Are Rotisserie Chickens a Bargain? | Hacker News Reader

Are Rotisserie Chickens a Bargain?

priceonomics.com

147 pointsandyraskin123 comments

The value is more than the price cooked versus DIY. To me it's a bargain because I'll eat something way worse for me if I'm in a rush and there's nothing available. We don't want to stop at McDonalds because I'm running late from work, my wife and daughter had an activity until 6, and we already ate everything in the fridge. Boom, chicken.

EDIT: I don't want to entirely rag on McD's. I lost a bunch of weight when I was in consulting and ate every meal on the run. Of the fast food chains, they have some of the most reasonable items with easy math on the calories. Pro tip: Egg McMuffins and regular cheeseburgers are 300 calories each. I'm not saying it was healthy, but I did control my calories and lose weight. I am likely partially embalmed from the trans fat and sodium though. Hopefully we can agree a supermarket rotisserie chicken is a superior option :)

> The value is more than the price cooked versus DIY. To me it's a bargain because I'll eat something way worse for me if I'm in a rush and there's nothing available. We don't want to stop at McDonalds because I'm running late from work, my wife and daughter had an activity until 6, and we already ate everything in the fridge. Boom, chicken.

Yes these are awesome for that perfect blend of fast, easy, and not quite junk food. I wouldn't recommend having one 7 days a week but you can pick one up in place of fast food and feed you and your kids guilt free.

> EDIT: I don't want to entirely rag on McD's.

I love McD's and the mere existence of the McDouble[1] proves that the human race is doing just fine.

[1]: http://nypost.com/2013/07/28/the-greatest-food-in-human-hist...

We'd normally pick them up on grocery shopping days. After shopping for the next two weeks, it was usually late enough that cooking meat would take too long.

Rotisserie chicken shredded makes a good meat for a chicken alfredo pasta, or on a pizza for BBQ chicken pizza, etc.

And the difference in price with a raw whole chicken (usually less than 3 dollars) was well worth it for the savings in time and avoiding the fast-food stop when the kids were losing their minds in the back seat. We lived about 30 mins from the grocery store, so munching on chicken was a good way to keep the kids (both less than 4yrs old) calm and happy.

> Rotisserie chicken shredded makes a good meat for a chicken alfredo pasta, or on a pizza for BBQ chicken pizza, etc.

Also, you can take the leftover carcass and use it to make wonderful chicken stock. Just throw the bones and bits in a bag in the freezer. When you have a few carcasses and some free time on the weekend, follow any recipe and make stock.

You can then freeze the stock and use it whenever you like.

Please not that McDonald's is only able to offer that type of kcal to dollar ratio because of the massive subsidies the usa has for meat production.

True: here in Canada, the McDouble costs, I think, $2.19? Our exchange rate to the US has never been that bad.

(If you're wondering why, since Canada would be the easiest market to ship that same cheap US beef to—AFAIK US beef doesn't meet Canadian agricultural regulations.)

>True: here in Canada, the McDouble costs, I think, $2.19? Our exchange rate to the US has never been that bad.

They're costing $0.99-1.49 in the states depending on location (and usually more than $0.99.) They're $1.69 in Canada (Bacon McDouble is closer to $2.19) as of last year.

So what? Everyone who sells or buys meat in the US benefits from it, not just McDonald's

The U.S should be subsidizing vegetables and fruits instead of animal agriculture.

True!

This article ignores an important aspect of time. I earn about $90 an hour. So between cooking and doing dishes, let's say i remove the wait times and stuff where i could do other things, I am still using up about 10 to 15 minutes extra preparing a fresh chicken.

I understand I don't work 24/7, but still, even my downtime matters so even if I cut down that price per hour in half, I'd still rather get a pre-made chicken especially during the week when time is of the essence.

You value all your time at $90 an hour and still find time to give us some?! You are extremely generous!

