What to do with a whole chicken?

Congratulations, due to a $0.99 per pound or better sale at your recent market, you are now the proud owner of a whole, semi or mostly-frozen chicken!  It probably looks like this:

So what do you do with this lump of supposed chicken flesh?

Well, first, let me disclaimer here a little - I was too busy this morning to take photos, and part of this happened without me, and when I got home, we were all too hungry to worry about photography....  I'm no Pioneer Woman here.

But truly first?  You fully defrost it.  In the refridgerator or in cold water.  It will take hours to days, so this is meal you have to plan ahead for.  Defrosting any quicker risks cooking the bird (in a microwave) or exposing yourself and your loved ones to salmonella (on the countertop while you're at work all day).

Second-first?  (hahaha, that is so silly, second-first....)  You brine that sucker.  The typical recipe for a brine is about 1 cup of kosher salt per enough liquids to cover your chicken.  I find that IF I'm going to start the brine before I go to work, I should add a little over half a cup of regular granulated salt to a cup or two of water, a full head of garlic sliced lengthwise (if I can get garlic cheap enough for this to only cost me a few cents), and some whole peppercorn and some dried or even fresh chilis.  This is totally negotiable, add, subtract, and substitute as fits your family.  Today we did a little over half a cup of regular salt, a head of garlic, a Tbsp of whole peppercorn, and a dash of cayenne.  We boiled all that in a cup and a half of water for a few minutes, then let cool for a few, then added ice.  We removed the bits from the chicken cavities (neck and liver and kidneys and heart), washed the whole thing, then stuck it in a gallon freezer bag.  To this we added the chilled brine solution.  We sealed that up in one bag, then stuck it inside another bag to help mitigate salmonella leaks down into the fresh produce, and left it until we got home from work.

A note here:  secondary containment is critical when working with potential food-poisoning items.  Anything that can carry a pathogenic bacteria (poultry in particular, pork and beef also but less so) should be first put into containment and then into a "secondary" container in case your first line of defense sprains a leak.  This is most painful when you get raw contaminated chicken juice into something you typically serve raw, don't notice it, and give your entire family food poisoning, but more poignantly so when you do notice it and it's the raspberries you bought for $5 a quarter-pint out of season, were really looking forward to serving at a special birthday breakfast brunch, and now must toss.  It's easy enough to double-bag it or put it in a bowl or pan, so just do it.

Baking is straightforward:  Put the chicken on something to collect the drips and stick it in the oven at 400 F until the internal temp is around 160 F or so.  Nothing special.  You don't need a special pan (although they sell these both as permanent additions to your kitchen and as disposables), you can just put aluminum foil down.

When it's cooked enough, pull it out of the oven and let it sit for about 1/4 of the total cooking time.  If you had to cook it for an hour, let it sit for 15 minutes.  You may think this is ridiculous and that you're hungry and it smells so good and Gosh Darn It you've earned it, but patience, young padawan.  If you carve it now, you'll lose all the good juices and flavor to the ether, but if you wait just a few more minutes, your bird will be heaven.

Eventually, you get to carve it.  There are right and wrong ways to do this.  You can look them up on the internet.  I trust you to get it right.  For a 2-4 lb bird, every person in the family (2-4 people) should get a 3-6 oz serving of breast meat.  Normal American serving sizes are more like an entire breast per person, and maybe a drumstick as a second helping before desert.  Go figure.

After dinner, someone gets the pleasure of the age-old pass-time of "chicken picking."  I know people who pride themselves on being the most efficient chicken pickers in the county.  This is the fun, messy, grubby sport of digging into a roasted chicken that has cooled off and been mostly picked-over by the family for scraps of meat.  You might think this is wasted time, obviously if it were good meat someone would've taken it....  BUT YOU'D BE WRONG!!  There's a fair bit of good meat left on a chicken that has been carved and served that can be salvaged by someone willing to get their hands dirty picking a chicken carcass.  Here's a photo of our haul:

In the middle is the chicken carcass.  I'm planning to make chicken noodle soup out of this soon, so I wasn't too careful in getting every ounce of meat off, as you can see.  On the left is the dark meat that I pulled off the legs and thighs.  On the right is the white meat that I pulled off the breast.  The wings, it seems, no one likes around here but me, so they wind up in the soup-stock bin in the middle.

The middle (carcass) bin goes into the freezer.  I will pull it out when I have time and energy to stew a chicken stock.  The left-hand dark meat goes into lighter future dishes that need the extra fat.  The right-hand light meat goes into lunch tomorrow and etc.... where light, healthy proteins are desirable.

What am I missing?  Oh yes, the neck and giblets.  These go straight into a saute pan and when fully cooked into the "carcass" bin in the freezer.  You can make a pate out of chicken livers, and I hear you can do amazing things with thinly sliced fried chicken hearts.... but you know what?  I don't really want to be a part of that.  In my house we use every part of the buffalo, and I'm perfectly fine if that "use" is "making a good stock."  I'll never lose a day's sleep because I didn't do more with a chicken gizzard.....

Hopefully tomorrow I'll have some good pics on what you can do with all that leftover meat.

Until, stay hungry!