Are you chicken?

Are you afraid of chickens? I don't mean the squawking, feathered, alive variety, I mean the whole, ready-to-cook variety.

I was afraid of chickens. Well, to be fair, I probably would have backed slowly away from the live variety too, but for years I've been wary of cooking a whole chicken.

I can hear you now. "But... you cooked a whole turkey for Thanksgiving! How can you be afraid of chicken?"

The short answer is that I don't know. It's poultry, not four pounds of nuclear waste. The first time I tried using a whole chicken after moving to Seattle, it was a catastrophic failure. I attempted to make some sort of Orange Chicken in the crock pot. It was almost inedible. In fact, I think we threw the whole thing out. So you can imagine my trepidation when I saw this post by The Amateur Gourmet.  

The chicken was beautiful. What's more, it required only the barest minimum of preparation. What could be easier than rubbing some spices over a bird and throwing it in the oven?

The answer? Not much.

The recipe called for 1 teaspoon crushed fennel seeds, 1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes, 1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt, and 1/2 teaspoon ground pepper. We rubbed the spices over the chicken and stuck it in the oven for an hour at 400 degrees.

The result? Well, here's the visual proof. (Since this is a local blog, I should mention that the mug in the background is from Fuel Coffee. They're a great local coffee shop with two locations. If you're in Seattle, I highly recommend them.)

So, on to the local part of our program.

The chicken came from Sea Breeze Farms. We've been thinking about trying their chicken for a few months. We picked it up at the University District Farmer's Market. It was fresh (not frozen) and weighed about 4 pounds. It was a little pricey ($20), but well worth it for a cage free, organic bird. Since it was fresh, we could buy it and cook it the same day. That was an added bonus.

If I've held your interest this far, you know that the chicken was easy, appears very appetizing, and local. But how did it taste?

I have a confession to make. I don't like chicken skin. This isn't all bad, as chicken skin is primarily fat. I don't much care for the taste, and I hate the fatty mouth feel. About the only time I like it is on Kentucky Fried Chicken. I love the very edges of the crunchy fried skin. Seriously, don't get in between me and the edges of KFC chicken skin. But otherwise? Not-so-much. Since this chicken looked so crispy and tasty, I had to try a bit of skin. It was good. I only had about half the top skin on the drumstick, but it was crispy, salty, and relatively thin (so not overly fatty).

The rest of the chicken was excellent. The meat was moist and had a decent texture. The drumstick was very good, but the breast was better. Of course, I've always liked light meat over dark, but even the dark meat on this bird was very good.

We'll definitely make this again.