Obviously facetious but hopefully you get my point. Not all time in our lives is billable. You don't get paid for washing your own clothes, cleaning your kitchen, taking your kids to school. It's life. You do that for you. While these are all things you can pay somebody else to do, it's really not until that point you can start comparing time values. If you are, you're probably not in the demographic that buys cheap rotisserie chicken.

Or you're some sort of robot who never sleeps and only works. Again, thanks for putting your zeros and ones aside for a few minutes to talk to us.

Lol. Thanks for calling me out, albeit it subtle. I don't work 24hrs, like i already stated. Which means my price per hour obviously is not uniform throughout the day.

However, my value for my most productive 8 hours of the day is directly correlated to what i do in my "downtime". So if i went drinking for 4 hours one night, it would reduce my productivity during my best hours during the next day. So whatever i do during my down hours matters. Sleep matters, rest matters, food matters. So i have to optimize those as well. So my price per hour never goes to zero at any point in the day. Which is why i trimmed it to half in my final part. So that 15min is still worth a dollar value, no?

You've made an excellent argument for outsourcing your entire meal prep and having food delivered to your house (or paying someone to shop for you) and having someone cook it for you.

The "I make $___ an hour" claim only holds weight if your alternative to whatever activity would be to actually charge money for that time. Presumably you're going to make your own dinner most of the time so your hourly rate at work is largely irrelevant.

This is an oversimplification. If the time I'm spending not working is contributing to my ability to make $90/hr it's entirely valid. There are so many things that can fall into this category too, like the need for people to have recreational time, or professional development (e.g. reading journals), etc.

Then you are not making 90$ an hour, but whatever is the prorated fare accounting for your not-billing hours.

I enjoy cooking and baking but even I would say that the only argument needed for "outsourcing your entire meal prep and having food delivered to your house" is "I don't feel like doing it myself."

I'm not posting this just to be a jerk; rather, I think that too often we spend time trying to justify a behavior that is not at all damaging, but somehow seems "bad."

If you don't like doing X and you can afford to pay someone to do it, then go ahead, do so and get on with Life.

I charge my per hour price based on my productivity. So even though its only 8 hours of proudctivity in a day, my effectiveness in that period depends on what i do in my downtime. If i go drinking, my productivity is affected. Same here. Even though it won't be the same price per hour

Whether or not its the amount you get paid per hour, every hour devoted to an activity has an opportunity cost, and there is some value associated with that cost. No time is free.

I agree the article underemphasized the cost of time, but it didn't ignore it. It is addressed in the last section of the article.

When a cook’s time is included as labor costs in the above calculation, whole chickens become more expensive than rotisserie options.

rotisserie chickens are pumped full of sodium.

There is no longer an official upper limit on cholesterol intake, and (for most people) sodium intake being harmful has also been debunked. Saturated fats also have been shown to have no link to heart disease.

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2015/02/2...

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/its-time-to-end-th...

http://www.eufic.org/page/en/show/latest-science-news/fftid/...

I wouldn't link to Mercola. He is a pretty well known quack and pushes a lot of pseudo-scientific nonsense.

I thought the big risk with salt was strokes, not heart attacks:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2782060/

"Results There were 19 independent cohort samples from 13 studies, with 177 025 participants (follow-up 3.5-19 years) and over 11 000 vascular events. Higher salt intake was associated with greater risk of stroke (pooled relative risk 1.23, 95% confidence interval 1.06 to 1.43; P=0.007) and cardiovascular disease (1.14, 0.99 to 1.32; P=0.07), with no significant evidence of publication bias. ... The associations observed were greater the larger the difference in sodium intake and the longer the follow-up."

Same phenomenon. AFAIU, recent research suggest that the variance seen in such studies is caused by subgroups with impaired kidneys or other issues that interfere with blood salt homeostasis.

It's not controversial that sustained salt concentration is bad for cardiovascular healthy, or that higher salt intake correlates with worse cardiovascular health in large populations. The issue is whether healthy _individuals_ should care about salt.

