how well you could cook. I agreed wholeheartedly and said how it was incredibly sexy when a guy knew how to cook well. We all talked late into the night, and by the end, I knew for sure that I'd acquired a bit of strep throat.

The next day, I woke up, and of course, my throat was thrashed and horribly infected, and I lamented my woes to my friend over instant messenger. Three hours later, I got a surprise knock on the door, and here he was, with a large tupperware tub in hand, full of homemade chicken rice soup. He'd made the stock completely from scratch, chosen rice over noodles (because he knew I liked rice more), put only the vegetables I liked to my surprise, and loaded it with tons of garlic and spices to my liking! Three days later, we started dating and we're still very much together and in love (and yes, we cook together a lot!). To this day, we talk about how I was courted with homemade chicken soup!

(Is that a chicken story? =D)

I used to make this strange honey ginger chicken strir fry in high school that my dad loved. Lotsa honey & dried ginger WTF?! In retrospect it sounds awful, but he loved it. He once threatened to ground me if I didn't skedaddle to the store & get the ingredients to make it for dinner one night. Good times...

I like roasting chickens with slivers of lemon underneath the skin. They are like chicken candy.

My dog thinks everyting tastes like chicken, At least that's how I explained
our missing pet hamster to the kids. (Note always check your dirty clothes for hidden rodents before starting the washer)

I roast chickens once a week.

My mom made me the best chicken ever! It was a small chicken (a bit bigger than a cornish hen) and she simply salted it generously and fried it in vegetable oil. She I shared it with a bottle of red wine and it was out of this world!

The smell of a roast chicken is one of my favorite smells.

It's one of the easiest, most delicious ways to prepare chicken IMHO.

When my dad was little he was playing with his BB gun and accidently shot one of his moms chickens. He thought the chicken was dead and knew if the chicken was dead his mom would kill him. He took the chicken and dunked it in the water that the chickens drank from and it started squaking and so he was saved

My husband now one is chicken with a beer can, it is really good and keeps it moist

When I was a boy I had my first experience with getting a live chicken ready for the kitchen table -- the chopping block. Off with its head and then I saw this headless chicken running around the yard for quite awhile. My grandfather got a big laugh out of my expression of surprise, disbelief, and awe.

When I cooked my first chicken, I didn't realize there was a bag inside of the chicken with the heart and liver. I stuffed the chicken bag and all and cooked it.

I like to use this Cook's Illustrated recipe that I stole from my cousin's old stockpile. Hasn't failed me yet, and everyone is always incredibly impressed.

When I was a kid, my grandmother used to make the best chicken dish - a type of biryani with tomato paste, cardamom, cloves, turmeric and basmati rice. I used to always look forward to the weekend to visit her, so I can stuff myself full of this dish.

I don't have many stories about chicken, but I've fallen in love with chicken dishes over the past year---especially fried chicken and arroz con pollo.

My favourite childhood chicken dish was chicken and sliders--known as chicken and dumplings to those without a French-Canadian background. Simply amazing. So soothing and so delicious, and, as I learned last weekend when I made it myself, completely worth the effort.

We had just moved into our new house when I decided to roast a chicken. The kitchen is on the ground floor and I went upstairs to give my son a bath (three floors up). All of a sudden I heard a horrible alarm sounding, grabbed my baby from the bathtub and started to leave the house, figuring I had started a fire. We made our way downstairs and I opened the kitchen door, to peek. The chicken had caused a grease-fire and despite the fright, I managed to get it under control. Needless to say, I don't leave roasting chickens unattended.

I cooked a rabbit in a mustard-wine sauce, but told my youngest it was chicken. She loved it, asked for 2nds, and continues to this day to ask for the "mustardy chicken".

My best chicken story would be killing my neighbor's roosters to make a real coq au vin. Here's the details.

Well, there was the time I had a pair of chickens on the outdoor gas rotisserie, and I was indoors, puttering with the rest of the meal in the kitchen. When it was just about time for the chickens to be done, I went out and -- oops, the gas had run out at some point in the cooking process. Dinner was a bit late that night!

In jr high, there was a family that took in foster kids(4 in my class). They helped out in the chicken coop. I mean HUGE chicken "barn". I went home with them one time and help collect eggs.

One of my favorite stories is when my Auntie Muff (yes, you read that right...), wanted to cook her first chicken after she married my uncle and they moved from the city to our family ranch in Washington State.

Early one day she went to the chicken coop and grabbed a chicken, wrung it's neck, chopped off the head and plucked it which was a HUGE job for a city girl.

She took the chicken into the ranch house kitchen and put it in a pot of water with onions and carrots. She cooked that bird all day long until my uncle came in from the fields.

She proudly placed the cooked chicken in front of my uncle who tried to cut into it but was having trouble. After a couple of minutes of trying to cut the thing up he realized that she had killed an old rooster and no matter how long she would have cooked that thing it was never going to be soft.

I laugh at that story all of the time but I will tell you that my Auntie Muff is one of the best country cooks around now.

I and a friend once tried to make homemade chicken. Seriously homemade, as in starting with an actual chicken. It wasn't pretty. omg.

I'm excited to try anew recipe for a Brick Spatchcocked Chicken but first I'm going to the building supply store and buying a round stepping stone that will fit perfectly into my favorite cast iron skillet.

