24 Roast Chickens: 2011 in Review

Happy New Year, interwebs! Per tradition, my mom prepared a beautiful, traditional Korean New Year's feast, complete with Korean rice cake soup and braised short ribs packaged in a kabocha squash. But this isn't a post about delicious Korean food. It's a post about chickens. 24 chickens. Roasted. And believe you me, 24 is no poultry number.

The end of this project is bittersweet. No more than a year ago, I had never even touched a raw, whole chicken before. And before I knew it, this project truly evolved from one of curiosity to one of obsession. Roasting a chicken was no longer just a pursuit to learn a basic technique. Roasting a chicken became an investigation into the lives of famous chefs, the flavors of different cultures, and ultimately, the ubiquity and versatility of this tradition.

Chefs famous for their use of modern cuisine tipped their hats to simpler and more classic flavors. Authorities on French and Italian cuisine proved why they are authorities. Recipes from blogs I had never seen before found their way into my oven. And everyone claimed they had the best technique for the perfect, ultimate roast chicken.

Everyone seems to have their own opinions on which roast chicken recipe is the best. But hopefully, if anything, this project will help out those who are a little lost as to where to start in that ocean of recipes available on the Internet. And for those who are jaded chicken roasters, maybe this project will spark some inspiration to try something new.

So as promised, here's my contribution to the yearly deluge of "Best of [insert year]" lists.

24. Emeril Lagasse's Perfect Roast Chicken - Surprisingly light, but the breast was a little bit dry and bland. The garlic rosemary butter was killer.

23. Jacques Pépin's Quick Roasted Chicken - The sauce was great and tangy, but the cooking method dried up the breast meat a lot. But ohh, the sauce.

22. America's Test Kitchen's Roast Chicken - Very moist and evenly cooked, but too briny at points. The mustard butter with thyme added a nice kick and the sweet potatoes were pretty irresistible.

21. Thomas Keller's "My Favorite Simple Roast Chicken" - A little dried up, but loved the simple flavors and combination with the dijon mustard.

20. Jamie Oliver's Perfect Roast Chicken - Juicy, flavorful, and classic. Maybe just wasn't as exciting because of the standard-ness of it. Great cooked celery and carrots though.

19. Jerry Traunfeld's Bay Laurel Roasted Chicken - Really juicy meat with a strong portion of garlic and an overwhelmingly noticeable presence of bay leaf at times. Jus was unnecessary.

18.Tyler Florence's Ultimate Roast Chicken - Two words: Bacon blanket. Crispy skin, juicy meat, and tons of herbal flavor. Really heavy, and naturally, really fatty.

17. Eric Ripert's Roasted Chicken with Za'atar Stuffing - A little on the raw side, but the flavor profile was great. Next time, put twice the amount of za'atar in the stuffing, or cover the actual chicken with za'atar.

16. Rasa Malaysia's Szechuan Roasted Chicken - A lovable marinade spiked with pepper and some slight sweetness with a refreshing apple-based side salad. Some Szechuan spice would've been nice.

15. Christopher Walken's Chicken with Pears - So juicy and simple. Pearfectly delicious pears. You can't hate on Christopher Walken.

14. Thai-Marinated Roast Chicken - Not really fair because I feel like I'm voting for myself. In any case, a serious flavor bomb, straight from Bangkok.

13. The Kitchn's Spatchcocked Ricotta Chicken - Turbo filling, comforting ricotta, tons of delicious basil, and incredibly juicy for a butterflied chicken.

12. Grant Achatz's Roasted Chicken with Garlic-Thyme Butter - Tyler Florence "light." Very juicy and crispy skin. Butter with garlic and thyme is always a plus.

11. Rozanne Gold's "Opinionated Way to Roast a Chicken" - Incredibly easy, surprisingly moist, addictive chive butter sauce, but slightly dry at parts. Still, though. It was the most surprising.

10. Christian Domschitz's Salt-Roasted Chicken - Salt and chicken, at their best. Outrageously juicy. And naked.

9. delicious. Magazine's Bengali-Spiced Squash with Ginger Roast Chicken - The second-best side that the 24 had to offer. Also, incredibly juicy and tangy. Next time, more ginger in and on everything.

8. Mindy Fox's Peruvian Roast Chicken - Super flavorful and rich. Packed with three flavors I love: cumin, garlic, and paprika.

7. Ludo Lefebvre's "Recipe by Photo" Roast Chicken - Skin to die for and absurdly juicy meat with a citrusy tang. The butter is a bit heavy in all the right ways.

6. Tom Colicchio's Roasted Chicken - Awesomely juicy, subtle and aromatic, and drew a lot from the simple salt and pepper seasoning. Some of the crispiest chicken out there. The peanut oil was a serious plus.

