For many of us, a best- remembered comfort food came not from mom’s oven, but direct from the supermarket: that ready-cooked rotisserie chicken.
Reddish gold, warm and protected in their foil-lined wrappers, these little chickens made a quick and delicious family supper. A boon for our time-pressed parents trying to fit in that grocery trip ahead of the weekend.
Eric Akis, food writer for the Times Colonist and professional chef, has long and fond memories of the rotisserie chicken now captured in his new book The Great Rotisserie Chicken Cookbook.
For Akis, rotisserie chickens have always been a treat, whether from trucks specially fitted with rotating spits at an outdoor market he saw while travelling in France or the Portuguese takeouts in Toronto, where he trained. Even the small hotel in Thunder Bay, Ont., where Akis had his first chef job, featured a rotisserie cooking chickens right in the dinning room.
“Back then it was pretty hard to not rip off a wing before you served it to the customer,” said Akis in a telephone interview.
Even now, he said he and his wife still enjoy the occasional takeout rotisserie chicken.
“It was my dirty little secret. Whenever I didn’t feel like cooking, I would go and buy a rotisserie chicken from the supermarket,” said Akis.
Even the subheading of his new book’s cover page makes plain what’s uppermost in his mind: More than 100 Delicious Ways to Enjoy Storebought and Homecooked Chicken.
Akis, 53, started professional life as a chef at the age of 20 and worked in professional kitchens for 15 years before concentrating on writing about food. Since he walked away from chef life, his whole approach has been to take the intimidating myths out of food and its preparation. Indeed, his first seven books were all in a series called Everyone Can Cook.
So, The Great Rotisserie Chicken Cookbook, Akis’s eighth book, is still meant to encourage readers to prepare their own food. It turns out rotisserie chickens are easy to cook on the barbecue, since all you need is a rotating motor. Also, rotor-equipped toaster ovens are great for apartment dwellers. Either way, the chickens only take about 90 minutes.
Akis also includes step-by-step instructions on how to tie up and truss a chicken for the spit. That way it holds together to baste in its own juices as it flips while turning over.
There’s even a page on how to carve it up when it’s cooked.
There are also recipes from around the world on how to prepare and spice your chicken for the rotisserie: Spanish with lemon, Indian tandoori, Jamaican jerked and Canadian maple-mustard (with French and Indian accents.)
And for those who will always like their rotisserie chicken as a takeout item, there are recipes for side dishes “for those who don’t want to eat bagged slaw with it.”
Also, modern living and convenience forced itself on Akis’s observations on the rotisserie chicken, including the takeout variety. For example, he and his wife are both lovers of the dark meat. Their tastes often left them moist, cooked chicken breasts as leftovers.
So The Great Rotisserie Chicken Cookbook includes recipes for using that leftover chicken. As examples, there’s chicken with pasta, in salads, with polenta and even in bunwiches.
“It turns out cooked chicken meat of any type is a great ingredient in just about every recipe,” said Akis.
And for those whose kitchens that still revolve around a kind of pioneer thrift, there are tips on how to boil up the carcass, bones and all, to make a great chicken stock. That stock is a perfect start to great soups, for which there are recipes.
Akis said the book is very much aimed at a modern reality. People now want the convenience and reliability of no-fuss, prepared food. But there still those who wish to cook for themselves, for their families and friends using many of the great, fresh and varied items in today’s supermarkets.
“It’s kind of where cooking is at these days — some sort of convenience, but you are still preparing part of the meal,” he said.
“So, I am still getting you cooking [with the book] because I am showing you how to use the leftover chicken meat in a recipe,” said Akis.
“And I am getting you to make some side dishes.
“The book is really a complete guide for the rotisserie chicken lover today,” he said.
The Great Rotisserie Chicken Cookbook is published by Random House, suggested price $24.95.
Note: A book-signing scheduled for Costco on Sunday has been cancelled because the store is closed for Easter.