So many uptions are possible with a chicken - especially one roasted properly that is moist and full of flavor. I usually cook for one and can make 4 meals followed by delicious stock from one bird.

It's a bargain and wonderfully tasty. I can never have enough chicken stock on hand and it's almost the best part

I've never tried to cook a whole chicken, but I'd love to try this book's recipe for my first time! Then I could tell a story. ; )

Let me show my age here: I remember when Mom would get her whole roasting chickens from "The Egg Man," a guy who used to come around every Saturday and deliver eggs (and chickens, if you ordered one ahead of time).

These were really fresh, free range chickens, and it was my job to go over the chicken to remove any pin feathers that had been missed.

like smoking it

I would love to win this prize.

I have fond memories of my Polish grandmothers incredible chicken noodle soup, with homemade noodles, of course my grandmother would buy her chickens live, and "dispatch" them in the backyard. EWWW!

I have a recipe that i named "29 year chicken". It is a very simple roasted chicken with salt, pepper, garlic salt, poultry seasoning. It just took my husband 29 years to mention that it was good!

I made a delicious roast chicken from a recipe on Epicurious. It was simply seasoned and roasted with high heat. It was delicious, but it took two days of soaking to clean the pan.

I love cooking a whole chicken in the crock pot. Comes out nice and moist, and falls right off the bones. I then use the leftover chicken & juices for soup.

On a trip to Hana, Hawaii, we c ould not get into restaurant, ended up buying a rotisserie chicken and ate it outside looking at the lush surroundings and water. I'll never forget that meal.

To get to the other side.

I'm sooooo lonesome for Kenny Rogers' Roasted Chicken!!!!!!
His was sooooo much better than mine ever is.

My mother told me a story about a time that she made chicken soup...and reminded me not to do what she did the first time she made it...and because I was so worried about the soup...I DID do what she did. When she drained the soup, after hours of cooking, She forgot to put a pot under the strainer to get the soup...and not have it go down the drain...and alas...I did exactly as she had done at my first attempt. I was left with what she was left with...chicken bones and mushy veggies...no soup. Have never made the same mistake again.

When I was in kindergarten I said I wanted to live on a farm and raise chickens. Today, I don't live on a farm but I will soon be raising chickens in my backyard. I love everything about chickens, especially eggs. I'm looking forward to those eggs.

As a kid I was often shipped to Wisconsin for the summer, where all the Grands lived. We visited a farm of a friend. I was hanging with the farm kids, having a good time with the animals. Later in the afternoon the mother told one of the older boys to get a chicken ready. He deftly grabbed a brown and white one by the neck and spun it in the air like a lasso, deacapitating it, headless body running around the pen leaking blood from it's neck. It was an education to say the least.

I don't seem to have chicken disasters, although I have plenty with other foods.

Roast chicken a la Thomas Keller is one of my favorite comfort foods, with a little wine-enhanced pan gravy over mashed potatoes or rice. I modify Chef Keller's recipe slightly -- I super-heat my cast-iron skillet before I place the bird inside, which insures browning on the downside as well.

My southern-boy husband's fave is fried chicken, including oven-fried chicken. Laurie Colwin's crunchy-crusted baked chicken is great, as is Amanda Hesser's oven-fried chicken.

My grandma name one of her chickens after me because it was the smartest chicken she ever had.

Growing up, our family ate chicken in one form or another probably 4-5x a week (paternal grandfather had heart trouble, so my dad didn't want to eat much red meat)...relatives used to joke that we were going to sprout feathers. I was 5 or 6 and we were on vacation when we spotted a bird sitting on a fence, and he was happily chirping away. My mom wondered aloud what kind of bird it was, and I responded with "It's a red-breasted chicken!" Turns out it was merely a Robin, but I think my parents realized they were giving us an awful lot of chicken.
Almost (ahem-I said ALMOST) four decades later, my folks still quote that line back to me. And I still roast a great chicken! :-)

Jack Canfield has made quite a nice living off of "Chicken Stories"..we can't top him...Chicken Soup for the Soul series... and not a chicken in sight!

My Dad made the best southern fried chicken. Although he used every pan in the house to do it.

When I first got married I didn't know how to cook. I cooked a chicken and set the oven to broil instead of bake. I smelled smoke. I burnt the chicken to a crisp!

thank you..great..still trying to get fried chicken down but i will

I once heard a story (if you can even call it that) about how healers in the ancient days of Judea used to go to the houses of the sick. They would listen to the patient's chest, and if the symptoms were that of pneumonia or another lung-based ailmne, they would call for chickens to be brought to the bedside. One chicken would be placed on the patient's bare chest. It would stay there until it died, theoretically sponging up all of... whatever it was causing the ailment. Chickens would be replaced until the last one didn't die, and then the patient was supposed to be healed. That brought for me a whole new meaning to the term "Jewish penicillin." Still, I insist on chicken soup when someone is sick.

I have never cooked a whole chicken. Maybe I should try.

Everybody Loves fried chicken.

