Anthony Bourdain's Poulet Roti

by Kal

Yes, another poulet roti.  I am taking the poulet roti chef tour, for reasons that became obvious to me during the roasting of this particular bird.  But more on philosophical underpinnings later.  Let's talk food!

This was the poulet roti from p.181 of Anthony Bourdain's Les Halles Cookbook.  The one that starts with "That's roast chicken, numbnuts!"  (Ah, Tony.  There's nothing like some good old-fashioned kitchen talk, even if it's on the page instead of in my ear.)

This recipe calls for significantly more preparation than Keller's.  I made the herb butter the night before, which was immensely satisfying; at some point I decided using a spoon to mix the herbs into the butter just wasn't going to happen, and I mixed it by hand -- visceral and fun.

I prepared the chicken with my usual mixture of Bourdain/Keller techniques (Bourdain's no-trussing trick for the legs and Keller's wing-folding strategy).  Poking the knobs of herb butter under the skin of the breasts was surprisingly fun.  Resting the bird on aromatics and its own giblets in the pan elevates it out of the pan juices, which I liked -- no soggy underbelly to contend with.  And the buttered skin resulted in a beautiful brown bird (only a tiny bit too brown on the top spots there).

At this point, the bird is to rest during deglazing of the pan and reduction of the sauce, and I made the mistake I've been dreading making ever since I got these beautiful pans for Christmas: I took it out of the oven, set it on the stovetop, promptly forgot it had just been in the oven, and grabbed the handle with my bare hand.

These are the moments when I'm very glad I have a small kitchen, as all I had to do was turn around to reach the sink, and this likely saved me from a pretty nasty burn.  I immediately devised a method to prevent this in the future: Don't carry your side towel around on your person like you're a fancy-ass chef.  You don't have twenty pans to grab.  When you wrap your side towel around the handle of the skillet to remove it from the oven and switch to stovetop operations, LEAVE YOUR SIDE TOWEL ON THE HANDLE.  Carry your side towel on your shoulder all jaunty and Gordon Ramsay-like for the rest of the kitchen tasks, but once that hot metal skewer is all but crying out for you to wrap your tender fleshy bits around it, keep it covered.  It's the responsible thing to do.

I didn't have great success with my sauce -- there wasn't much fond, for some reason.  However, it's really hard to go wrong with a sauce that's mostly chicken drippings and white wine.  It might not have had the body I wanted, but it was damn tasty.

Now, although Tony offers a simple way to tell whether the chicken is cooked ("poke the fat part of the thigh.  If the liquid that runs out is clear -- not pink or red -- your bird is cooked,") I did not find this to be foolproof.  I did the poke test and was satisfied, but upon carving the bird, I didn't like what I saw.  This was my fourth roast chicken, so I'm getting used to the fact that when you roast a whole bird you sometimes see pink meat, red bits against the bone, and other things my previously sheltered culinary existence did not expose me to.  But the consistency of the meat was wrong in places, and I had misplaced my probe thermometer in my move.  With much regret, I stuck the half-carved bird back in the oven to make sure it would be thoroughly cooked.

So, yes, it turned out a little dry in spots, but even with this hiccup, it was delightfully tasty.  I served it with Alton Brown's baked potatoes and some broccoli.  Yum.  The breasts were particularly tasty -- the herb butter under the skin melts downward into the meat, and the half-lemon stuck into the cavity steams upward into the meat.  Delightful.

Now on to the philosophy: "Put twelve chefs in a room, with the mission of defining once and for all how best to roast a chicken, and you will never get agreement," says Bourdain.  I do believe that I've learned a little bit about Keller and Bourdain by executing their respective recipes.  Keller's is simple, refined, meant to showcase the natural beauty of the bird.  Bourdain's involves sliding items under the skin, inside the cavity, basting over the top.  It says, A skilled chef has tended to this bird.  If chickens are Volvos -- okay, I know, but just bear with me here -- Keller's is a dependable one that's had all its oil changes on time and provides a nice, smooth ride.  Bourdain's Volvo chicken, in contrast, has just been on Pimp My Ride.  Do I think we can extrapolate some personality traits from this fact?  Oh yes, I think we can.

Comments

[sorcha]

Of course, now you realize I'm picturing my 89 Volvo wagon with hydraulics and a metal-flake paint job.

And a spoiler. A really big one.

[fiat lux]

Now I have to go to YouTube & find those "un-pimp my v-Dub" commercials.

[sorcha]

I LOVE those. German engineering in da house!

[LeOgAhEr]

I Love you girls

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