Cookaholics Bulletin Board

Yikes!

Double yikes!! Do they bring it out on black velvet with a sparkle light?

Tasting chickens.

Scroll down for a review of Craigie on Main's chicken dinner.

Heh heh, I am guessing you never watched Heston B. on his quest for the best chicken over in Europe. I think he ended up with he French "poulet au bresse" though there is some argument about if that is a breed or simply a geographical area they are raised. Ignoring the controversy, there is a Canadian variant called the "Blue Footed" poulet, supposedly of similar genetic stock, which implies it is a breed thing and not a geographical designation. And we all know that Canadians are seriously honest folks and would never fabricate some story. Plus their little blue feet. I mean blue blooded chickens with matching blue stockings? I think if you can give it bothe a genetic Wagyu of Poultry facade and a Poullard de Empire sort of "coat of arms" or rather "coat of wings", there is no reason not gou ... err ... charge what the market will bear. Then "sous vide" (appropriately French) and a bit of French Tarragon ... Voila, $74 is peu cher.

I've always thought of Poulet de Bresse as a breed. It's a mighty delicious chicken regardless of any argument about breed vs. geography.

Personally, I'm not shocked by a $74 roast chicken. I know what we pay for an local, organic free-range chicken at the restaurant, and they are not cheap. As well, the way they are preparing them involves a lot of labor. And, if you consider it's a whole bird, i.e., will feed two people, it's not outrageous for fine dining. My $.02.

Amy

I've never had one but if I coins in my pocket and get the chance, I'll spend them.

I'm with Amy. A fabulous roast chicken, prepared and served by someone else in a nice restaurant, plenty of leftovers and the carcass to take home for $74? Count me in.

Hi,

This really sounds like a wonderful technique and quite adaptable to changes in flavor profiles.

Quote:
Craigie on Main

The price $74 (can also be ordered as part of a three-course prix fixe, $65 per person)

The technique “We buy an awesome chicken and try not to screw it up,” chef Tony Maws says. That chicken comes from Misty Knoll Farms and weighs in between 4 and 4½ pounds. It’s brined for two hours in a solution designed to maximize umami, with plenty of seaweed in the mix. Then it air-dries overnight and is cooked sous-vide in roasted chicken fat. For the final step, the bird is rubbed with butter and togarashi salt and roasted until the skin is crisp.

I would argue that "cooked sous-vide in roasted chicken fat" constitutes confiting. Nevertheless, I'm off to purchase and Air-Chilled Chicken but might be a bit low on my seaweed supply. Maybe, central Illinois soy beans would provide that umami.

Tim

Indeed, the gap is small. Sous-vide is frequently performed with some fat in the bag, both to add flavor and to enhance fat-soluble flavors. Typically the temperature is too low to render the harder fats, so some other fat seems to help. Some taste experiments have proven to be counter intuitive. For example, one I seen where they used some fat so enhance fat soluble flavors made the food less flavorful; it make the fat (typically discarded) more flavorful

But when you add some fat to the bag, for sure you get pretty close to confit. I make confit exclusively this way now. The difference in confit to sous-vide would typically be the curing pre-cooking (not present in all confit, esp by the modern definition which tends to include veggie confits, etc), and the higher (though still well below boiling) temperature it is cooked at. The biggest difference from traditional confit is the amount of fat; less fat is less (possibly) flavor dilution into the fat. In addition, volatile compounds can't really escape the fat either, which may effect flavor. This may explain why certain things don't do well (eg. raw garlic) but most things taste better.

People pay $21.50 for a Family style Chicken dinner at Zehnders in Frankenmuth.