20 Delicious Roasted Chicken Recipes with Salads, Soups & Pastas - Easy Dinner Ideas for Family Meals & Entertaining

People say you can judge cooks by the quality of their roast chicken. The same goes for cookbook writers, and this book about roasting chickens puts Mindy Fox right at the top. I resisted buying BIRD because I thought I knew as much about roasting chicken as anybody. Wasn't I the champion chicken-roaster in my family? What made me actually buy the book were the recipes for sides. I knew at first glance they would be explosively flavorful--roasting parsnips with aleppo pepper and za'atar, and an obviously knock-out preparation for freekah, that most delicious mid-eastern green wheatberry. And those sides and salads lived up to their promise. The recipes were perfectly realized when followed to the letter but they also allowed for lots of substitutions and variations. Reading through the chicken recipes (with no intention of ever following one) I was won over by the positive energy and sheer enthusiasm of Mindy's voice, her dynamic presence, and above all the absolute clarity of her writing. The tastes, smells, and even sounds of cooking came to life on the page. I love reading cookbooks, and for sheer reading pleasure, this was a winner. After a while, of course, kitchen curiosity won out, and so I roasted a chicken according to her directions, but I used my own secret spice mixture. You know the rest. The bird was fabulous--crisp and brown skin over moist, tender, and succulent meat. So I dived into the book and made the roast chicken flavored with olives, fennel seeds and thyme, the chicken roasted `in porchetta', and then the irresistable pot-roasted chicken with slab-bacon, celery root, and rosemary. I'm gonna just keep going and do all twenty. Whether you're new in the kitchen or think you already know what there is to know, this book is for you.