5. Julia Child's "My Favorite Roast Chicken" - Delicious lemony flavor with juicy meat and addictive cooked, yet crunchy, carrots and celery. No wonder she's so famous.

4. Judy Rodgers' Zuni Roast Chicken - Outrageous skin and the best side the 24 had to offer. I can still taste yesterday's tangy and acidic bread salad.

3. Fabio Viviani's Roasted Chicken - Tucked sage and olive oil made for a guiltless chicken, packed with flavor. Classic and delicious.

2. Tony Maws' Whole Roast Chicken - Cooked to perfection from skin to rib. One of the main reasons why this isn't number one is because it's not the easiest or most accessible recipe of the lot.

1. Marcella Hazan's Roast Chicken with Lemons - Beautifully moist, aromatic, simple, perfect. Every time. Oh come on, as if you didn't see this one coming.

And with that, the 24 Roast Chicken project comes to a close. Though I'll miss this project a lot, let the roast chicken detox begin. Thanks to everyone who helped me navigate and eat my way through this project.

A new "24" project for 2012 is currently in the works. Lots of great suggestions, so keep them coming.

In the meantime, happy 2012!

Judy Rodgers' Zuni Roast Chicken with Bread Salad (24/24)

No, that's not what my last chicken of the year looked like. But it's how I was convinced to save Judy Rodgers' Zuni Roast Chicken with Bread Salad for last. I was fortunate enough to go to San Francisco last July and eat this famous plate of food with a couple friends at Zuni Cafe. Some might argue that this is the most famous offering of roast chicken in the States. And I can definitely see why. Opinions aside, if you find yourself at Zuni Cafe, their made to order roast chicken is well worth the one-hour wait.

With the taste of tangy bread salad and succulent roast chicken from that summer day still lingering in my mouth, I embarked on my attempt to recreate this dish for my family's last lunch of 2011, and my last chicken for this project.

The recipe starts with a noticeably small chicken. Three pounds, to be exact. Stuffed with your choice of herbs (the recipe recommends thyme, marjoram, rosemary, or sage), salted with a heavy hand, and seasoned generously with freshly ground black pepper. To bring this project full circle, I decided to use two herbs that I love: rosemary and sage. Cover the chicken loosely and refrigerate for at least one full day, and up to three full days.

Next, get a slightly stale open crumb bread. The crumb is the inner part of the bread, and an open crumb is a crumb that is porous and spongy. I used a day-old loaf of French Batard from Whole Foods.

Take off most of the crust, tear the crumb into fairly large chunks, and brush the chunks all over with olive oil. Throw these into an oven on "browning" mode, or simply put these into the oven after you've preheated the oven to 475 degrees for the chicken.

Meanwhile, throw some dried currants into a pool of red wine vinegar and some warm water.

Flip the bread in the oven after about five minutes. After another three to five minutes, the bread should look lightly colored and toasted.

Rip the bread into chunks and toss this in a bowl with olive oil, white wine vinegar, salt, and pepper.

Toss the chicken into the oven, breast side up. In the meantime, stir some scallions and garlic in olive oil over medium until softened. After the chicken has been in the oven for thirty minutes, flip the chicken.

Roast the chicken for another fifteen minutes. Meanwhile, fold the pine nuts, strained currants, garlic, and scallions into the bread crumb.

Flip the chicken one more time so that the chicken is breast side up again and roast for another five to ten minutes. For the last five to ten minutes, throw the bread salad covered with aluminum foil into the oven.

Take out the chicken to rest, but keep the bread salad in the oven for another five minutes.

Reserve the pan drippings to fold into the bread salad after it comes out of the oven.

Drizzle the pan drippings and toss a few handfuls of mixed salad greens into the bread salad. I tossed the greens with some white wine vinegar, olive oil, salt, and pepper before throwing them into the salad to ensure that the salad would have a bright, acidic flavor. I also used the roasting pan itself as the serving platter so that the bread salad would sop up any remaining drippings.

Finally, carve the chicken and nestle the pieces of meat into the bread salad.

The end result was as good as I could've hoped. The dark meat was juicy and, like the white meat, was packed with the potent flavors of rosemary and sage. The most notable part of this recipe was the skin. Insanely crispy. Just as the recipe explains, tying the roast chicken legs, like so many recipes do, would have been a waste of time and would not have maximized the potential crispiness of the skin. The Zuni Cafe version of the roast chicken was still better, but I guess that's why they still handle order upon order of their roast chicken every day.

The bread salad, however, was just as good as I remember. Tangy, acidic, savory, and fluffy, all at the same time. The crispy bits of crumb that opened up to a soft, spongy interior were texturally sublime, and the combination of pine nuts and currants hydrated with red wine vinegar really brought me back to my first bite of this salad in July. All that with a tender bite of the chicken was a perfect way to rein in the penultimate meal of the year.

