Akis - The Great Rotisserie Chicken Cookbook: More than 100 Delicious Ways to Enjoy Storebought and Homecooked Chicken

Copyright 2015 Eric Akis

All rights reserved. The use of any part of this publication, reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, or stored in a retrieval system without the prior written consent of the publisheror in the case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, license from the Canadian Copyright Licensing Agencyis an infringement of the copyright law.

Appetite by Random House colophon is a registered trademark

Library and Archives of Canada Cataloguing in Publication Data is available upon request

ISBN: 978-0-449-01640-4
eBook ISBN: 978-0-449-01641-1

Cover and food photography: Jo-Ann Richards, Works Photography
Food preparation and styling: Eric Akis
Copy editing: Naomi Pauls
Proofreading and indexing: Lana Okerlund

Published in Canada by Appetite by Random House, a division of Random House of Canada Limited

www.penguinrandomhouse.ca

v3.1

This is my eighth cookbook, and once again Ive learned that producing one is a team sport. Without key players in the right positions and support from people who care, creating a book of this quality just isnt possible.

Thank you to Appetite by Random House Publisher and cookbook guru Robert McCullough for selecting me for this project. It was a thrill and an honor to work with you again. You truly inspire me!

To editor Lucy Kenward, thank you for helping me turn this books contents from good to great. You pushed me to reach heights I didnt know I could reach, and I feel very good about that. To editor Lindsay Paterson and designer Kelly Hill, thank you for your skilled assistance in the planning stages of this book. And thank you to designer Jennifer Lum. You took everyones input, combined it with your own vision, and created a beautiful-looking, user-friendly book.

To Jo-Ann Richards, owner of Works Photography in Victoria, B.C., thank you for taking the fabulous photos in this book. And thank you for being so enthusiastic, for approaching each image with artistic consideration, and for being so flexible with scheduling. You are a superstar!

To Graham Smyth and Michelle Smith, proprietors of Bungalow, a splendid gift and cookware store in Victoria, B.C., and to Susan Lewis, a forever friend and stalwart supporter of my culinary adventures, thank you for lending me much of the fine tableware, boards, platters, and linens used to showcase the great recipes in this book.

To my wife, Cheryl, and son, Tyler, who have always considered chicken dinner to be the very best family meal, you both know the time and effort thats involved in creating a book like this and without your love and shoulders to lean on I would not have reached the finish line. Thank you.

If you like the flavor of chicken, rotisserie cooking turns that feeling to love. As the chicken spins around on the spit, its whole exterior takes on the most marvelously rich, I-want-to-eat-you-now color and its juices reach every part of the bird, making the meat succulent and ultra-moist. If your taste buds are already tingling, theyll go into hyperdrive once you start digging into this book.

My own taste buds started tingling for rotisserie chicken in my early twenties when I was working as a chef in Toronto. On my days off I would explore the citys many ethnic neighborhoods, and in the Portuguese ones I found take-out shops selling the most divine rotisserie chicken. These businesses didnt need to advertise, because the alluring aroma of their chicken would literally pull customers off the street and into their stores. And once I saw their juicy, dripping-with-goodness chicken, I just had to have one.

When I didnt feel like cooking, picking up one of those chickens became an easy route to a tasty meal, and the leftovers were always welcome. I then began to try rotisserie chicken from other locations in Toronto; in Victoria, B.C., where I now live; and in whichever countries I traveled to, whether the United States, Singapore, France, or the Dominican Republic. No matter where I bought rotisserie chicken, each place had a different spin (pardon the pun!) on how to flavor the bird. I started to try and replicate some of them when cooking my own rotisserie chicken at home. Some of the results from that messing around in my kitchen can be found in this book.

Im not alone in my love of this food. Although there has never been any shortage of people wanting to buy rotisserie chicken, it seems to have become even more popular in the past few years. Were all so busy but we still want to eat well, and many people feel that a rotisserie chicken is a quick, inexpensive, and crowd-pleasing way to satisfy that need. Which explains why these chickens seem to be available everywhere you look these days, whether its a food truck at a farmers market, a fast-food or fine-dining restaurant, or a supermarket in any city. In 2013, according to estimates from the National Chicken Council, a trade association representing the U.S. chicken industry, 650 million rotisserie chickens were purchased from American supermarkets, club stores, and other food purveyors. Another 200 million were sold at food-service outlets. Its been estimated that Costco Wholesale alone sells 60 million of these chickens each year. And thats just in the United States. Rotisserie chicken is popular in Canada, Europe, and across Latin America too.

The truth is, weve been eating and enjoying rotisserie chicken since at least medieval times. The basics of cooking it have not changed a lot: put the bird on the spit, set it by the heat, rotate, and cook until done. What has changed, of course, is that electricity can now power the spit and make it go around, so theres no need to hand crank it. In many parts of the world, chickens are still cooked the old-fashioned way over coals; however, in this book youll find information on how to turn your barbecue into a rotisserie as well as concise instructions on how to ready the chicken for the spit, techniques for cooking the bird if you dont have a barbecue or spit, and a step-by-step guide to carving the chicken once its cooked.

Three recipe sections provide lots of options, whether you cook a chicken yourself, pick up one precooked, or use leftover chicken in other dishes. The first section offers ten ways to season chicken, inspired by flavors from around the world, such as .

Rotisserie chicken is also a fine ingredient to use in any recipe. To prove that fact, six chapters in the books second section are dedicated to doing just that. Here are more than sixty recipes that incorporate rotisserie chicken meat, whether you cooked the bird yourself or bought it precooked from a supermarket. Hungry? Try appetizers, soups, salads, sandwiches, pasta dishes, and more, including . Whether you have a whole chicken or leftover bits from a previous meal, theres a recipe to fit the bill.