The secret to crispy, golden chicken skin

I love it when mysteries of the cooking universe are revealed. I have often cooked chicken in various different ways; sometimes I ended up with a beautiful golden skin, and sometimes I didn't.

The standard advice I had read was to bronze the skin by basting it with butter. I tried this several times, to no avail. All I ended up with was buttery chicken. I think we can all agree that roast chicken is greasy enough as it is without throwing a bunch of butter into the equation.

And then I read this Chowhound article. My life is changed.

Turns out that the secret to getting that perfect crispy golden skin on your chicken is: Dry skin. The drier the better. If you rinse your chicken before roasting it (I always do this, but I don't know why… it seems unnecessary but it must serve some function, or else everyone wouldn't tell you to do it, right?) then you need to be vigorous about the "pat dry" stage. Use paper towels and be sure to soak up all the moisture you can.

Or better still: Rinse the chicken, pat it dry, then "let it air-dry, uncovered, in the fridge." The dry air in your refrigerator, coupled with the air circulation from the chilling unit, will help dry out your chicken nicely.

Salting the chicken skin will also help keep it dry. And if you are roasting it in a pan, use something to keep the chicken elevated. If it's wallowing in its own juices, it won't be dry enough to crisp up. You can set it on a rack, get one of those clever vertical chicken roasting props, or just wad up aluminum foil into 2-3" balls and set your chicken atop those.

And needless to say, basting the chicken as it cooks is antithetical to the process.

Image courtesy Flickr/Rosie 55