Cooking Chicken...

... MY KITCHEN QUEST IS FAR FROM DONE!

Only last week I was in utter bemusement in a butcher's while purchasing raw chicken legs about what setting to oven cook them on. Iceland's own Chinese Chicken Drumsticks and Barbecue Thighs had cooking time and temp on the packet (and it was absolutely bang-on correct) but I'd clean forgotten it. The time was half an hour. But the heat setting? God only knew...

So I said to the man, "Do you think it is half an hour at 200C?" and he said, "Oo-aargh! No, boy! That would incinerate 'em good an' proper! Try half that."

I wandered sceptically off and decided to try half an hour at 175 and they came out barely done. So in desperation I stalked outside and rifled my own bins (to some vulgarizing looks by the neighbours, which perversely seemed to make it all worthwhile) and found out my original instincts had been correct ~ the cooking temp for chicken pieces is indeed 200C in an open casserole dish in the middle of a preheated oven for half an hour; and for good measure turn off heat after this time and leave chicken bits to cook-as-they-cool. This gets them really nicely done. Alternatively, you could do them for 35 mins full blast, then remove them.

Cooking my own chicken bits has saved me a fortune at the local chippy, which charges £2.25 for a chicken quarter (actually that's not bad value come to think of it). But Iceland do 600g of pre-marinaded bits ~ that's six drumsticks or thighs per packet ~ for £2.50. And Tescos were doing an entire uncooked fairly large chicken for £2 (until I moved too far from Tescos to be practicable) and £3.50 for a medium-small cooked one.

At my house-before-last I cooked an entire chicken from scratch in the landlord's miniature tinpot oven (it was like a mobile toast-grilling device ~ not much more; my naive friends assumed it was an olden microwave for it wasn't much bigger...) anyway this device cooked a whole halal chicken absolutely perfectly. I used the meat in stir-fries and Chinese takeaway MSG-flavour curries.

I found if you're going to use it in stir-fries and the like, it is far more practical to pre-roast a chicken whole and re-flashfry as desired than to dodder about with raw meat and giblets. There's no worries about food poisoning and no need to neurotically keep checking the meat and cutting sections in half ensure it's not pinky-translucent in the middle...

Here endeth today's post. If anybody knows any better chicken tips, you know where to answer... many thanks and goodbye for now ;->...

PS: pictures are surely self-explanatory; except maybe the bottom one ~ doncha just luurve a plate of British-tandoori over-coloured chicken tikka?... Yumm!