Or to put it another way, salt isn't like sugar. A high sugar diet leads to insulin resistance, which leads to higher blood sugar concentrations, which leads to higher rates of related ailments.

It was once thought that a high salt diet directly led to hypertension, etc, etc. But that doesn't appear to be the case. Healthy people seem to have no problems clearing an excess salt (in amounts significantly greater than thought) from the body, even if sustained over their entire lifetime. And, somewhat contentiously, some research suggests that the recommended salt intake might be detrimental for some people, with the negative effect being masked by the subgroup who benefit from lower salt.

That's my understanding of things, anyhow.

It's probably a little like acidosis--a rare condition that gave rise to fringe concepts like the "alkaline diet". Consuming acidic foods is never going to cause problems for healthy individuals. The mechanisms for maintaining blood pH (calcium, rate of respiration, etc) are just too robust to even be minimally taxed by acidic foods (excluding extreme scenarios). If acidic foods cause or contribute to bad blood pH, you already have other serious problems.

The difference is that a substantial fraction of the population does have trouble excreting excess salt, and this readily shows up in epidemiological studies of dietary salt.

To add, when experimenting with diets such as keto, uptake in salt and electrolytes is a requirement. When you drastically cut down on carbs your body does not retain salt / water as it did before and thus supplementation above "norm" is required.

What's wrong with sodium? I actually need to consume more of it.

Drink more water

Something kind of similar goes on in the produce aisle with bags of apples vs individual apples.

Bags of apples have a very high percent mass loss when peeled and rotted parts cut off and served into apple pies or apple sauce or canned into brandied apples and are very small making a huge amount of labor to peel like ten mini apples per pound.

Individual apples are large and about can select externally flawless apples, and the surface area to volume scaling means for a given amount of finished product your compost pile will have maybe half the compost. Also the labor demand is immensely lower, it takes just as long to peel a baby apple from a bag that smaller than a baseball as it goes to peel a freakishly large individual apple thats bigger than a softball.

Solely on price per pound, bags of apples are mystifyingly cheaper than individual apples per pound, but in terms of final product and factoring in the labor annoyance of prep time, individual apples are often a much better deal.

I suppose much as there are people shocked that I find applesauce making and brandied apple canning fun and recreational and stress reducing, there probably exist people who are shocked that everyone doesn't find apple peeling and coring to be meditative and chill. For people who enjoy spending hours peeling tiny little apples, a 5 pound bag of little apples must be pure joy to them.

A lot of people call the bagged apples hand apples and eat them without any preparation.

Extensive rotten parts on the bagged apples would also be a klaxon call not to buy produce from that grocer.

Cooking apples are different varieties, anyway. The best reason to process apples at home is if you have them fresh off the tree.

For US common apples, Braeburn and McIntosh both straddle the line between cooking and hand apples.

(I think they are both terrible hand apples, but my preference for crispness overwhelms other considerations)

Braeburn pairs well with cheddar cheese. :D

I buy the smaller apples precisely because there is more skin to flesh. So if I eat two small apples this means more fiber and a little bit more potassium vs if I'd eaten one large apple. Plus I find the flesh is usually more flavourful and less mealy.

The smaller apples seem to be more flavorful as well.

This is why I buy them. In general, I think small fruit tastes better.

Maybe also more pesticides and more wax, unless you buy organic.

Don't worry, organic means you get only organic pesticides, no synthetic ones. And some organic pesticides are more toxic than synthetic ones (which actually makes a lot of sense when you think about--those evil chemical companies have a vested interest in making things that are safe for humans but unsafe for insects; Mother Nature does not).

Worth pointing out, though, that you're quite unlikely to see any health effects from any pesticide residue in either case.

> Maybe also more pesticides and more wax, unless you buy organic.

In which case it also means more wax [0] and more pesticides [1].