My chicken story is how much I miss my father's chickens....he recently moved into an apartment, and had to get rid of his chickens....I miss those eggs more than I can describe....they were my favorite food, now I'm on a mission to find an equal quality egg!

i once made roast chicken stuffed with left over stuffing the day after thanksgiving...it tasted pretty good. i was even impressed with myself altho what i was thinking serving roast chicken the day after the big turkey feast i cant understand. but at least my guests liked it! =)

Once I offered a girl I didn't know very well half of my chicken sandwich. She declined saying that she was a vegetarian. I looked away for a minute and when I looked back she was munching on the other half.

We've been best friends ever since, even if she still doesn't care for chicken on the bone, or as we call it "chicken on the chicken."

I have no chicken story! Probably because I am vegetarian. Um.

When I think of chicken, I think of the year when we ate little but. Living in a downtown area on a starving student budget, we would stock up on cheap frozen chicken and broccoli, and 10 cent boxes of macaroni and cheese. Everything got thrown together and eaten, and the meal was repeated, and repeated and repeated... without even the benefit of garlic or pepper thanks to a few picky eaters.

While I'm nostalgic for the shopping and painstaking (a meal to impress other starving students! something not just out of a box!) preparation, the thought of eating the dish makes me a little nauseous.

My favorite Sunday dinner is Roasted Chicken, mashed potatoes, and veggies...YUM!

Shortly after I moved into my last apartment, I inaugurated the oven by roasting a chicken. I didn't realize at the time that the actual oven temp hit 45 degrees hotter than I set it to. I carbonized all the veggies in the bottom of the pan and ... well, my bird definitely had a crispy crust. I figured I'd miscalculated something. It took some ruined scones and baguettes the following week to make me realize that maybe I needed to invest in an oven thermometer.

I love roasted chicken and have only served it undercooked once, but have served it overcooked a few times and perfectly once. So I'd love to win a new cookbook with a fabulous roasted chicken recipe.

A Chicken Story.
Prologue: In the beginning, there was a chicken (or was it an egg?), but it knew not its destiny to become a delicious roast.
Chapter One, in which a chicken is cooked: I bought and cooked this chicken, with lemons, garlic, and fresh thyme. It was eaten, and it was good. The End.
Epilogue: I did it again. And again, it was good.

Lemon chicken

I love roasting chix 1x week I usually just put onion, lemon and small potatoesa round the chix and cokk for 1 and a half hours. Easiest comfort food to make and always comes out good.

Rotisserie chicken is the best way to have dinner fast. Pick one up on your way out of line at the grocery. Put it on a pizza crust and add a jar of sauce and cheese. Story complete!

The first time I roasted a chicken (for company, no less), I got on the phone with a friend of mine who was older and wiser in all things food and drink. It was a painful step by step process for this idiot, made all the more hilarious on the other side of the phone when my friend told me I needed to spread the legs as wide as possible, and reach inside. Little did her mother, who happened to be near her, know that she was having me look for giblets!

Last summer, I decided to cook a whole chicken on the grill. I followed my Cook's Illustrated recipe, cranking my gas grill up to high, put my chicken inside, and then decided to mow my back lawn.

I was halfway through when I looked up and saw the smoke pouring out of my grill.

It was just flare-ups, and the chicken turned out tasty, but my goodness -- I thought it was going to be a Del Taco night for a bit there.

I've seen people standing in line at Sam's Club for as long as 45 minutes or so waiting for roasted chickens to come out.

I love chicken but I really really love soy chicken. I know. I know.

My favorite chicken dish growing up was a masterpiece of convenience cooking, "Chicken that makes it's own gravy".
Chicken pieces smothered in canned cream of mushroom soup and velveeta cheese, baked and served over egg noodles. I should deny ever even hearing of such a dish, but as a kid I loved it.

Chicken story? I was in China and meant to ask for what is translated "The Rising Apartment". My Chinese was horrible, and because of intonations, I instead asked for "The Rising Chicken".

i like chicken... surely that counts!

I am a bodybuilder, so chicken and I go way back. Really close relationship lol

For a good six months after graduating college, nearly every dinner I made was chicken-based.

i visited extended family in a small village in thailand & amused the entire village by chasing a chicken around & trying to kill it for dinner.

My chicken story is about how we made a Turducken for dinner last Christmas...It's was an incredible process to debone a Turkey, a Duck and a Chicken...but that was just the first 1/2 of the ordeal...er, process! The whole turkey was laid out flat and covered with a layer of traditional sage stuffing. The duck was placed on top of the turkey and a layer of wild rice and mushroom stuffing. Then the chicken was laid on top of the duck and a layer of andouille sausage stuffing was spread on the chicken. The next step was to skewer the chicken up nice and neat...then the duck and stuffing was wrapped around the stuffed chicken and skewered closed. The final step is to sew the the turkey up around the duck and turkey. When it was all done, it just looked like a normal turkey!! We baked it long and slow and had the most wonderful Christmas Feast ever...not only was it beautiful, it was moist and packed with flavor!

The first time I made chicken chili I used canned black beans, but I didn't know to rinse and drain the beans. The chili tasted great, but it looked like gray sludge.

The first time I ever roasted a whole chicken was last month. I've roasted just about every other winged thing, but somehow had never roasted a plain ol' hen.

when my husband and I were dating I tried to roast him a chicken (I had invited him for supper for the first time at my place) and I left the innards inside... oops.

at a restaurant on St. Paddy's Day, my husband ordered stuffed roast chicken. it was stuffed with a hard boiled egg. we thought maybe it was a joke, but no..............we laughed.

