Chicken Gallus gallus domesticus
Dry the skin uncovered in the fridge overnight. That is the whole secret to crisp skin.
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In the kitchen
Under heat
Muscle fibers tighten and expel moisture starting around 55°C, which is why overcooking dries it out — the tissue is physically squeezing water out.
Against air
Raw chicken left uncovered in the fridge dries at the surface within a day or two — useful for crisping skin, a liability for a cut breast.
In storage
Coldest part of the fridge, on a plate to catch drips, used within a day or two — or frozen if it’s going longer.
At the shop
Firm, slightly springy flesh and a clean smell. Any sliminess or off odor means it’s already turning.
Which variety, for what
- Breast
- Lean and mild — cooks fastest of the two, and the easiest to overcook.
- Thigh
- More fat and connective tissue — more forgiving of extra time on the heat, harder to dry out.
Beyond the kitchen
THE MOST NUMEROUS BIRD ON EARTH
There are something in the order of twenty-five billion chickens alive at any moment, far more than any other bird. Their bones are so abundant and so distinctive in the waste stream that geologists have proposed the broiler chicken as a marker fossil of the Anthropocene.
BRED FOR COCKFIGHTING FIRST
The junglefowl was most likely domesticated in Southeast Asia for fighting and for ritual rather than for meat or eggs. Eating chicken regularly is a comparatively late development in its domestic history.
FOUR TIMES THE BIRD
A commercial broiler reaches slaughter weight in about six weeks, roughly four times heavier than a 1950s bird at the same age. That is selective breeding and feed formulation, not hormones — hormones in poultry have been illegal in the US since the 1950s and in the EU since 1981.
FEATHERS AND BY-PRODUCTS
Feathers are processed into feather meal for animal feed and fertiliser, and keratin from them has been trialled in bioplastics and textiles. Very little of a commercial bird goes unused.
A longer history
The chicken descends principally from the red junglefowl of Southeast Asia, with domestication now generally dated to somewhere between three and four thousand years ago, considerably later than earlier estimates suggested. Recent archaeological work associates its spread with rice and millet cultivation, which provided the grain that made keeping birds worthwhile.
It spread westward through India, Persia and into the Mediterranean, and Roman writers describe both chicken husbandry and elaborate chicken cookery; Columella gives detailed instructions on keeping them. In much of medieval Europe chickens were valued primarily for eggs, with the bird itself eaten when it stopped laying — which is why so many traditional recipes are long, slow braises for tough old birds.
Industrial poultry production is a twentieth-century creation, built on vitamin D supplementation that allowed indoor rearing, on the 1948 Chicken of Tomorrow contest in the United States that drove breeding for breast meat, and on integrated processing. Chicken went from an occasional meat to the most consumed in much of the world inside sixty years.
TEMPERATURE, AND DO NOT WASH IT
Cook chicken to 74°C / 165°F at the thickest point, measured with a thermometer rather than guessed at from the colour of the juices, which is not reliable. And do not rinse raw chicken: washing it aerosolises bacteria across your sink, taps and worktop, and it does not remove anything that cooking will not. Food safety agencies in the UK, US and EU are unanimous on this.
Pairs with
Good with
Combines with
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