1 Stupid Roast Chicken Recipe, 2 Ways

Thursdays I deliver Meals on Wheels, as all 2 or 3 of my readers surely know by now. Well, one of the ladies on my route, Trudy, is special and gets a visit most Thursdays. I pull up a chair and we chat for about 10 minutes about what’s been going on since last week, or I help her with her hearing aid, the clock on her stove, picking some earrings for her to wear to her Red Hat Luncheon, etc. Sometimes we look at recipes in the newspaper.  Last Thursday, she had cut this recipe out and was preparing to save it in her file. I read it, and I must admit, it’s the most stupid recipe I’ve ever seen. She cut it out because she likes the spices. I have no beef with the spices. It’s the rest. In case you don’t cook, let me fill you in on my issues with this stupid recipe.  Take a minute to read the recipe, then join me in my griping.

1. 2 to 3 pound fryer.  I like roast chicken, and I agree, a small one is generally the way to go for best flavor.  But where are you going to find a 2 to 3 lb fryer?  It’s difficult to find one under 4.   That’s the least of my problems, however.
2. Roast breast side down to keep white meat juicy.  Wait, weren’t you just saying how you like crispy skin?  Breast side down will give moist meat all right, but flabby skin.  You could turn it over 3/4 of the way through, and I’ve seen many recipes that do so.  But this one makes no mention of that.
3. Roast 1 to 2 hours at 375.  Read that again.  1 to 2 hours.  This is the part that freaked me out the most.  I mean, 1 hour is about right for a 4 lb bird in a 375 degree oven.  But 2 hours?  I don’t know if even my Grandma, who loves her meat so dry that it adheres your teeth to each other and has you reaching for glass after glass of water, or at least, please god, some gravy or cranberry sauce or something, no, not even she would cook a 2 to 3 lb bird for 2 hours.  That’s just stupid.

One last thought…this recipe is supposedly from the editor of Relish magazine.  I found the page from the insert here.  On the left side of the page is a picture with her kissing her son, and she talks about how wonderful it is to buy a rotisserie chicken from the grocery store.  Perhaps, just perhaps, she has never actually roasted a chicken herself.  She just buys the dried out chickens from the grocery store, brings them home, and calls it a day.  So for this article, she took 3 minutes, looked at tips from other recipes, distilled them down into this stupidity, and published it for the world to see.