My favorite recipe of all time involves chicken, chicken broth, and a spoonful of flour. Seriously. All you do is flour skinless, bone-in chicken thighs, brown them well (this is key) and add some broth, cover, and simmer about 45 minutes. Try this. I promise. It'll blow your mind.

My favorite roast chicken is Greek style.
My family loves it.

Swimming Rama is my favorite Thai chicken dish. Simple and delicious.

I have a secret weakness for chicken wings! But not the normal kind, I make mine with a tarragon mustard marinade. At least twice a month, when I am feeling too exhausted to cook, I make my chicken wings and sit down in front of the tv with them. I never make them for anybody else, just me, they are just too good to share.

Kimberly

I made an earlier comment, but apparently it was not listed for the "give-a-way". After my first post, I remembered a funny story shared with me by one of my friend's "new" brides. Not wanting to be outdone by the succulent roast chicken dinner his Parisian born wife had prepared the night before, he volunteered to make his famous "bourbon balls". About an hour into his production, she heard a loud explosion and the sound of things clanging and banging all over the kitchen. As she ran into the kitchen, she saw her husband sitting on the floor, oven door in his hand, a look of total shock on his face and flaming meatballs all over the place. She quickly extinguished the flaming mess and helped her husband to his feet. He was ok, but the poor oven and his pride were pretty banged up. They had to buy a new oven, and the next time she made a roast chicken dinner, he got out the "fire extinguisher" as a joke.

Sunday dinner on the farm would be two roast chickens which we had raised ourself. These could be as large as 10-12 pounds! I now make roast chicken bought from our coop. My son likes it when I season it with salt, pepper, paprika and lay sliced onion all over it. It is roasted in some water and white wine.

My chicken story is about eggs - there is absolutely nothing like eggs from free range chickens. Our neighbors have a small coop and in exchange for feeding the chickens when they go away we get to take home any eggs. The difference between these eggs and store bought eggs was a revelation. The color of the yolks alone has me on a mission to find a stedy source of free-range eggs.

I guess every book needs a title, and this has one.

the first thing i learned to cook was roast chicken. i love nigella's version -- simple and quick to prepare. It remains my standby.


A whole roasted chichen is the perfect for my small family. I only eat the dark meat, while my husband will only eat the white. I buy the largest chicken I can find (usually around 5-6 lbs.), brine it, rub the skin with butter (mixed with a little soy sauce for browning), stuff it with lemons, garlic, and thyme and roast it at 375. It is always juicy, aromatic and subtly flavored with nice crisp skin.

I marinate a whole chicken in a bit of grapeseed oil, worchestershires sauce, cream sherry, pomagranate juice, salt, pepper, funegreek, crushed rosemary and sage, oregano and any other spice that I am in the mood for. I add 2 T. Splender to this because I like my marinade a bit sweet.I keep this refrigerated for 2 days in a ziplock bag. Then I drain and reserve the marinade. I roast the chicken in a preheated 325 degree convection/sear oven for about an hour or until it registers almost 165 degrees. Then I let it sit, covered with foil, 10-15 minutes. I boil the reserved marinade several minutes to serve with the roasted chicken. I turn the chicken after it cooks halfway, so it browns nicely on both sides. Since it cooks about an hour, I usually cook some potatoes and other root vegetables with salt, pepper and a bit of oil at the same time in the oven. A perfect meal every time, with leftovers for sandwiches the next day.

In elementary school and JH, my mother made me a boxed lunch every day - all i ever asked for was her delicious japanese fried chicken chunks, two rice balls, and edamame. Chicken tastes of home.

just stuff lemon quarters, garlic, herbs, s&p, then roast, easy peasy

Chicken is the easiest to cook.

Chicken Trek was my favorite book in elementary school. If you can find it (it is out of print) read it. Incredibly evocative descriptions of fried chicken, especially for a children's book.

My boyfriend and I are Buffalo Wing addicts. About twice a month, I haul out my electric deep fryer and go to town. I use the traditional butter/Frank's Red Hot Original Sauce combo, with celery and blue cheese dip on the side. Tonight's the night!

We get fresh, real free range chickens direct from the farmer and either grill them or roast them. Feathers & beaks above all other chickens I've ever cooked.

A year or so out of culinary school, I realized that I had never actually roasted a whole chicken. I pulled out the Bouchon recipe and the end result was perfection. In fact, I might suggest that there is no happier moment in a kitchen than pulling a perfect roast chicken out of the oven.

Back when fat free margarine was introduced, I decided to make some blackened cx breast. I warmed the saute pan and spooned some fat free margarine. The margarine didn't emulsify or melt - it just scorched and burned with a plastic smell.

I'm a regular Paula Deen now - I'll blacken fish and chicken but I'll use some good ole fashioned fat laden butter.

our family recipe is essentially the Simon H recipe, but cooked in a soaked clay romertopf baker - truly foolproof and fabulous

my favorite chicken story is about the Italian guy on the next block who opened a tiny restaurant that had everyone laughing since he had space to fit sixteen and a gigantic rotisserie that could cook 90 chickens at once.