[0] just not petroleum-based

[1] but only "organic" pesticides

Maybe in the US. In Germany (and I assume many other places), organic apples are not waxed, and typically don't have any residual pesticides on them.

Depends on where you are. In the US, "organic" apples can be sprayed with pesticides and coated with "wax" (actual wax or other wax-like coatings).

That reminds me of the pistachios WITH shells Vs. pistachios without shells. A bag without the shells is way more expensive per pound, but from what I've read it ends up being a bit cheaper per nut because those shells weigh something. Plus those things are just hard to get out of the darn shells sometimes.

I would say that you should pay a bit extra so you don't have the emotional cost of having that one pistachio you couldn't possibly open.

I've opened that pistachio with force. You're better off leaving it closed!

(It seems from my exhaustive studies that pistachios that "won't open" aren't worth opening.)

Agreed. To me the pistachio that can't be opened is equivalent to the clam that doesn't open in the pot. Now you won't get sick from the pistachio, but the quality is never the same.

That's an old wives' tale. The clams, mussels, etc that are most resistant to opening are the ones that were in the best health, and thus the safest ones to eat.

Source?

Just google [unopened clams safe]. It's all over the Internet.

Or the one you just barely fit your nails in, and try to pull it apart?

Remember pink pistachios? I used to buy them all the time and the other day I realized that I haven't seem them in years.

This scene isn't going to make sense to future viewers:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-TCvaNuKNQ

And the shells harbor mold. I'm allergic to pistachios, but apparently its the mold that is the real problem.

OTOH, the shells help deter you from eating a pound of delicious pistachios in one sitting.

Sure don't.

thumb-divots represent!

In a bag of nuts with shells there are always a few which lose their shells in transit and they never taste as good to me.

Could it be some ancient hunter gatherer mental reward system thing?

My grocer's bag of apples is not 50% waste per pound. Its often the same apples in a bag. Volume discount. I suppose that just means they're all too expensive...

I think you misread the parent's post.

>and the surface area to volume scaling means for a given amount of finished product your compost pile will have maybe half the compost

He means that the big apples have half the waste compared to small apples.

"Bags of apples have a very high percent mass loss when peeled and rotted parts cut off"

From the article: Customers can thank Boston Market—which opened its first store in 1985 in Newton, Mass., under the name Boston Chicken—for the modern rotisserie chicken industry.

This was a surprise to me. In Italy "Rotisserie chicken" have been a common urban offering since at least the '60s, probably even before. No idea about other parts of Europe or the rest of the world, but I distinctly remember small stores displaying roasted chickens since my childhood.

The only recent innovation is that you can now find these in larger supermarkets and that most of the stores are now managed as some franchise.

I can confirm, Italian, but I grew up in the US. When I was a kid, we roasted a lot of chickens because la rosticceria wasn't a thing in the neighborhood - in South Philadelphia or then out in the NJ suburbs. When Boston Market opened up, we ate a LOT of that.

It was odd to my folks because it's the most basic of prep, and you could pretty much get a roasted chicken (or many other meats prepped the same way) on the go anywhere in Italy. It's fast food that isn't total shit.

Yep, I remember when Boston Market came along in the 90s, it really spread like wildfire, seemingly overnight. They were quite popular, and no one else was doing rotisserie chicken at a mass scale like that before them.

I used to love getting these from doner kebab places when I was studying in Berlin. Our lunch stipend was about 5 euro, and I remember that getting half a chicken, french fries and a Berliner Kindl.

A cofounder with me on another project was involved in Boston Chicken in its early stages. Her sister living in NY at the time told her the business was a dumb idea because everyone could already get fresh cooked chicken whenever they want from food carts.

It's difficult to appreciate what was novel and what was obvious at different times in the past. I lived in Italy in 1994/95, and when I returned to a non-city in the US I was sure I wouldn't be able to find a good espresso, yet the independent coffee shops starting turning up right about when I returned. I also imagined that the per-minute local phone billing in Italy would end up precluding modems and the internet from taking hold back in Italy any time soon.

