Friday, December 01, 2006

Is this really breast?

Last night I cooked a whole chicken. It was delicious! I did make a tiny mistake though that made me smile and laugh at myself so I thought I'd share it on the Internet for the merriment of the whole world (well not really since I'm convinced that very few people actually read this thing).

So the recipe said to thinly slice an orange and then insert some of the orange slices between the skin and the breast meat. Keep in mind that I have only cooked an entire bird once before and it was a big turkey. When I had inserted things between the skin and the meat the first time it was really easy. This time, however, it proved to be quite difficult to separate the skin from the meat. I concluded this must be because of the size difference between the two birds (last night's being only about 5 pounds). I did manage to get it in and dress the chicken nicely. I even remembered to tie the legs in so that the bird didn't fall apart. I even got to use my favorite Le Crusset dish because the bird fit perfectly! Then I baked it for a little under 2 hours, basting every 30 minutes or so to ensure juiciness. My husband didn't come home in time for dinner and I had made so much food I was nervous about having to eat all of it on my own so I called my sister-in-law and told her not to cook dinner that I'd be bringing it over. When I got there I realized that I would also have to carve the chicken, since neither my sister-in-law nor myself really wanted to do it. So I picked the bird up out of the dish and put it on a plate to carve. I pulled out all the oranges that I had shoved between the skin and the breast. I tried to start with the breast meat (since that's what everyone eating right then prefers). Each time I tried to get a good size cut of meat I kept running into bone! There was NO breast meat on this chicken! I was so confused because when I had looked at it before starting to dress it I thought I had seen a boat load of nice juicy breast meat. I was about to cry thinking I had failed in cooking a nice juicy chicken for dinner when I decided to flip the bird over! I immediately saw my mistake. I had placed the oranges, spices, and butter between the skin and the meat in the back of the bird! When I cut into the breast meat it was so nice and juicy! I can't believe that I had mistaken the back and front sides of the chicken! With a degree in food science you'd think I would know better!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

The first time I cooked a turkey for my family, I had to call my mother and ask one last question - bake or broil?

I will never live it down...

Maggie said...

hahaha! Now I would really be embarassed by that! Plus, family never lets you live anything down!

Anonymous said...

Perhaps Dan's "blond moments" are catching!