Why does a "roast chicken" have to be whole?

[ipsedixit]

Or does it?

In other words, if I cut up and disjoint a whole roasting chicken and roasted it (e.g., season/brine chicken, bed of veggies, pan, oven, etc.), would it be something other than a roast chicken?

[tastesgoodwhatisit]

I would call a spatchcocked chicken or half a chicken roast chicken.

But once it gets cut up into individual pieces, I'd call it baked chicken. You're dealing with much smaller pieces, so the cooking process is going to be faster than roasting a whole bird, and the cooking temperatures, times and end result will be different.

[FoodFuser]

It is all about whether you can celebrate things,
such as cooks, also chickens, that are clearly disjointed.

When I dress a whole chicken into its eight parts
and slide into the oven, it is "baked".

When I fire to 450 and start just with the dark joints
and later add breasts, it is "roasted',
with attention to crispy skin
as the Hen God appointed.

[Quine]

(I can't believe I am the first one saying this) You are making "deconstructed" roast chicken....(ducking out the back door before the pans start flying!)

[pikawicca]

A quick look through several cookbooks revealed this consensus: whole bird cooked in oven = roasted; cut-up bird cooked in oven = baked.

[ipsedixit]

I'm not saying this about you, pikawicca, but that distinction you note from cookbooks is just silly.

[visciole]

One word: STUFFING.

[Will Owen]

I'm with you on that. I consider a chicken unstuffed and cooked at 400º or so to be roasted, while one stuffed and cooked in a slower oven is baked. Whether said birds are whole, spatchcocked or in pieces is to me immaterial. A pan full of thighs on a flat rack, highly seasoned and cooked in a hot oven, is roasted, whereas the same pieces covered in sliced onion and peppers, sprinkled liberally with a vinaigrette and then cooked at 350º are baked. But hey, that's just me.

[cacio e pepe]

It doesn't. As you can see by the responses, all of these distinctions are at best regional. More likely they reflect arbitrary (yet still logical) rules that an individual created.

This thread reminds me of a metafilter thread regarding "grey" versus "gray." An unreasonable number of people insisted that they referred to two distinct shades of gray.

[Chemicalkinetics]

Like grey said, it does not HAVE to be a whole chicken, but is implied as such and it is expected by many. If you disjoint a chicken into piece, then usually people call it baking, like baked chicken breast, baked chicken wings. This is especially the case for unspecifizied term like "roasted chicken". if you don't spell it out, then people will assume you are talking about a whole chicken.

[inaplasticcup]

But baking bird and roasting bird yield very different results...

[cowboyardee]

How so?

In an archaic sense, roasting involves cooking with radiant heat from a fire. But nowadays, 'baking' and 'roasting' mean the same thing, the only differences being what is most common terminology for specific dishes (baked bread, roasted chicken, baked chicken parts, etc).

Do you mean that baking a chicken whole creates a different effect than cutting it first then baking it? Aside from the presentation, you can get pretty similar results cooking a cut up bird. I guess making a jus could be a bit different, and more surface area can be exposed to higher heat, though it doesn't have to be.

[Chemicalkinetics]

" Aside from the presentation, you can get pretty similar results cooking a cut up bird."

I don't know about bird for sure, but I am pretty sure that slow baking (like barbacue slow) a big chunk of pork shouder (pork butt) results something very different than slow baking chopped up pork pieces.

[cowboyardee]

You mean to compare cooking a whole shoulder to something like 1-inch cubes? That certainly would result in a different effect, but I don't really think the analogy works for chicken left whole vs cut up chicken pieces. The difference in thickness, cooking time, and surface area is nowhere near as extreme with a chicken cut into quarters or spatchcocked, etc.

[inaplasticcup]

I guess the distinction I make is that when I roast meat, I almost always start off at a higher temp to give it a sear and then bring the temp down for the remainder of the cook time whereas baking implies to me, for the most part, a constant temp from start to finish.

By no means do I think this distinction academic, but I don't think it uncommon either.

*Roasting* versus *baking* is, to me, a comparison of techniques/process, and not so much the intact-ness of the bird.

[Chemicalkinetics]

"I guess the distinction I make is that when I roast meat, I almost always start off at a higher temp to give it a sear and then bring the temp down"

Well, that maybe a personalized definition. I don't think this definition is shared by most people.

I suppose everyone has their definition. In this case, obviously you have a different definition of roasting vs baking, but as you can see, many people who has written here view roasting chicken pieces should be called baked chicken prices.

Personally, I consider roasting is almost the same as baking in today's definition. The only exception is that roasting also includes open flame cooking, whereas baking does not. As for "roasting at high temperature and then back down", I think it is an interesting technique, but again I don't think it is a widely shared definition of roasting.