From what I remember Boston Chicken was a sort of stock scam that turned out a great buy when it went under. I vaguely remember McDonalds bought them out for virtually nothing.

She raised money for them as they were exhausting what they could get from "friends and family" connections, and long before they went public. Probably like a few others she worked with they later went through cycles of completely different management that was more suitable for different stages of growth, and rarely stuck to the long term plans of the founders.

If I remember correctly, an early business plan for Blockbuster projected streaming, or at least delivery through people cable boxes, about a decade early than when later management was ridiculing Netflix's streaming business.

Same in Germany, only more often than not we get them from snack vans/food trucks.

Unfortunately, though I like grilled chicken, I find most of them quite horrible. The meat is usually too salty (and on top through-and-through too salty, because they soak the chickens in brine) and the only discernible spice is paprika 90% of the time, which fact I hate with a passion.

Rotisserie chicken machines were common in London chip shops and other fast food places in the 70s. Some supermarkets used to have them too.

They've largely disappeared from chip shops now, although some ethnic food shops still have them.

My introduction to rotisserie chicken was the Swiss Chalet chain in Canada.

One of the few things I miss about Canada.

Swiss Chalet accounts for 4 of the 5 worst dining experiences I've had. The franchise quality has really gone downhill. They have serious customer service issues.

That said, I can probably guess what you miss: http://www.walmart.ca/en/ip/swiss-chalet-dipping-sauce-mix/6.... I'm sure they'll ship worldwide ;-).

Unfortunately the packets are not in any way similar. It has been over 10 years since I've been in one so it's possible it's gone all to hell.

Swiss Chalet and St Hubert in Canada predate 1985 by quite a bit. I guess the claim is either unfounded or talking about the American market.

Yes, same in France

My grandparents had a Rotiseria here in Buenos Aires in the '30s and '40s, so I can confirm that is not a novelty :P

They're an even bigger bargain at the end of the night. When I worked 2nd shift I would stop at Kroger on the way home at 10:30pm, grab a baguette from the bakery for 50 cents and a rotisserie chicken for $2.99, both half-price because I assume they throw them out at closing time. Cheap dinner and lunch for the next day.

My local supermarket (Hannaford) starts discounting after the lunch and dinner rushes by a dollar or two to move the chickens that have been out for more than a couple of hours. Whatever's left gets chilled and sold in the cold case at an additional discount later on that night and the next day. Honestly I think they're a bargain at full price because they're not terrible for you and they're fast - we don't always have time to cook, and given the alternatives, it just makes sense to grab a chicken. As a practical matter, we also get another one on the weekends when we grocery shop, pick it as soon as it comes home and just keep it in a container for a few days to snack on. Even with the added "solution" its way healthier than what we'd otherwise get into.

I greatly prefer rotisserie chickens from grocery stores to baking my own, just for the convenience. The fact that it's typically cheaper than buying and baking your own is a huge factor as well.

I really want to recommend trying baked cornish hens at home to anyone who hasn't eaten them. I buy a 6-pack at Costco for about $18. A single one by itself is an entire meal for me. If I'm really, really hungry, I'll eat it with a side like pita bread or rice. Fat, water, and seasoning pool under it to make really tasty drippings that you can use for either.

They're super easy to prepare and bake. I just spray it with cooking oil, salt and pepper it, and stick it in the oven at 400F for an hour. The great thing about it is that it's really difficult to overcook it due to the fat from the skin, and the small amount of meat compared to a whole chicken, so you can play around with higher temperatures and times without having to worry about ruining it.

They taste sooo good, especially the crisp skin. It's one of my favorite things to eat.

> The fact that it's typically cheaper than buying and baking your own is a huge factor as well.

As stated in the article it's only cheaper if your unit of measurement is a whole chicken regardless of size. Per pound they are typically 2x more expensive (or even more).

