Liveblogging: the chicken dishes
Jul. 9th, 2022 12:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
walkitout“I want to use this space to make the case for boiled chicken.”
“With roast chicken, you can really only ever serve it hot — I’m sorry, but cold roast chicken just isn’t great”
“If I roast a chicken with salt and pepper, that fundamental flavor will never change unless I have some kind of dipping sauce”
“Roasting a chicken well is way harder than one might think. You need to season it properly, truss it, have the right aromatics. You need to know how to carve it.’
I’m debating. I mean, I might just skip this? I probably will not do a detailed critique, because this person has just told me very, very clearly that they have no idea what they are doing when it comes to chicken. Roasting a chicken is ridiculously easy. You need a good chicken, and you need a good pan. You need an oven that can consistently hold temp at or a little below 300 degrees (Not All Ovens, alas). You need to remember to turn the thing over partway through. And you need time. But that’s really it. It requires absolutely no seasoning whatsoever. As to the needing to know how to carve it, I think we now understand why this person thinks you only need two knives in the kitchen. Not that you can’t carve a chicken with a chef’s knife. Just.
Basically, he puts the whole chicken in a pot of salted water (even he realizes not to overdo the salt here) (but honestly, I think he is not being careful to buy unsalted / unbrined chicken, so the trouble has already begun) and boils it for 45 minutes.
Only morbid curiosity is carrying me forward at this point. This is where you basically have shredded chicken. I suspect all the recipes are going to be for shredded chicken.
Take it out. Cool it. Remove the meat (that won’t be hard). Put the carcass back in with seasonings and aromatics. Simmer until you feel like that is done. Take the carcass out (how is it not completely fallen apart at this point? You’ll be scooping bits out. Put the meat into the broth.
PK’s comment here is hilarious. She wanted to know how to get the meat off the chicken. Seriously? Fork. Chopsticks. Fingers. Whatever. She used tongs. Civilized. “He told me that I could just Google it (like he always does) or figure it out through failing a bunch of times”. Wow. Why do we need a book for this?
Chicken noodle soup.
At this point, there’s a rewind to before putting the meat back into the broth. That’s confusing. Doesn’t matter. His chicken noodle soup involves seasoning the meat while out, and then putting it back in. Valid strategy. He is a cook the noodles separately person, and bowls broth-noodles-chicken, then garnish. Valid strategy. Seasoning for this is pan asian.
“For something more Northern Italian-inspired*”
Fridge night soup. FENNEL HAS MADE AN APPEARANCE!!!!! OK, I’m in for at least the rest of the chicken chapter. I would have missed the fennel if I had not stuck around out of morbid curiosity! There’s hope for him.
AND BEANS!!!
Adds parm rind to the broth. *sigh* Rosemary, _GREENS MAKE AN APPEARANCE_!!! The aforementioned fennel
This is an absolutely plausible soup.
Link to relevant experts. There’s a little dialoge between DC and PK about white cookbook authors co-opting stuff and DC not wanting to be a part of that. Followed by a separated by cuisine, not white-people-co-opting list of books to refer to for real expertise. Solid solution.
“If you want a little mala flavor”
Sichuan chicken soup.
Plausible. Fennel seeds. I should actually figure out a variant on this to make, because R. can’t have allium, and this would be a delightful alternative.
Campbell’s style, for when you have celery
Nuff said — it’s pretty standard except maybe for the parm on top. A variation after for chicken and dumplings, either southern style or korean. A cheat using packaged dumpling wrappers.
Chicken Rice
Rewind back to the boiled chicken and rather than shredding, cut off the breasts and slice into medallions.
I don’t think I’ve ever had this Hainanese dish; it is seasoned rice, with poached chicken, and a bunch of condiments. Kinda cool.
Chicken Salad
Mayo, shredded chicken, vinegar, herbs. Wow. He really didn’t put anything else in there. Yikes. Like, even the herbs are just parsley and dill. Inevitably, he adds salt.
I’m a little spooked here. My chicken salad has so many other things in it, it does not technically need the chiken. *shrug*
Chicken pot pie
He uses puff pastry. Fair. Even he admits this tastes better with roasted chicken than boiled. Ha. Link to how to roast chicken. “For chicken, because it cooks faster, you’ll want to cook it for more like an hour at 425. Chicken has less fat than pork or beef, so you may want to rub it with butter or oil before you roast it.” Well, I guess we now know why he doesn’t like roast chicken. His chicken pot pie has onion, carrots and frozen peas. Standard. Also, incredibly boring.
Family meal chicken
Apparently, he ate this a lot working at restaurants. It is a weird sheet pan meal. 500 degree oven!!! Quarter a whole chicken, arrange on a wire rack over a sheet pan. 30-40 minutes until cooked through and golden. Optionally put stuff under the rack to catch drippings: potatoes, onions are the extent of his creativity here.
Honestly, use a fucking air fryer.
Moving on.
PK does not like boiled chicken. Her version of sheet pan chicken is way better. She used bone in thighs (correct!) and rubbed them with a rib rub from Buxton Hall BBQ in Ashevillle, NC.
Judgement time: Cooking a whole chicken and then using it to make soups, noodle or rice dishes, pot pie, chicken salad is a great strategy, and he covers a lot of ground here. The sheet pan chicken sounds awesome. However, he doesn’t know how to roast a chicken, and there is a _lot_ missing here as well (total absence of wraps, and minimal appearance of beans, but also the entire stew end of chicken dishes is absent except the pot pie. It all comes down to the boil strategy. This is a lot weaker than the brisket section, imo.
