Souper Freak

Once in the while, I get the idea in my head that I’d like to learn how to roast chicken. Sometimes I buy cookbooks that will teach me how to do it. Sometimes I buy a meat thermometer (that apparently lies).

Sometimes I buy a bunch of chicken parts, put it in the oven, attempt to follow the directions, and end up a) eating some of the chicken before realizing it isn’t cooked through and b) mutilating the chicken in the process of testing it to see if it’s cooked through.

Sometimes those nights are tonight, and I hope I won’t die of salmonella poisoning.

It almost didn’t have to be this way. I was going to make a wonderful recipe of poached chicken . I stole the recipe from my own mother — ripped it out of her Whole Living magazine — and slyly brought it all the way back from Cleveland. It’s a recipe I understand: a soup pot and a bunch of water, set to simmer for a certain period of time.

During lunch today, I went to the SF Farmer’s Market to pick up all the ingredients. I made the mistake (in hindsight) of going to Sur La Table to buy a meat cleaver, thinking I’d need it to hack up the chicken into parts when it was done cooking.

The attractive knife counter clerk, who happened to be a chef, asked what I was making. I told him, “a poached chicken.” A look crossed his face like he’d never heard of these words and he asked, “Why?”

I defended my recipe: it’s poached chicken! It’s from frickin’ Martha Stewart! (Whole Living is her “earthy” mag.) And yet he didn’t trust it. He persuaded me that this was a terrible idea — first of all, what the hell is poached chicken? The meat will lose all flavor. The skin will get all soggy. (I’m taking off the skin - duh!!) Why not roast it?

Why NOT roast it! At the time, this made complete sense. Why wouldn’t I be capable of roasting a chicken? Determined, I went to the meat counter at the Golden Gate Meat Company. I “chickened” out (I’m sorry) on buying the whole bird, and instead got a couple of split breasts and three legs, all with bones in and skin on.

However, come face to face — AGAIN! — with the process of roasting chicken, here is why I am hereby unfit to roast a damn chicken (or its parts):

1. I don’t own the proper equipment. I put a roasting tray in a Corning Ware dish. It didn’t fit properly. The chicken sat awkwardly on the top. When I later tried to test the chicken for readiness, it wobbled uncertainly on the precariously perched roasting tray, and my vegetables toppled underneath.

2. I don’t possess a proper meat thermometer. When the chicken had been in a few minutes short of the timer, I pulled it out to test it. Not only did my thermometer reach the proper 165 degree mark, but it passed it, leading me to believe that my chicken was not only done but over done.

3. I do not know how to carve a chicken. Or even a bone-in breast. Once I tested it with the thermometer, I proceeded to also tested it by cutting into the chicken to see visually if it was done. However, I do not understand how this system works for anyone. In one place, the chicken was done, but as I later discovered after eating a portion of what seems to have been undercooked chicken, another section was completely and noticeably undercooked. This is why I mangle large pieces of meat. Unless I slice and mutilate the entire hunk of meat, how will I know if it’s cooked through? And by then, from looking at it, who wants it?!?

4. For some reason, I tend to think I should actually eat a piece of the meat to test it for done-ness. For someone who doesn’t know how to properly cook a chicken, this is a dangerous business. Tonight I regrettably ate a good portion before realizing I was about to die.

And this, my friends, is why this blog is named Souper Freak and not Chicken Roasting Freak. I am much more comfortable with stewing shredded meat — or no meat at all! — until it’s absolutely positively done in a nice, beautiful, safe soup than pretending I know what I’m doing with a roasting pan and a bird.

Please pray for me that I don’t succumb to Salmonella!