I was a vegetarian for a long time and even when I wasn’t strictly an herbivore, I didn’t cook meat often at home and then only very specific things.
Since literally falling off the turnip truck and cooking more meat-inclusive meals with Keifel, I have had to learn about meat cookery. Let’s just say there have been some wrong turns on my road to charred-flesh superiority.
This is the tale of three “natural” chickens. They can’t be labelled organic, because organic chickens have to be caged, these are instead free-range, no hormones or antibiotics chickens. They are sold at Wild Oats for 1.49 a pound. “A 1.49 a pound!” you say. Yes, I am willing to pay more for a chicken that isn’t going to help build up my immunity to antiobiotics.
Keifel and I have purchased three. The first was dispatched on a lazy Sunday afternoon according to the directions given in the venerable Joy of Cooking. We thought it was cooked. The cornbread was done, the salad was dressed and the chicken was freaking raw inside. The cut up chicken went back into the oven while we had cornbread and salad and awaited our chicken dessert.
The second one stank up our fridge and freezer from the freezer. Raccoons have chewed out a chunk of our trashcan trying to get at its stinky carcass. In lieu of the chicken dinner, we attempted to eat experimental zucchini fritters that had all the character and life of wet newspaper before caving in to a frozen pizza.
The third was purchased last night under our new rule of buying the chicken the day it is to be cooked. We followed different advice to cook it at a higher temp for a little longer period of time. Skin was crispy, breast was done, legs were still bloody at the joint.
What am I doing wrong? Is this some punishment sent on me by the chicken gods for wimping out on the vegetarian thing? Why can’t I roast a chicken?
(Here, victoria falls to her knees and cries to the heavens in cinematic agony.)