“With roast chicken, you can really only ever serve it hot — I’m sorry, but cold roast chicken just isn’t great”
“If I roast a chicken with salt and pepper, that fundamental flavor will never change unless I have some kind of dipping sauce”
“Roasting a chicken well is way harder than one might think. You need to season it properly, truss it, have the right aromatics. You need to know how to carve it.’
I’m debating. I mean, I might just skip this? I probably will not do a detailed critique, because this person has just told me very, very clearly that they have no idea what they are doing when it comes to chicken. Roasting a chicken is ridiculously easy. You need a good chicken, and you need a good pan. You need an oven that can consistently hold temp at or a little below 300 degrees (Not All Ovens, alas). You need to remember to turn the thing over partway through. And you need time. But that’s really it. It requires absolutely no seasoning whatsoever. As to the needing to know how to carve it, I think we now understand why this person thinks you only need two knives in the kitchen. Not that you can’t carve a chicken with a chef’s knife. Just.
Basically, he puts the whole chicken in a pot of salted water (even he realizes not to overdo the salt here) (but honestly, I think he is not being careful to buy unsalted / unbrined chicken, so the trouble has already begun) and boils it for 45 minutes.
Only morbid curiosity is carrying me forward at this point. This is where you basically have shredded chicken. I suspect all the recipes are going to be for shredded chicken.
Take it out. Cool it. Remove the meat (that won’t be hard). Put the carcass back in with seasonings and aromatics. Simmer until you feel like that is done. Take the carcass out (how is it not completely fallen apart at this point? You’ll be scooping bits out. Put the meat into the broth.
PK’s comment here is hilarious. She wanted to know how to get the meat off the chicken. Seriously? Fork. Chopsticks. Fingers. Whatever. She used tongs. Civilized. “He told me that I could just Google it (like he always does) or figure it out through failing a bunch of times”. Wow. Why do we need a book for this?
Chicken noodle soup.
At this point, there’s a rewind to before putting the meat back into the broth. That’s confusing. Doesn’t matter. His chicken noodle soup involves seasoning the meat while out, and then putting it back in. Valid strategy. He is a cook the noodles separately person, and bowls broth-noodles-chicken, then garnish. Valid strategy. Seasoning for this is pan asian.
“For something more Northern Italian-inspired*”
Fridge night soup. FENNEL HAS MADE AN APPEARANCE!!!!! OK, I’m in for at least the rest of the chicken chapter. I would have missed the fennel if I had not stuck around out of morbid curiosity! There’s hope for him.
AND BEANS!!!
Adds parm rind to the broth. *sigh* Rosemary, _GREENS MAKE AN APPEARANCE_!!! The aforementioned fennel
This is an absolutely plausible soup.
Link to relevant experts. There’s a little dialoge between DC and PK about white cookbook authors co-opting stuff and DC not wanting to be a part of that. Followed by a separated by cuisine, not white-people-co-opting list of books to refer to for real expertise. Solid solution.
“If you want a little mala flavor”
Sichuan chicken soup.
Plausible. Fennel seeds. I should actually figure out a variant on this to make, because R. can’t have allium, and this would be a delightful alternative.
Campbell’s style, for when you have celery
Nuff said — it’s pretty standard except maybe for the parm on top. A variation after for chicken and dumplings, either southern style or korean. A cheat using packaged dumpling wrappers.
Chicken Rice
Rewind back to the boiled chicken and rather than shredding, cut off the breasts and slice into medallions.
I don’t think I’ve ever had this Hainanese dish; it is seasoned rice, with poached chicken, and a bunch of condiments. Kinda cool.
Chicken Salad
Mayo, shredded chicken, vinegar, herbs. Wow. He really didn’t put anything else in there. Yikes. Like, even the herbs are just parsley and dill. Inevitably, he adds salt.
I’m a little spooked here. My chicken salad has so many other things in it, it does not technically need the chiken. *shrug*
Chicken pot pie
He uses puff pastry. Fair. Even he admits this tastes better with roasted chicken than boiled. Ha. Link to how to roast chicken. “For chicken, because it cooks faster, you’ll want to cook it for more like an hour at 425. Chicken has less fat than pork or beef, so you may want to rub it with butter or oil before you roast it.” Well, I guess we now know why he doesn’t like roast chicken. His chicken pot pie has onion, carrots and frozen peas. Standard. Also, incredibly boring.
Family meal chicken
Apparently, he ate this a lot working at restaurants. It is a weird sheet pan meal. 500 degree oven!!! Quarter a whole chicken, arrange on a wire rack over a sheet pan. 30-40 minutes until cooked through and golden. Optionally put stuff under the rack to catch drippings: potatoes, onions are the extent of his creativity here.
Honestly, use a fucking air fryer.
Moving on.
PK does not like boiled chicken. Her version of sheet pan chicken is way better. She used bone in thighs (correct!) and rubbed them with a rib rub from Buxton Hall BBQ in Ashevillle, NC.
Judgement time: Cooking a whole chicken and then using it to make soups, noodle or rice dishes, pot pie, chicken salad is a great strategy, and he covers a lot of ground here. The sheet pan chicken sounds awesome. However, he doesn’t know how to roast a chicken, and there is a _lot_ missing here as well (total absence of wraps, and minimal appearance of beans, but also the entire stew end of chicken dishes is absent except the pot pie. It all comes down to the boil strategy. This is a lot weaker than the brisket section, imo.
no subject
Date: 2022-07-12 12:31 am (UTC)There's a place in Seattle called "Drunken Chicken" (currently closed) that does Hainanese chicken. Can't remember if we've had it but I think we have.