Cornish hens are my jam, they're great.

The chart shows you can save $1-$2 per chicken that feeds about 3 people? I think it'd be difficult to find 3 people unwilling to chip in 50 cents to turn a raw chicken into a cooked one. And pricing seasoning ingredients by just the percentage they used is disengenious. I've never gotten to the bottom of any of herb bottle before it went stale.

The rotisserie industry is a bargain for consumer and seller. It's easy and automated for stores to produce at scale and a real time saver for the customer. Not to mention I can take it prepackaged to a picnic.

  I've never gotten to the bottom of any of herb bottle before it went stale.

Me too until I discovered Litehouse Freeze Dried Herbs. Normally the bottles are $4.99 at my local Californian supermarket, but sometimes they're on sale for $3.99, and the other day they were on sale for $2.50 (I stocked up). I especially like their freeze dried, diced garlic, which is a darn good substitute for freshly chopped garlic.

The freeze dried stuff doesn't last forever, either. But the Litehouse bottles are good size. Even the end of a bottle is more fragrant and tasty than brand-new dried herbs. And it's super convenient picking more up at the grocery store.

At $4.99 it's competitive with bulk freeze dried herbs, which made me wonder if that was a sustainable price. Seeing it for sale at $2.50 I'm even more convinced that it's not profitable and they're having trouble getting traction in the market. I'll be sad if it goes away. I've always avoided herbs in my cooking because fresh herbs are inconvenient; most dried herbs suck; and if they don't suck they don't last long anyhow. This affordable freeze dried stuff is amazing, but probably too good a thing.

> I've never gotten to the bottom of any of herb bottle before it went stale.

Use more of it or buy the smaller containers.

If you find that you don't use a spice much, consider opting for a spice blend that you find more broadly appealing instead. For example, if you always keep a jar of rosemary for 3 years before using it all because you only use it on pork, replace it (and a few other herbs) with a blend like herbes de provence, which goes great on everything.

I'm thinking you're throwing away your spices too quickly: http://www.stilltasty.com/articles/view/67

I like to maximize the value of my rotisserie chicken dinner by cooking all the leftover scraps and bones in a pressure cooker. After an hour, you got yourself a stew!

Use ice cube trays to make broth cubes and store in the freezer for future meals.

Whenever getting a chicken it's worth using the bones to make stock afterwards. We regularly roast a chicken, and then after the dinner we'll strip the remaining meat off and boil up the bones. Then we can make a chicken risotto the next day with some lovely rich stock and leftover chicken bits.

Making stock is something I wish I'd started doing a long time ago.

that stock is also good for cooking noodles, especially asian styles like ramen or udon but also for western chicken noodle soup or matzo ball soup.

nearly every culture has an awesome chicken noodle dish.

Oh yes. A lovely silky finish to noodles, and always good in soup.

Adding a dollop of really thick, jelly-like stock helps a huge number of dishes. And it's made from something you'd otherwise typically just throw away.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sr2PlqXw03Y

I find that on average, rotisserie chickens are so strongly seasoned with spices+herbs that the broth will not be very "chickeny". YMMV

My freezer contains about a dozen big sour cream/cottage cheese containers of broth made from rotisserie chicken carcasses at any one time. The flavor is superior to store-bought broth, whenever one has the time to actually cook.

I get 5-6 meals out of a $14 organic rotisserie chicken for my wife and I.

2 from the wings and breast. Then we slowcook the carcass into bone broth which becomes the basis of an awesome soup. I've got thai curry chicken soup on the stove right now.

Cooking a whole chicken is a major pain. If not for rotisserie chickens, I would only buy chicken in the form of pre-butchered packages of breasts, thighs, or legs (and the occasional bag of frozen buffalo wings).

The pre-butchered meat is usually a way better deal. Boneless chicken breasts, which are the most expensive option, are often as cheap as $3.50/lb - about the same as a roto chicken. And it's pure meat, extremely healthy, and only takes 20-30 minutes to cook.

