Currently: Orpingtons (pictured) and Wyandottes.
Somehow, never pictured you in overalls mucking out a chicken coop. 
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Why do you assume that I’m the one doing the mucking? I only said that I own the chicken coop.
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Oh I suspected that would be the case. Just trying to give you some farm cred. Mooooo…
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Hehehe… Just teaching the Chowpup that most food comes from living things. It’s kiddo’s job to maintain the coop. I get to eat all the fresh eggs.
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I see. You are not a Fother Mucker.
Sorry.
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I walked right into that one, didn’t I? 
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I tried doing the Zuni chicken thing, but for all the time, money, and effort, I just go to Vallarta and buy a whole spatchcocked chicken for $8.
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It’s not a Zuni-style chicken, with all the flipping and whatnot. It is simply a roast chicken in a cast iron.
I had to heat and oil the pan because I had just washed it, and I got bored waiting for the oven to come to temp, so I put the chicken in the pan and flipped it around a bit for fun, but once in the oven, I let it go.
Anybody have much experience with lamb belly (top left in above photo)? I got a half a lamb from my CSA farm and that’s a cut I haven’t had much experience with. I could cut it into riblets and smoke them. Any other approaches that people have been happy with?
I don’t get the idea that it’s a lot of work. You only turn it twice.
I browned mine stove top, instead of the complicated oven flipping. Also, my chicken was covered with butter, and the pan had been swiped with oil, so it’s not the dry pan/dry chicken technique.
Which I’ve done, but there’s more than one way to roast a chicken. My mom used something like this:
And it was great.
Many moons ago I asked on CH, if they had done the Zuni recipe, had they found another they preferred. No one had. That was good enough for me. I use my largest cast iron skillet so cooktop to oven.
- Have to find grocer that sells < 3 pound chickens.
- Have to spend the time salting it/stuffing it with herbs/garlic/etc
- Have to have 18 cubic inches of space in fridge to hold said chicken
- Have to dedicate that space for 3 days
- Have to preheat oven
- Have to turn it twice
- Have to make sure it doesn’t burn
- Oh fuck there’s a bread salad too?
- ugh why are there so many dishes
For non-retired people with stuff to do, this is a huge hurdle compared to driving to Vallarta and buying a chicken for $7
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To me the wood oven is crucial to the dish. Nothing I make at home will ever be much like Zuni’s chicken.
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Ashamed to admit that I’ve never had it at the restaurant. I’m sure you’re right.
- Ditto
- No garlic
- I can usually do that with little to no effort
- Yes ( fewer)
- Yep
- Oh, poor baby. My arms ache just thinking about it.
- Are you overdue at your ophthalmologist?
- Gotta admit I rarely make the salad although it has quite the ‘wow factor.’
- Without the salad I have the skillet and a platter
I have to drive four miles west or five miles west to a chain grocery for a rotisserie chicken that is frequently overcooked and no edible skin.
And, most importantly, retirement is the best thing EVAH!!! We put in our 40’ish years.
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For me, the bread salad soaking up the fat and juices is more important to the Zuni dish than the chicken itself.
At home I’d use Marcella Hazan’s recipe for chicken with two lemons.
The complaint isn’t physical effort, it’s time. Time that I don’t have.
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That salad really is something else, isn’t it? I’ll have to do the MH chicken/lemons. When you speak, I listen.
@Ns1 I’m just teasing you. Not offense intended.