The joke was on us since his chicken was so wonderful that within a year the takeout business was so good he had to install a bigger rotisserie.

My dear friend's mom butchers over a 1000 chickens in the spring and summer. once you have farm raised roasted chicken you will never look at the grocery store "chicken" the same way again..

Roasted chicken is what was the first thing I feed the man who was to become my husband... 'nuf said

I used to really like chicken, but recently, I've been finding it dull and boring, and just blah. I don't know why. This is out at restaurants and when I cook it myself. Maybe if I win this book, I could start cooking chicken that I'll like again :)

Pollo Rico Peruvian chicken near Silver Spring, MD. You can smell the place long before you get there and the line is out the door! It's practically an institution.

I grew up on a farm in Oregon. My Aunt Patsy had never lived out of the city or had any idea of farm life. We had free range chickens for our own use, eggs and meals. Each time we would visit Aunt Patsy or she came to our farm my Dad always brought her farm fresh eggs. This ritual went on for several years until one day she had to confront my Dad about why he always gaver her rotten eggs. Did he not like her or what was wrong with our chickens, are they sick. She thought brown eggs with orange yolks were rotten, they should be like the ones she bought in the store, white with pale yellow yolks.

I don't really have a chicken story per se, but I will say that Cook's Illustrated butterflied chicken roasted over sliced potatoes is purely divine! All the chicken juices fall down into the potatoes, infusing them with meaty goodness. If only there was an easy way to make a bunch of these when company comes over! (I know, get a bigger oven...)

When I was in college, one of my roommates and I decided to make BBQ chicken for dinner. We bought chicken breasts and BBQ sauce at the grocery store as if we were experts at this cooking thing. All the while, it never came up that neither of us had ever cooked chicken in our lives. Not unusual for a couple of college kids, but a major flaw in our dinner plan. We decided to just try it - we put the chicken into a lasagna pan and covered it with the entire bottle of BBQ sauce. But, then, we realized we had no idea how long to cook it. A quick call to another roommate's mom and we were all set. The chicken turned out ok since it was basically braised in BBQ sauce, but the pan had to go straight to the trash afterwards since the sauce was permanently adhered to the lasagna pan.

The post above (EKR33) reminds me of a college kitchen story from my past: myself and 3 female roomates, none of us cooks, decide to spend a day making a "gourmet" meal. What did we choose? Brunswick stew. Why did we choose it? I wish I remembered, but it's been 35 years. It certainly was not an advernturous choice. But I guess you have to start somewhere! And I certainly made worse meals in college (a meatloaf rolled up with green beans in it comes to mind, thank you old BHG or Betty Crocker cookbook, I can't remember which).

I occasionally cook dinner for my neighbors, but since I am only 24 and live alone, I have limited experience cooking chicken (my mom always did that when I was growing up!) So I have spent HOURS searching for perfect roasting recipes...

No story, but a joke:

Why did Beethoven kill his chicken?
- It kept saying ''Bach, Bach, Bach...''

After living near Moorefield, WV, where there is a chicken factory, I'm not the biggest fan of chicken. The whole town smelled of slaughtered chicken. However, when I want to get my carnivore on, I love beer can grilled chicken, Dan's roasted chicken (redneckmuppet.blogspot.com), or a great baked chicken cassarole.

whole uncooked chickens really freak out my wife... she'll eat them cooked or even handle the skinned uncooked breasts but she won't go near a whole uncooked chicken. So when i get one to throw on the rotisserie, i'll take out the inside packet and chase her around with it as she screams. Good times!

Man I love to cook chicken. Simple roasting, slow grilling, braised, fried, smoked... you cant go wrong!

Not a big fan of dark chicken meat, so I tend to stick to breasts. No really good chicken story though, I don't think. But I do plan to make chicken marsala tomorrow night!

I've found that when I travel within the country and people hear that I'm from Kentucky, they usually think of the Derby or occasionally basketball or bluegrass music. When I travel outside the US, though, they only know about the fried chicken.

my boyfriend once entered an informal drinking contest and prepared by consuming an entire roast chicken. it kept him sober for something like 8 hours.

My chicken story is basically a memory of my late mother. I remember that every week she would roast two chickens for my family for dinner in the oven at 350 degrees for two hours and because we had very little money my father would go food shopping and wait for the chickens to come out because they were only 29 cents per pound.

I was lecturing to a class just this week when suddenly there was a very persistent and raucous chirping sound. Normally we do not have birds in our building. My students noticed that I paused mid-sentence and one of them kindly pointed out "You are crazy but we hear it too."

It turned out that our animal behavior professor had just picked up a shipment of chicks for an imprinting demonstration and was entertaining himself by walking by friend's classrooms to confuse their students.

i love my beer can chicken cooker thingy

My friend clipped an article from a magazine which proclaimed that if you made a particular recipe called "Engagement chicken" that your boyfriend would be sure to propose to you. I thought it couldn't hurt and stopped at the grocery store to get the necessary ingredients, hurrying home to put it together and get it in the oven. Well, time must have gotten away from me because the next thing I heard was the smoke alarm going off. I flew into the kitchen and flung open the oven door only to be greeted with a dried out husk of a bird and a large puff of smoke. We ended up ordering Chinese food instead. I plan on giving it another shot in the near future.


