The Great Chicken Roast-Off

Every chef claims to have their favorite, perfect way to roast a chicken (including myself). But how perfect is it? Is it too much trouble? Does it really make the perfect chicken?

Buzzfeed decided to go all Mythbusters on these chicken recipes and set up a single-elimination bracket-style tournament for each recipe. They chose roasted chicken recipes from food gods like Jamie Oliver, Martha Stewart, Julia Child, and more.

Their article is surprisingly in-depth and insightful (for Buzzfeed) and begins with a thumbnail sketch of what each recipe is like. Based on these mini-descriptions alone, I can tell you there are several recipes I would never make, like the Food Lab recipe which requires you to butterfly your chicken (too much work for me).

As always, I was more interested by the failures than the successes. Several of the recipes ended up scorching some of the ingredients. The juice that was supposed to drip from the Engagement Chicken just evaporated, and Martha Stewart's recipe resulted in burnt onions that "filled the kitchen with smoke." Pioneer Woman's roasted chicken had to be slathered in a stick and a half of butter (really?) and the skin ripped off.

I don't have a roasting rack, and after seeing Jamie Oliver's recipe, I have resolved to try roasting chicken atop a bed of vegetables. Not only would this prevent the problem of the chicken sticking to the pan and getting simmered in grease, it also creates the most delicious (and unhealthy) collection of roasted vegetables to eat as a side dish.

In the end, Thomas Keller's ultra-simple recipe won the day, which does my heart good. Keller roasts his chicken at 450 degrees for 60 minutes, prepped only with salt and pepper. No fancy stuff, no extra ingredients, no having to stuff herbs under the skin.

Image courtesy Flickr/mary.w.e.