If I am to cook a piece of marshmallow in open flame at the same temperature (without high and low), I would still call it roasting a marshmallow -- because of the open flame nature.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3657/3...

I mean you don't call it a "baked marshmallow", right?

[cowboyardee]

According to 'Modernist Cuisine,' roasting once referred ONLY to cooking with an open flame, generally at a distance greater than that you would use to grill. When people mostly stopped cooking this way and began cooking the same meats and foods in the oven instead, the term was applied to a fundamentally different method of cooking. So now 'baking' and 'roasting' mean the same thing, though we still tend to talk about roasting foods that were traditionally cooked near an open fire and baking foods that have always been more associated with ovens.

[Chemicalkinetics]

"roasting once ONLY referred to cooking with an open flame"

Thanks. I can see that. The open flame part is definitely still setting "roasting" and "baking" apart.

I forgot to tell inaplasticcup the following. Aside from the "roasting marshmallow" example, I also have the reverse example for baking. I actually baked quiet often and many of my cookie recipes call for different temperatures at different times. Despite the fact that I changed the temperature, I still consider that I baked my cookies and not roasted my cookies. Reversed example of the marshmallow.

[cowboyardee]

That's not a distinction that I've ever heard before. It would sort of imply that 'roast chicken' or 'roast pork' is a misnomer if the temp isn't changed mid-cooking, and that doesn't seem to be how people commonly use the term, to me at least.

Changing temperatures is a lot more common with meats, which in turn is more likely to be called 'roasted' after being cooked in the oven than breads and casseroles and such. But I still don't see a temp change as essential to the term, even in a colloquial sense. Though I'll admit that regional differences could be coming into play.

[inaplasticcup]

I see both your points. At the end of the day, for me, it's nonsensical (and I hope that word choice isn't taken as a fighting one ;) ) that it be required that the bird be whole in order for it to be considered roasted.

[Chemicalkinetics]

Ok, yes, some people consider there is a distinction between roasting a whole bird vs baking a whole chicken. That being said it may be a moot point. I think if you simply say "Roasted Chicken" without any prefix or suffix, then people assume you are talking about a whole chicken. When you say "you drank coffee", people usually think of regular coffee and not decaffinated coffee, or when you say "I want some fries", people think of potato fries, and not yam fries. Now, this is not to say decaffinated coffee is not coffee or that sweet potato fries are not fries. Rather, they require clear specifications. If you want to say you made roasted chicken wings, I suppose you can, but I think most people will call that baked chicken wings.

[iluvcookies]

"A Roast Chicken" is a whole chicken, roasted.
"Roast Chicken"--without the "A" is what you have when you roast chicken parts.

[ipsedixit]

If I said, "Waiter, I would like the roast chicken."

What would you expect to get in your grammatical hierarchy you list up above -- the former (a whole bird), or the latter (parts)?

[inaplasticcup]

I do exactly what you've suggested it, and if anyone asks, I call it roast chicken. :)

I like to save my carcasses for stock, prefer the breast meat for other purposes, and it's much faster this way.

[ipsedixit]

That's my thought too, plus it browns more evenly.

[greygarious]

Obviously, it doesn't NEED to be whole but the more flesh exposed via cutting, the drier those surfaces will be. Halving, butterflying, or spatchcocking allow for quicker, even roasting and maximum browning of skin without exposing the flesh at the joints.

The term "roast" generally implies whole unless it's a large animal. Roast fish is whole; fish fillets and steaks are called baked. But pan-roasted lobster is disjointed, while baked lobster is whole. There are a few TV chefs of Italian heritage who tell viewers to "cook" the cake, for example, rather than "bake" it. English is an inconsistent tongue, to be sure!

[lcool]

nope,We most often spatchcock or simply band saw down the breast bone birds we roast
cook more evenly,in less time and are way easier to carve and or serve

[biggreenmatt]

Doesn't. I spatchcock the blessed bird before throwing it on the BGE. Comes off magnificently.

[fourunder]

In my world of Chicken terminology, you can have the following:

Whole Roast Chicken

Half Roasted Chicken.......but

When you cut up the bird into smaller sections and place in the oven, i.e., Breast/Wing, Leg Quarters, Breast, Wing, Thigh and Drumstick.......it then becomes *Baked Chicken* on or off a rack.

[pj26]

It doesn't. I know many a good chef who swear by cutting it up before roasting. Makes sense really when you think the breast cooks at a different time to the leg etc.

[wattacetti]

Doesn't. The roast portion of the term refers to the cooking method, but when used with poultry, most people associate "roast" with "whole" whereas it doesn't necessarily mean whole animal when it comes to land mammals (except possibly lamb and guinea pig).