My family loves Rachael Ray's "Crunchy Oven Chicken Toes". Leftovers are great in a salad.

http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/recipes/recipe/0,,FOOD_9936_28749,00.html

My hubby says he does not like chicken. If I had this book I know I could change his mind. I am always looking for new ways to redirect his thinking and taste buds.

If I grab one in Italy then I would have a Chicken Catch-a Story.

Yes, I've cooked a chicken with the bag of guts still inside. But that was long ago. Currently, I'm roasting chickens using a recipe from Jamie Cooks - stick a lemon inside it and surround it with roasted potatos and rosemary. Delicious!

Roast a chicken . Pick off bone . Stick in crockpot, with a stick of butter. Cook on high for 5 hours. Enjoy. thank you

I'm a huge fan of roast chicken. When my husband and I first started dating, he caught the flu. In a desperate attempt to impress him and make him feel better, I made my pot chicken - roast chicken with lots of soggy vegetables to soak up the chicken fat. He got better. We got married. Connection? Perhaps.

I roasted my first chicken about 1-2 years ago, and I have never been so proud of something in my life. I used an Ina Garten recipe, and it was pretty basic, but it came out BEAUTIFULLY. It was citrusy, salty, and richly meaty all at the same time. I served it with caramelized shallots and french green beans, and it was a huge hit. Hmm, maybe I'll have to try another recipe this weekend--roasted chicken sounds very comforting in this cold weather!

Hard to believe what a difference a fresh killed bird makes.

When I was younger, we had some chickens that conveniently came with the house we purchased. My dad, being a frugal and lazy man, built a nice coop house high off the ground for the chickens to nest in, only without the small doors next to the nesting boxes to get the eggs. Being the only child in the house, I was the one who had to crawl *into* the chicken house to gather eggs. The chickens really didn't like that much.
The end.

I used to hate touching raw chicken! I wouldn't go near the stuff. Now I cook chicken almost every week. I am no longer "chicken" about touching chicken!!

although i have been cooking for years, i just made my first ever roast chicken 6 months ago... i guess teh mini-sized NYC ovens crammed into such narrow spaces that the door doesn't even open more than 75 degrees has disuaded me up to this point. ;)

the first time i roasted a chicken i set off the fire alarm, and then had one of the firefighters give me his recipe for roast chicken. still using it to this day, and have never set off the alarm since!

The chicken story I most remember was when we left one on the table while we were outside at the pool and the dog pulled it down and drug it all over the house.

this is my dad's favorite (and only) dish to make - he is quite proud of it, and the whole family gets together for it

When I was a kid I used to think that chicken was way fancier than duck or dove or other game birds. I used to love going hunting with my parents and so a supermarket bird that you paid money for was obviously higher class than something you shot out of the sky, though I liked all of the different kinds of fowl.
Man, I'd sell my soul for some of the elk sausage my mom's friend used to make.

My Mother's homemade chicken stew has always been a great comfort food.

I never learned to cook and thus, never had cooked a chicken. A friend of mine, Stanley, lives on a farm in Northern Minnesota and said he would teach me to make the best fried chicken in the country. He always has chickens on the farm and said that one rooster was acting up and that was the one we were going to cook. Upon visiting him, we went out to catch Ralph the rooster, as Stanley had named him. However, Ralph intuitivly knew something was up and started to chase me around the yard, jumping up at my legs with his spirs. Needless to say, this city girl had never seen anything like this before and in attempting to get away from Ralph was running around in circles - just like a ...well, I won't say the rest of this similie, but I am sure you know it. Ralph continued to chase me behind rainbarrels, under fences, and around tractors until Stanley successfully threw a gunney sack over old Ralph. The rest is my first fried chicken expereince. True story

I have a road kill turkey story - best wild turkey thanksgiving turkey we ever ate - true story!!!!!

My biggest problem with roasting chicken is that it can become too dry but when I take it out sooner it isn't quite done.

Rub salt on the inside of the chicken to make it come out of of the oven perfectly browned but still moist and tender :)

At least once a week, chicken in the slow cooker!

My fathers family had a chicken farm when he was growing up. He's told me many times about the time he collected a bunch of eggs, injected colored dye into them, and when they hatched he had a bunch of different colored chicks. Of course, they lost the coloring as soon as they molted.

I cooked my first roast chicken with a cousin visiting Korea four years ago. We followed Ina Garten's recipe and absolutely loved it.

The Story of the Chicken & the Horse

The Chicken and the Horse were the very best of friends. They took long walks together, shared secrets and were inseperable. One day on one of their walks, the horse fell into a deep mud puddle. The more he struggled the deeper he sank. The chicken was beside herself with worry. Finally the horse said, "Quick, go get Farmer Brown's tractor and pull me out." The chicken ran off to get the tractor, but Farmer Brown had taken the tractor waaaaay out to the far end of the farm. The resourceful chicken spied the farmer's Harley Davidson chopper and rode that to the horse, threw him a rope and pulled him out of the mud.
Well, as you can imagine, the horse was very grateful to the chicken and their friendship grew even closer.
Then one day, on one of their walks, the chicken fell into a mud puddle. The more he struggled the deeper he sank. Panicked, the chicken yelled to the horse, "Quick go get Farmer Brown!" Instead, the horse walked over to the mud puddle and said,"Never mind Farmer Brown, just grab my hangie-down-thing." The chicken grabbed hold of the horse and was pulled free of the mud!
You're probably wondering where I'm going with this story. The story has a moral: If you're hung like a horse, you don't need a Harley to pick up chicks.
The End

As told to me by William H. Massey at Buckhead's Restaurant in Richmond, VA

My most recent chicken story is that I was in LA for a 12h layover yesterday, made a trip to Mozza to try their pies (very good, btw, but we only had two, the sausage & a margarita, so I can't say that it's superlative or not).

