mindphlux posted:

a thousand times this.

if you aren't doing this at least once or twice a week, you're doing yourself a disservice. the triple use, with the stock and the leftover breast meat is perfect. I usually save about 5-6 carcasses before I bother making stock.

unless you hate chicken, turn it into a mission. make your perfect chicken. try different oven temperatures, times between flipping (or not flipping at all), rack vs no rack, water in the pan vs no water in the pan, brining versus dry rub vs no marinating at all, coarseness of salt, stuffing the cavity with aromatics (vs not), blasting with heat at the beginning vs not, stuffing the skin with herbs/butter vs not - there's so much. Argh, I think I could go on for another paragraph or two with 'controversial' topics in chicken cookery. In fact I guess I will, just because I can.... Using baking soda in your salt mixture on the skin, the 'beer can' approach, getting skin crispy using an oven vs grill, smoking vs grilling, starting chicken cold or at room tempature, PH of your brining solution, salinity of brine, length of brine, dusting skin with starch before roasting/grilling, spatchcocking vs whole roasting, air drying before cooking/developing a pellicle (and its relative importance in roasting vs grilling vs smoking), steaming THEN grilling/roasting (ala chinese) - and I haven't even mentioned any frying techniques which all have different answers to the same questions...

god, I suddenly feel like I should write a book on chicken cookery. it's definitely one of the things I've spent a ton of time researching and testing... the results are worth it too. I think thomas keller's method isn't really that amazing, but I entirely agree with his sentiment. a perfect roast (grilled, fried, smoked) chicken is the most amazing thing.