Chicken Recipes
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Purchasing Chicken

There are countless varieties of chickens and chicken cuts available in the millions of grocery stores and markets around the world. The best chickens for frying, grilling, roasting and barbecuing are young and tender. Despite their superb taste, larger birds, over four pound are best suited for poaching, braising or boiling. These are normally identified in markets as boiling fowl.

If you want to serve fried, grilled, roasted or barbecued for a large crowd, it is advisable that you choose several smaller birds, which feed only two to four people rather than the larger ones, which yield larger but tougher portions.

Cornish hens and whole baby chickens are very small, weighing only about one pound and can normally feed just one person, while whole roasting chickens, or capons, weigh four pounds or more and can serve four or more people.

Chickens are normally sold already cleaned, with the heart, gizzard [giblets] and liver removed and often tucked inside the cavity wrapped in paper or plastic along with the neck. It is best to remove this pouch prior to freezing. Chickens and chicken parts are labeled by weight, which in the case of whole chickens, includes the pouch containing giblets and other organs.

Fresh Chicken

The flavor and texture of fresh chicken is superior to that of a chicken that has been frozen. Fresh chicken has skin that is light pink and moist, not wet, with no tell-tale dry spots that are a clear signal of freezer burn. However, the skin and flesh of freshly killed free-range, grain-fed and corn-fed chickens is yellow in appearance. Regardless of color, the skin of a fresh chicken is unbroken and free of blemishes or bruises of any kind. On young birds, the breast is plump, well rounded and the breastbone is flexible, not rigid.

Fresh chickens may also be sold already cooked at supermarkets, delicatessens, and markets worldwide. Cooked, whole chickens may be sold barbecued, roasted or char-grilled. Cooked chicken cuts include wings, thighs, breasts, drumsticks or quartered – breast and wing or drumstick and thigh.

It is always wise to remember this rule of thumb – Chicken is versatile and it is never necessary to purchase the most expensive cut to achieve satisfactory results. The following guide may be helpful when shopping for chicken: