Cycle 4 – Item 60

6 (Wed) March 2013

Weekend Roast (then Grilled) Chicken

2.0

by me

at home

-Oksu, Seongdong, Seoul, Republic of Korea-

with W and DJ

My new favorite source for food information is America’s Test Kitchen.  ATK has its origins in the magazine Cook’s Illustrated, which attempts to derive the single “best” recipe for a given dish from testing various techniques/ingredients/formulas by a team of 30-plus professional chefs, who also conduct reviews of kitchen appliances and blind tastings of food/beverage products.  The publication is kept advertisement-free, ostensibly to maintain the appearance objectivity.  The format was ultimately developed into a public television program America’s Test Kitchen, and then a radio show by the same name, both hosted by the magazine’s founder and editor-in-chief Chris Kimball, perhaps the most entertaining, easy-goingly erudite host of any cooking production that I’ve ever seen.  I discovered ATK via the podcast, perfectly timed at 50 minutes to fit my commute.  The entirety of the TV and radio content is available on the website, though it’s not exactly free.

With every step of every process described/justified on the grounds of science, common sense, and of course the extensive experimentation, making the recipes appear infallible, I had confidence bordering on cockiness for my first crack at the ATK archive.  I tried the Weeknight Roast Chicken, along with the Potato Galette, a pair of simple baked dishes that would seem to go well together.  Alas, I screwed them up, resulting in pink chicken and black potatoes.  The trick in the chicken recipe calls for turning the oven off at the halfway point, allowing the residual heat within to gently finish the cooking.  However, I didn’t know that my oven is designed to vent heat, which I realized about 30 minutes after turning it off when I opened the door to see if it was done only to discover a cool interior and a cold bird.  By that time, I didn’t feel like reroasting the thing, so I cut it up and grilled the pieces in a skillet.  I can’t explain the burned potatoes.  I’ll do better next time.

(See also BOOZE)

(See also GLOBAL FOOD GLOSSARY)

(See also RESTAURANTS IN KOREA)

These are screen-shot comments from the prior site. If you wish to leave a new comment, please do so in the live comment section below.