Chicken covered with bacon rashers, ready for roasting
The chicken crossed the road because it wanted to escape us. The chicken fears us. The chicken was running away from you and me, fleeing for dear life. We are the enemy of the chicken. We are to the chicken what probity is to corrupt government and what mice are to cats. Chickens do not like us. For good reason. We eat them.
We like chicken. We love chicken. When we see a chicken preening its feathers, our mind quickly pops up an image of it defeathered and roasted to gleaming, succulent perfection. We see its breast removed, slit asunder, filled with something yummy, closed, wrapped up and baked. We see the bird splayed and basted with peri-peri sauce, bubbling over the coals. We do not see a cute, cuddly thing. They are not our friends.
Even vegetarians like chickens. Ask most ‘vegetarians’ what they really eat, and they will say, ‘Well, I eat chicken once in a while.” So it’s really bad to eat the meat of an animal you’ve killed, unless the meat is white. (Fish is OK too. Fish are like leaves; they don’t have feelings.)
In any supermarket, the fridge space given to chickens is several times greater than that awarded to lamb, beef or pork. And if ever you needed proof that the fight for free range is not working, is all but a lost cause, count the number of regular chickens – the serried, plastic-wrapped rows and rows of them – compared with the handful of supposedly free-range ones in a much smaller part of the fridge nearby.
So let’s face facts: the greater population eats chicken, almost daily, and plenty of it. It is a farmed animal, and that farming is done purely for purposes of making sure there is a plentiful supply of a staple part of the national diet. I would prefer it if methods of farming were improved, made more humane, less cruel, and yes, I will buy a barn-reared one if it looks good and is affordable. But I do buy the other poor bastards too, the ones that have lived in misery. And if you think this makes me a shocking exception to what you imagine to be the norm, take another look in theose fridges and see the truth staring back at you.
Which brings me to what this column is really about: good old-fashioned roast chicken. I have resisted writing about roast chicken for months now. It seems so obvious, so ordinary, so everyone-does-that. But Di, who knows my cooking best, keeps saying ‘you should write about your roast chicken’. So let’s dismember the art of roasting a chicken, reassemble it, and see where it takes us. To the table, one hopes.
Chicken livers with port and chilli
But first let’s whet the appetite with a chicken starter. Chicken liver, more precisely. I love the liver of a chicken. It is one of cuisine’s great delights and can hold its beak up high in the company of supposedly greater offal, like liver of duck or goose or, dare one mention, the goose whose liver has been abnormally fattened. That column will yet happen, but let’s not bring out all the shocking stuff in one go.
Livers are easy – the golden rule: do not overcook them, and don’t fling them round the pan, which causes them to disintegrate. I made chicken livers with chilli and port. Clean them and pat them dry. With a very sharp small knife, carefully cut away the nasty bits. (Don’t hack at them, Daisy. You won’t die if some of the uglies slip by.)
Melt butter in a frying pan. Sizzle some finely chopped onion and garlic until soft. Add a finely chopped red chilli or two. Add the chicken livers and leave for two minutes. Shake the pan and turn the chicken livers over, one at a time. Stir the rest of the pan so that the onions brown all over. After two minutes, add port. (I don’t know how much, Daisy, maybe a cup.) The port will quickly reduce down. Season with salt and pepper. Remove and serve immediately with crusty bread to mop up the juices.
Take your shop-bought battery-reared chicken from its plastic coffin and wash it inside and out under running cold water. OK, an admission: I did actually buy a free-range bird this time, so the one in the picture had lived a relatively happy life until it got the chop. Dry it inside and out with kitchen paper or a clean cloth (which you then need to wash or throw away, Daisy).
Using (clean) fingers, make a pocket between the skin and the membrane attached to the skin. You can put herbs in there, and/or garlic., or butter softened and mixed with any flavouring you like.
Season inside the cavity with salt and black pepper. It can be awkward trying to hold the bird down with one hand while grinding the pepper with your second and third hands. Since we don’t have a third hand, keep the top on the grinder, grind as much pepper/salt as you want, then shake it into the bird’s cavity.
There are loads of things you can put in the cavity, just do not leave it empty, which encourages the chicken to dry out. I often halve a lemon and put the wedges in. Or (as I did this time) quarter an onion and a ripe tomato, and fill as much of this as I can get into the cavity. It keeps the chicken moist and adds flavour. Tomato also greatly enhances the pan juices, becoming part of a lovely flavourful sauce. You can also add springs of herbs to the cavity if you like.
Season the outside of the bird, all over, with salt and pepper. Cover the entire top of the chicken with strips of streaky bacon, overlapping. Roast uncovered in a preheated oven at 230 for 20 minutes. Reduce the heat to 190 and roast until the bacon is done (crisp but not burnt, Daisy). Remove from the oven, remove the bacon, pour a little warmed olive oil all over the skin, and return to the oven to continue cooking without the bacon.
Eat the bacon, Daisy.
Cook until the skin is crisp and golden and the juices run clear when pierced with a skewer. Turn the oven off, leave the door ajar, and allow it to rest for 20 minutes.
I’ve been doing some more thinking about why the chicken really crossed the road. Or why the chickens – so many chickens – crossed the road. Maybe they are trying to get away from us. Or maybe they’re just resigned to their fate. It is a lost cause, and surely by now they must know it, the way a cat knows how to catch a mouse or a politician intrinsically knows how to pul the wool over our eyes.
They’re crossing the road because they know the kitchen’s at the other side of it. They’re on their way to the pot. Bless ‘em.
About tonyjackman
Tony Jackman writes about food, wine and restaurants, witty and irreverent newspaper columns on almost any subject, and also dabbles in playwrighting and painting in watercolours and pastels. He cooks up dinners, lunches, breakfasts, braais and brunches for his weekly food column, and is developing this site into an extensive resource of information about Western Cape restaurants.