24 roast chickens? Done and done.

But a project is never complete without a final list of thoughts, lessons, and rankings. And I'd do that now if it weren't for the humungous chicken and bread salad bomb in my stomach (not to mention the turbo delicious handmade pizza my brother made) and the 6:15pm reservations my family has for a much-anticipated six-course dinner at Sotto (after all, what's New Year's Eve without a little bit of a splurge?). Expect that more thoughtful post tomorrow.

For now, I salute you, 2011, for another fulfilling and memorable year, complete with its fair share of ups and downs, garnished with new adventures and discoveries, dusted with disappointments and downfalls, and served with a side of 24 delicious roast chickens.

Tony Maws' Whole Roast Chicken (23/24)

Not many people can say they've sous vide'd a whole chicken. As of last Monday, I can.

Tony Maws, the mastermind behind Craigie on Main in Cambridge, MA, shares this roast chicken recipe on his website. And the recipe is daunting. Believe you me, the thought of brining, vacuum sealing, and dunking an entire chicken into a hot water bath seemed very near threatening at first, but after going through the process once, it ain't so bad after all. If you're lucky enough to own an immersion circulator, or have a friend who has one, like I do, taking the day to prepare and watch over this preparation of roast chicken is well worth the effort and wait.

First, combine the ingredients for the brine and bring the brine to a simmer. Water, kosher salt, kombu (11 grams, to be exact), dried thyme, coriander seeds, fennel seeds, allspice berries, juniper berries, chili flakes, and cloves. Forget bath salts. The resulting aroma of this brine is eye-rollingly soothing.

After letting the brine cool, dunk the chicken into the liquid. I used a resealable bag and flipped the bag once after one-and-a-half hours of brining to make sure the brine would find its way into every crevice of the chicken.

After about two hours of brining, start warming a tub of water to 158 degrees Fahrenheit with an immersion circulator. Don't underestimate how long this might take. After all, 158 degrees is a pretty high temperature. After three hours of brining, the chicken should look a little something like this. Don't worry if you can't get all the aromatics off of the chicken.

Next, wipe the chicken dry, season the chicken with salt and pepper, and place the chicken, chicken or duck fat, and a sprig of thyme into a vacuum seal bag.

And vacuum seal away. I was a little worried here that there might still be brine remnants that would get sucked into the vacuum, but everything was gravy.

At this point, the water tub should have reached 158 degrees. Dunk the chicken into the hot water bath.

After 2.5 hours in the hot water bath, take the bag out and let the chicken rest for 20 minutes.

As the chicken is resting, fill a tub with cold water and ice. Once the chicken is done resting, place the bag into the cold water for at least 1.5 hours to allow the chicken to chill. When the chicken gets cold enough to your liking, preheat the oven to 425 degrees.

Take the chicken out of the bag and wipe off as much of the "gelled juice" as possible. Be really careful when you're doing this step because the skin can tear very easily. And don't worry if the chicken takes on the color of that preserved fetal pig you might have dissected in high school. The final oven roasting step will take care of any concerns you might have about the form or color of the chicken.

When the oven's ready, pop the chicken in for 40 minutes. The chicken should take on a welcomingly familiar brown color.

Finally, rest the chicken for 10 minutes. The final product should smell like a classic roast chicken and have a slightly crispy skin.

The first cut was divine. Because I was so taken aback by how perfectly cooked the inner thigh was, I immediately took the carving knife to the breast. Just as I had hoped, the breast was cooked to perfection from skin to rib. The dark meat bursted with flavor and depth. Juices purged their way out of the lower thigh and inner breast, and the innermost meat took on an ever so slight pink tinge that indicated that the meat was cooked to just the right temperature.

Ah, the magic of sous vide cooking. I mean seriously, look at that exposed chicken breast. Some of the breast meat was so juicy that it almost felt like sashimi when I placed it on my tongue. The simple salt and pepper seasoning let the poultry shine and the somewhat loose, yet still crispy skin added some texture to each bite.

Even though none of the thyme and not much of the brine's flavors came through, several bites had fleeting hints of coriander and allspice. Usually three hungry people can rip through a chicken like nobody's business. But the meat on this chicken was so juicy, rich, and succulent that my mom, brother, and I had trouble stuffing ourselves with anything beyond a normal portion of chicken. I guess that's why people say that a well-cooked chicken feeds more than a mediocre chicken.

Okay, fine. You're right. People don't say that. But they should.

Not to spoil the results, but I'll tell you right now that this chicken is easily going to snag a spot in the top five.