Customer Reviews

150 Things to Make with Roast Chicken and 50 Ways to Roast It

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I've been using this cookbook for about a month, making mostly salads (it's late summer), and am pleased with the recipes so far.

I have been cooking longer than I'd like, and for health reasons we eat chicken often. So I was pretty desperate for some new ideas, and am pleased with these recipes.

The salads are imaginative and delicious, and best of all the recipes WORK without me having to fiddle around much. (So often you have to guess what the writer or food stylist actually meant for you to do, or they leave out a critical step, or you just know you have to add more garlic.) I look forward to the casseroles and soups this fall.

It's not the very BEST cookbook I've ever used (that might be the Sarah Leah Chase Open House cookbooks or the New Way to Cook). But I feel it deserves 5 stars because it is so practical and helpful. Thank you Mr. Rosenfeld.

I love chicken but do not like to cook (at all). Since not cooking is not an option, this book makes the dreaded chore easy. The recipes are simple and delicious - the best kind - and the perfect way to disguise leftovers for those people in my family who won't eat them.

Roast two chickens on Sunday and have a week of various meals using this menu planner - and if you think you'll tire of a week of roast chicken dishes, think again. 150 THINGS TO MAKE WITH ROAST CHICKEN offers huge variety, from slow-cooked Southern Spiced Chicken with Chipolte Sauce to a West African Chicken and Peanut Stew. It has no color photos, but the simple, quick dishes don't need them - any general interest cookbook library, especially those catering to busy working home cooks, needs this.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

I was a vegetarian for 20 years, starting from age 15, and started eating poultry again recently. However, I'd never learned to cook chicken! I bought this book 1.) to learn about how to cook a tasty whole chicken, 2.) intrigued by the "roast two chickens on Sunday and you'll have meals all week" idea (we eat out too much), and 3.) to add a variety of yummy chicken dishes to my chicken-less recipe book collection.

This book has been a success for me on all counts!

Out of all the recipes I've tried so far, everything has been easy and delicious, with only one dud. In general, the lists of ingredients are straight-forward and accessible. I hate cookbooks where the recipes' ingredient lists are long and full of expensive uncommon items. By contrast, a lot of these recipes still turn out well if you're missing some of the items called for.

The first section of the book goes through instruction and lists a small number of brines, dry rubs and glazes you can use. My top favorite recipe is the Rosemary Orange Brine. You brine the chicken ahead of time in a mixture of fresh chopped rosemary, orange juice, brown sugar, salt, and water. When the chicken is done, it is juicy and fully infused with a wonderful rosemary essence. My husband favors the dark meat, but he raves about the juiciness and flavor of the breast meat from this recipe.

The second section outlines the many ways you can roast the birds. This is the main part of the "50 Ways to Roast It" promise from the cover. It includes additional ways to prepare the chicken as well as yummy things you can toss underneath the chickens that cook simultaneously. A recipe in this section compliments the brine I like so much -- an herb chicken with rosemary stuffing. There's a rosemary butter rub you use on the chicken, then put the fresh stuffing underneath the birds while they're cooking. It's a very flexible stuffing recipe -- you can add other ingredients you have on hand. Suggestions are included as a part of the write-up. I added chopped apple with great success.

The rest of the book is comprised of the "150 Things to Make with Roast Chicken" recipes. It's divided into traditional recipe book chapters like Salad, Soup, Sandwiches, etc. If you happen to have any of the stuffing left-over from the above example, there's a recipe for a Rosemary Stuffing Casserole that is unbelievably fabulous. Sooo delicious.

So as you can see, the different sections work together so that you can roast a wonderful chicken, then have plenty of ideas for how to use the leftovers well. My examples stuck with the rosemary theme, but there is range in this book. It includes flavors varying from Asian to southern, and even Hungarian!

There's also a few special two-page sections listing recipes for veggies on the side, pan gravies, and the like.

The biggest problem I encountered with the book was chicken weight. The book recommends 4 pound fryers for their quick cooking times, but the whole chickens in my grocery stores tend to be closer to 6 pounds. All the recipes work just fine, but the chicken needs to stay in the oven longer. The adage "20 minutes plus 20 minutes for each pound" seems to work well for adjusting the cooking time.

The only dud I encountered so far in the recipes was a chicken corn bread casserole. I found that if you want corn bread with your casserole, make a casserole, and make corn bread. The corn bread in the recipe was a bit dry.

To sum up, there's a lot in this book to like! Even fussy eaters who don't like leftovers will chow down on these tasty recipes and ask for more. Success!

Saw this book when visiting my daughter. Reviewed the recipes and knew I had to buy it.

Love all the great recipes!

Ellen

This is not what I wanted or expected. The recipes are more "bizarre" then I would make.

I wanted more down home cooking recipes for chicken; these were not them.