However, the bruschetta topped with pureed chicken livers, capers, parsely & guanciale is excellent, and worth the price of admission alone.

I so want to win a cookbook on your site for my husband!

If you were born lucky, even your rooster
will lay eggs ~
Russian Proverb

Thanks, Cindi

The first thing my mama taught me to cook was fried chicken and every time I fix it I always think of her.

Every time I go to the grocery store I find myself drifting to the roast chicken over - you know, the 8 foot tall metal rectangular monster, creaking with age, greased with the fat of countless chickens...but that smell is incredible. I learned a valuable lesson from that machine when I was young. Get too close for a better smell and the tip of your lose will get burnt. Totally worth it, though.

Chicken always takes much longer to cook than the recipe says and then the rest of the meal is always ready too early.

Invited to the newly-weds for dinner, I went into the kitchen to help the bride get dinner on the table...imagine my surprise when I found that we had to remove the saran packaging and the plastic tray as well as the giblets still in their little paper sack when we took the bird from the oven. I explained that the bird would be tastier if she took it out of the wrappings before putting it into the oven...she said she didn't know that, she'd just followed the prep instructions on the label.

why does the chicken cross the road - to get to the other side

We eat chicken the most, at home. The easiest way to prepare it is by marinating it, leaving it overnight in the fridge and baking it the next day! So simple, yet so tasty. Yum! Chicken-licking good.

We were volunteering at a Soup Kitchen and had to cook 24 chickens. The guy delivering the chickens was late and we were feeling frantic (our patrons would be arriving and hungry in just a few hours.) When Bob finally showed up with the birds we were such wrecks that we forgot to take that plastic bag of giblets and organ parts out of the chicken before cooking them (in very hot ovens) - They turned out OK - but it was kind of gross taking all those bags out after the fact!

I eal a lot of chicken and like it fixed in a variety of ways. One of my favorites though is a baked rosemary chicken. It is very good.

I remember I used to love to get wings from fast food chicken restaurants and one time I looked closely at the wing I was eating and there were still little hairs on there. It's just never been the same experience since that day.

I love roasting a childen on Sunday, fills my home with such a great aroma. I let the chicken cool and strip the meat off of it and make chicken salad. Then I take the carcuse and boil it to make chicken stock for future recipes.

My chicken story is about my grandmother. She kept chickens on her little farm and everytime we went to visit, the chickens would follow us right into her house. Grandma never minded, she loved those chickens like they were her children. They all had names and they all loved to be petted and fussed over by her. In the morning when we came down for breakfast, there would be chickens on the table and on the floor pecking away at some bread Grandma threw them. I developed a real fondness for chickens over the years and everytime I see them, it takes me back to those wonderful summers on the farm with Grandma !

My brother bet me $100. that I couldn't cook anything special since I'm a horrible cook. I mae a simple roast chicken that was perfect. I won the $100. This is obviously the best chicken story!

the first time i tried to roast chicken was a disaster. I should have read up on how to do it. Roasting at 500 degrees for 2 hours was not a good thing

The Marx Brothers had a gag in one of their films that included talking about a viaduct. The speaker was interrupted with "Vy a duck? Vy not a chicken?"

I once played tic tac toe with a chicken while visiting Las Vegas (where else?). It was a draw...

I also make a mean roast chicken.

I once found a recipe for Chicken Pot Pie that called for 1/4 cup of white wine. After that, I forgot what happened.

When I was growing up my grandfather kept laying hens. He had this very small white rooster that would attact us whenever we went into the yard. He would peck the back of our legs until we ran away. My grandfather wouldn't get rid of him though because all the chickens were laying eggs and many of them had chicks.

I would like to win this book.

fried chicken and chicken salad, my favorites

In the 50's in central Mississippi, we didn't go to the grocery store to purchase our chickens, they came from some part of the household yard.
The first time I ever had to "bring in" the chicken for frying that evening, I had to catch it, take it, while it flailed to run away, to the chopping block, hold it steady, which was nearly impossible, then deliver the fatal blow, with the ax that was imbedded in the tree stump. Terrified and facinated at the same time, I sat on the ground by the stump, for what seemed an eternity, while the headless chicken reflexively ran all over the yard. Can still see it.

Roast chicken is a great meal, there's a ton of side dishes that can go with it. I've tried different recipes over the years until I get bored and move on to the next. My current favorite is to line the slow cooker with foil, put in the chicken with garlic, onion, thyme, etc. and let it go all day while everyone is gone. When I get home I just lift it out using the foil (so it doesn't fall to pieces in the crockpot) and put it in the oven to brown more while we get the side dishes ready. Easy and delicious.

