'Los Angeles Times' Selects Best Chicken for Roasting
The Los Angeles Times Food section held a blind tasting of 14 birds, ranging from the standard supermarket kind to the organic, free-range, natural, heritage, air-chilled and kosher—they even tried two from a live poultry store. No clear winners, but they picked a few winners for different reasons.
They liked the organic, free-range chicken from Healthy Family Farms in Fillmore "for its flavorful meat and overall appearance," as well as Mary’s chickens from Pitman Farms near Fresno (available at Whole Foods), "for its texture, flavor and crisp skin." Most of the favorites were organic or fed special diets, and almost all were free-range.
Another factor was the air-chilled processing method, versus water-chilled. Both of the air-chilled chickens they tried, Mary's and Trader Joe's, received kudos for crisp and firm skin, "not flabby or flaccid."
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2 Comments:
Usual story, Kosher birds more "flavorful" (it's the salt). Air dried birds have a drier skin (you can dry the skin on any bird, check out some recipes for Peking Duck).
I wish these tests would brine all the chickens to the same sodium level so you could come closer to comparing the actual taste differences instead of the differences in seasoning or water absorption. I think Cook's Illustrated did this in one of their tests, and it erased any advantage the Kosher birds had.
peekpoke at 6:42PM on 05/12/09
Love that they did this kind of kitchen research. Now, if only a Canadian newspaper would do this experiment with our brands....I'm not holding my breath.
The good news is that when properly handled almost any chicken can be rather tasty once roasted. Here's a link to my step-by-step instructions for roasting a chicken:
http://danamccauley.wordpress.com/2008/09/23/how-to-roast-a-chicken
DanaMcCauley at 8:46PM on 05/12/09