(But when you have a 2- and 4-year-old, sometimes those 20-30 minutes make all the difference. So I eat roto chicken about once a week.)

"Cooking a whole chicken is a major pain." - unless you have a Oven Top pressure cooker. In which case, "Dump in the chicken, throw in random collection of chopped up vegetables, pour in some spices, olive-oil (if you want to crank up the calories/like extra fatty tasting broth, which I do), set for 30 minutes - when done, meat should be able to be stripped off the bone with tongs/fork - 5 minutes to transfer the meat/vegetables into large bowl" - total hands on prep time can be about 10-15 minutes, depending on how many different types of vegetables you want to chop up. $6 2 kilo chicken + vegetables and some olive oil makes 5 solid 450 gram meals. Plus, you can then throw in the leftover meat/bones into the pressure cooker for an hour and get awesome broth.

Actually, here's a great and easy recipe to cook a whole chicken--Salt Roasted Chicken: http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/salt-roasted-ch... There are many versions and this is just one. It's is very simple and very good. It helps to have a remote thermometer to makes sure you don't overcook the chicken.

I personally don't find roasting whole chickens to be all that much harder than cooking individual pieces. The entire process takes long because of the cook time, but it's passive time in the oven, not prep work or standing over a stove.

I also love roasting chicken over a bed of vegetables. It's a great winter time dish.

I'm with you on the kids, though. I do a lot of smoking in the summer and will usually bulk cook and freeze chicken, pork, and beef since smoking scales easily in cabinet style smokers!

Spatchcock! Cooking time greatly reduced.

Came here to say this!

In my oven it takes about an hour at 425f on a baking rack, meat stays juicy and skin turns out nice and crisp.

The Predator-esque spine removal is a little daunting the first time, but I've found that kitchen scissors are the easiest way.

> And it's pure meat, extremely healthy, and only takes 20-30 minutes to cook.

It is unfortunately also the part of the chicken that is least flavorful.

Larger packages of boneless skinless thighs are about the same price. They cook faster.

I guess they tend to have a bit more fat on them than the breasts. And more fat in them. But not to an absurd level.

Thanks to that extra fat, thighs have the added benefit of not drying out if you dare cook them past 165. A lot of breasts these days are also enormous and require extra prep work to make them reasonable to cook.

Opinion. I'm on the white meat side of this debate; dark meat is just mushy and greasy to me, not more flavorful.

I, personally, find Mark Bittman's recipe to be one of the simplest. It delivers great chicken every time.

http://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1015812-simplest-roast-ch...

It requires a cast iron pan. It requires high heat in the beginning, so don't be alarmed by the smoke.

I like Thomas Keller's 'Simple Roast Chicken': http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/my-favorite-sim...

I actually messed up my cast iron pan recently (left on burner and all the seasoning burnt off) and haven't been bothered to fix it yet.

I'll probably give this recipe a go tomorrow, thanks!

The easiest way I've found is beer-can grilled chicken

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/beer-can-chicken-recipe.h...

I find roasting a chicken incredibly easy. All it takes is an oven, roasting tray and time.

Costco rotisserie chicken is probably the best existing deal out there right now. $4.99 for 2-3 days worth of food.

I infrequently make my own rotisserie chicken and it costs me at least $12, including chicken, spices, etc.

BUT what about the psychological value of _feeling_ like you're getting a deal, even if you aren't actually getting one?

E.g. People from this research actually experience more pleasure when they believe a wine is expensive: http://time.com/money/3846874/expensive-price-tag-cheap-wine...

> “Expectations truly influence neurobiological responses,” write the authors.

> Without including the cost of our time, it came to a total of 52 cents.

I think that's the major point for anyone: time.

For the sake of a few dollars my time is more valuable or at least better spent doing something else.