Roast chicken is a treat, and a healthy alternative to red meat. We enjoy roasting chicken breasts on the rotisserie, and steaming a few vegetables on the side. My husband is diabetic, and this makes a delicious low carb meal we both enjoy.

I used to make chicken and dumplings quite often. We had a friend who loved them, but his mother never cooked them because his father did not care for them. We invited him for dinner almost everytime I cooked them. After eating with us for a couple of years and eating til I thought he would pop, he arrived at our house one evening before I started cooking. He went to the kitchen with me so I could get started on the meal. Before I knew what was happening, he was questioning my cooking techniques and choice of ingredients and seasonings. I finally had to remind him that he had been eating my cooking for over two years and if he didn't like it he should cook his own! He never tried to tell me how to cook again, and ate with us on chicken 'n dumpling night for several years. Oh, he was not a freeloader - his paybacks were steaks dinners or barbecues. Thanks for giving us the chance to win.

Chicken is a versatile near perfect food for us. Chicken soup and dumplings brings back good memories of my Aunt Georgie's country style living. I made pets of chickens and feed them grass because they liked it. She said that their eggs took on an undesirable off green color...hmmm.... todays pastured poultry chickens are raised on pasture (grass, sunshine, insects, ... organic poultry raised for meat and eggs are raised outside on green pasture. ...

when my sister and I were younger, and just learning to cook, neither one of us wanted to hold the raw chicken...we ended up tossing the chicken back and forth until it fell on the floor and splat, not a pretty sight!

Makes me laugh to this day...

I once bought a kosher chicken. I did not realize that they often still had small feathers on them and it freaked me out!

There is nothing like good ol fried chicken, cooked low and slow in a old cast iron skillet til it is the color of mahogany, then put the lid on and let it steam a few minutes. Then take the chicken out, drain most of the grease, throw in an equal amount of flour to make a roux, then add water, salt and black pepper and cook til thick. Serve your chicken with rice or mashed taters topped with that wonderful gravy.

Embarrassing when my first whole chicken for guests still had the plastic bag full of giblets,etc in the cavity!

i had my friends over for a party, and i decided to make my delicious buffalo wings, so i know that we had chicken in the freezer, so i went searching through but i couldn't find it, so i finally found it in the refrigerator. So i make the buffalo wings, serve them to my friends, i take a bite, and they taste absolutely HORRIBLE!!! when my mom gets home i ask about the chicken and she tells me that she bought that chicken 3 weeks ago and she put them in the refrigerator to thaw them out to use the next day, and she forgot about them, ewwwwweeeee! I thought i smelled something funky!

Like well cooked chicken.

My parents once bought a chicken and killed it in the backyard for dinner. It ran around with its head cut off. =(

the first time i let my daughter barbeque by herself, she was doing a great job, and the chicken looked fantastic! When they're done she brings them inside and i we can't wait to eat them. we're just about to eat and we notice that the fire in the bbq had started up again and the flames are big so we go outside to try and put it out. We can't have been outside for 2 minutes. We go back inside, ready to eat, and what do we see? the plate that the chicken was on, on the floor, and the chicken, or at least what was left of the chicken, scattered around the table. And our dog Ziggy sitting there with bbq sauce all over his hairy guilty little face. Damn dog!

I need a new way to roast a chicken. I have only stuffed it and roasted, pretty boring but I must admit tasty. Chicken is one of my very favorite foods. this book would sure help out and maybe my husband would enjoy it as much as I do.

Once upon a time there was a woman that really liked chicken, but she wasn't very good at cooking it. So she tried a lot of different recipes, but she just never was sure it was cooked completely. Then one day she met a wonderful man. He was a superb cook and would make her chicken any way she wanted it whenever she wanted it. They lived happily ever after.

Why did the chicken cross the road? To get into my oven. It's a true story. I checked my oven. There's a roasted chicken in there that would make Julia Child proud.

I could eat chicken every day. It would be great to have some new recipes to try!

please enter me thanks!

When I roast a chicken I always put lots of garlic in the cavity, it gives it a great taste.

yum chickee dee! my mom used to make some version of chicken everday, and everyone complained, but i loved it - it never tasted the same with all her various recipes

A few years ago my husband bought me one of those "set it and forget it" rotisseries for Christmas. What I didn't realize was it the wings or legs slipped out of the cooking twine, they could keep the rotisserie from turning and you'd be sorry you 'forgot it' as you'd have half a burned chicken and half a raw chicken! I think I'll stick to good old fashioned oven roasting from now on!

Former latchkey child here. I was attempting to be the responsible one and start dinner with Shake and Bake Chicken in the oven. I must have set the temperature wrong, because it took an eternity to cook it thoroughly. What can I say, I was but a lad!

My sis , I and our kids went through a drive through zoo down in gentry ark years ago. They had gobs of baby chicks crated up to feed to the animals and snakes. The guy that worked there mentioned they had to many chicks and we could take some.The kids wanted to save the chicks from being ate so we ended up taking home a crate of them. Big Mistake. Baby chicks make a whole top of noise in a small car along with 2 kids.when we got home we had no where to put them so a neighbor took them.Talk about a headache.lol

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