Carla Fitzgerald Williams - Rotisserie chickens to the rescue! : how to use the already-roasted chickens you purchase at the market to make than more 125 simple and delicious meals

Copyright 2003 Carla Fitzgerald Williams

Rotisserie Chickens to the Rescue! is a trademark owned by Carla Fitzgerald Williams.

All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher. For information address Hyperion, 1500 Broadway, New York, New York 10036.

The Library of Congress has catalogued the original print edition of this book as follows:

Williams, Carla Fitzgerald

Rotisserie chickens to the rescue! : how to use the already-roasted chickens you purchase at the market to make than more 125 simple and delicious meals / Carla Fitzgerald Williams.1st ed.

p. cm.

ISBN 0-7868-8804-0

1. Cookery (Chicken) I. Title.

TX750.5.C45W58 2003

641.6'65dc21 2003042333

eBook Edition ISBN: 978-1-4013-0615-1

First eBook Edition

Original paperback edition printed in the United States of America.

www.HyperionBooks.com

Dedicated with love to the memory of
my wonderful parents
and to my terrific husband and boys
for the joy they bring me!

Rotisserie Chickens to the Rescue! features loads of family-friendly meals, including Snappy Smothered Chicken. We devoured every morsel of this recipe during testing.

Southern Living

A lot of people gave of themselves for this book to happen. I thank my parents for their love, support, and confidence in me, and for always letting me know that Yes, I could! Thank you, Mom, for encouraging this project from an idea through completion. I will always treasure your thumbs-up when the last recipes were written. I appreciate your keeping an eye out for chickens, and I loved watching you play with the boys while I stirred the pot. Thanks, Dad, for your love of the kitchen. It rubbed off.

My wonderful husband, Petrus, and my sweet sons, Blaine and Perrin, I thank you for sharing me with the chickens and for dining on chicken more nights than not. This never could have happened without your sacrifices and your generosity of spirit. Thank you so much, Petrus, for helping me think things through and for battening down the hatches while I cooked and pecked away on the computer. Big thanks, Blaine, for your recipe tips, and Perrin, for helping me put chickens in the grocery cart. Thanks to my sisters, Sharon and Darlene, for their assistance in different ways. It really helped. I appreciate the support from my extended family, including my aunt Dorothy, who sampled recipes. A special thanks to my friend Phyllis, who has been so selfless with her time, her ear, and her thinking cap, which have been helpful in my life and in creating this book. I cannot thank you enough. Thank you, Miki, for your priceless help and your reliability.

I had much appreciated research help from Rachel, Gabrielle, and Sarah. Thanks to my recipe testers: Maria Zebrowski for her superb recipe-testing skills and thoughtfulness, and for cutting many a chicken, and Karen Gillingham and Cathy Hofstetter for a terrific job of helping to wrap up the recipes. Thanks to the many food companies and councils that answered my questions and shared information. Thanks to Ellen Rose of the Cooks Library for allowing me to immerse myself in cookbooks, and to Tim and the staff for their support and knowledge.

Thanks to Jane Dystel of Dystel & Goderich Literary Management for seeing the potential in my concept and to her associate, Stacey Glick, for putting this in front of the right person. A big thanks to the people at Hyperionthe first editor, Jennifer Lang, for bringing the project on board, Natalie Kaire for enthusiastically shepherding it through the process, Will Schwalbe for his expertise, and the behind-the-scenes team that put the book together and got it out to you.

Finally, thank you, the reader, for adding Rotisserie Chickens to the Rescue! to your cookbook collection. I appreciate it.

Rotisserie Chickens to the Rescue! was born because I am a time-starved cook who is too stubborn to give up home-cooked meals just because time is tight and my life sometimes borders on chaotic. The concept for this book started with a simple dinner and grew into a quest for letting rotisserie chickens help me do what I have always loved doing: tinkering with recipes, serving myriad different flavors in home-cooked meals, and having the energy to enjoy the meals with everyone else.

My love affair with rotisserie chickens began after I invited friends who were passing through town to come for a spur-of-the-moment weeknight dinner. These friends remembered when I used to mix and roll my own pasta and chop tomatoes to make the sauce. With two young sons and very little time, those days were clearly behind me. As I wandered in the grocery store, children in tow and mumbling to myself about needing another pair of hands, I spotted the case filled with rotisserie chickens. The culinary lightbulb went off. The extra pair of hands was right in that case!

I knew the chickens were tasty because I had bought them on occasion as a take-out alternative for my family. But they were much more than that. Here was a fresh, already-roasted chicken with tender meat just waiting to be used as the base for an even more exciting, more enticing dish. I realized that day that a rotisserie chicken could be used as an ingredient. A spice blend here, a quick chop there, and Hurry Curry and my love affair with cooking with rotisserie chickens were born. Dinner was delicious and on time, and I was not the least bit frazzled. My guests wondered how I did it. Since I had known them for so long, I divulged my secret weapon. It was easy, I replied. A rotisserie chicken came to my rescue!

HOT OFF THE ROASTING RACKS

Spit-roasting, the precursor to rotisserie chickens, is one of the oldest methods of cooking. Rotisserie chickens as we know them first cropped up in American supermarkets in the 1950s. Flavored with barbecue seasonings, they puttered along through the 60s, an era when new homes often had built-in ovens with a rotisserie. I still remember my mother proudly inching a freshly roasted chicken off the rod. The National Chicken Council informed me that the trend toward in-store roasting appeared to taper off until the 1990s, and then they moved full-speed ahead. You would be hard-pressed to walk into any supermarket and not find these deliciously convenient and reasonably priced chickens waiting for you. In addition, with rotisserie chickens blooming in popularity, there are the countless chickens roasted at home. Chances are you have a roasted chicken in your refrigerator right now.