Schmaltz Elixir

For years I avoided chicken. The aversion began with a catering gig - One week my sole job was to prepare chicken breast. 10 to 12 hours a day for 4 days straight, I would unpack, rinse, sear on grill, bake in oven and then place boneless skinless chicken on a plate. The smell troubled with me for a long time after that, not the scent of chicken cooking, rather the odor of raw chicken was an appetite suppressant for about dozen years. During that period I didn't/couldn't/wouldn't distinguish the fowl/foul homophone. Then, when I wasn’t cooking for a living and started to enjoy eating in a way I was never able to as a food professional, I started inching back towards the chicken dinner.

I still have a way to go: Since 1970 per capita chicken consumption has doubled in the US, now the average resident in the states eats 60.4 pounds annually. From one perspective, Americans eat is twice as much chicken as bananas. From a non-fruitarian viewpoint, that is 5 pounds per month, the near equivalent to one modern chicken, meaning your statistical family of four eats a chicken dinner every week with a couple sandwiches thrown in. Someone is eating over 40 pounds of chicken a year for me. When poultry is cooked in the Saucykitchen™ it is always the same preparation – Salted, roasted over sliced potatoes and at a hot, some might say super-hot temperature until the skin is a crispy wonder and the potatoes are saturated with chicken fat.

Truth be told, I'm happy munching on crispy chicken skin and potatoes embedded with fat, which is somehow less socially acceptable than...let's say chicken nuggets and fries? (Funny thing, most nuggets use chicken skin as a binding agent despite assurances of containing ‘All White Meat’ - which somehow doesn’t seem to include the breading on the outside.) Schmaltz isn’t supposed to be hip, but by the time the fat renders downward, it is really something to tell people about.

The crispy skin/fatty potato recipe first came to my attention on America’s Test Kitchen, successfully recreated in the Saucykitchen™, it has become a kitchen chestnut. After a couple tries, I began substituting chicken legs for the whole bird – it is cheaper and um, not such a fan of the white meat, though the dogs were happy enough getting my least favorite part. Amazingly weeks later in San Francisco, there was a truck featuring well-brined, crisp skinned chicken with potatoes sitting under the rotisserie catching all the chicken fat. Temped, by the sight and smell, I broke my long held rule never to eat chicken from any establishment that had wheels under it and was not disappointed. BTW – the name of this magical rolling wonderland is called roliroti.

There are a couple keys to getting the skin extra crisp is a hot oven (425-475) and drying the skin of well, really, really well. For more info you can check out Chris Kimball and et al’s nearly fool proof recipe at their website (subscription required). Or check out the wonderfully cranky Barbara Kafka, her book Roasting contains a similar technique.

I have some chicken to attend to and then a little later after things cool down, I have a pan to wipe clean with a piece of bread, like I said I don’t do this often but when I do, I make it count.