I think that is also a reason for many thing such as my region where people hire a guys with a snowblowers to clean out their driveways. Pay $200 for four months and you don't break your back it's worth it.

At the supermarket Wegmans where I live, an entire fresh rotisserie chicken is $5. It's a total steal if you're a starving college kid, as you can easily make a couple meals out of it. These used to be HUGE chickens, however they've noticeably got smaller, but still easily two meals.

Store-roasted chickens drive me crazy because every chicken in the case is 4 pounds or more and all the roasted chickens started out smaller. I'd like to buy a 3 to 3.5 pound bird small enough to roast in a pan but they use them all and don't sell them.

There's a breed called Cornish Hen or poussin, usually 2.5 to 3 pounds. You might have to search at a fancier store, or like I do at a Mexican butcher, but they are easy to cook and delicious.

Cornish Hen bothers me because it's just marketing. It's just a young chicken! It doesn't even have to be a hen! So as a person who appreciates basic honesty I avoid them. Also we are fortunate to spend the autumn and winter in an area with actual game birds that are easily taken, and delicious.

Ummm...did you ever look it up?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornish_game_hen

"a young immature chicken (less than five weeks of age), weighing not more than two pounds ready-to-cook weight, which was prepared from a Cornish chicken or the progeny of a Cornish chicken crossed with another breed of chicken"

OK, I/wikipedia is wrong! The definition has been updated

http://www.fsis.usda.gov/wps/wcm/connect/fsis-content/fsis-q...

https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/9/381.170

Current class definitions state that a bird labeled as a Rock Cornish-type chicken must be ``the progeny of a cross between a purebred Cornish and a purebred Rock chicken'' (9 CFR 381.170(a)(1)(ii)), or ``a Cornish chicken or the progeny of a Cornish chicken crossed with another breed of chicken'' (9 CFR 381.170(a)(1)(i)). While this statement was appropriate when these chickens were originally developed over 40 years ago, today it is doubtful that any purebred Cornish or Rock lines exist in commercial chicken production. The names ``Rock Cornish game hen'' and ``Cornish game hen'' are now used to identify a very young, very small, whole chicken that is marketed as an individual serving. Although the names refer to hens, either sex can be used since birds of this class are sexually immature. The names ``Rock Cornish fryer,'' ``Rock Cornish roaster,'' and ``Rock Cornish hen'' are no longer meaningful because these birds cannot be reliably distinguished on the basis of progeny from other existing classes. Therefore, the Agency is proposing to define the Rock Cornish game hen or Cornish game hen class only in terms of age and weight and to delete the class of Rock Cornish fryer, roaster, and hen.

Also of interest

http://www.fsis.usda.gov/OPPDE/rdad/FRPubs/2007-0048F.htm

Cornish Game Hens Comment: One comment from a trade association stated that the term ``hen'' as used in the ``Rock Cornish game hen'' or ``Cornish game hen'' class may be misleading because the term hen implies that these birds are female while the definition states that the birds may be of either sex. The comment suggested that FSIS change the name of this poultry class to ``Rock Cornish game bird'' or ``Cornish game bird.'' Another comment from a poultry producer said that the proposed ``Cornish hen'' definition is inaccurate because it allows industry to call a bird that is not necessarily Cornish, and not necessarily a hen, a ``Cornish hen.'' The comment suggested that FSIS add a definition for ``poussin'' to describe the next youngest bird than the ``Cornish hen'' if the Agency decides to keep the term Cornish hen. The comment suggested that USDA review the literature produced by the North American Meat Processors Association (NAMP) as it applies to usage of the term ``poussin.'' According to the commenter, because USDA is attempting to have its regulations reflect usage in the poultry industry, it must consider not just the production level, but also the market. Response: FSIS disagrees that the terms ``Rock Cornish game hen'' or ``Cornish game hen'' are misleading to consumers and that the Agency should change the name of the class to ``Rock Cornish game bird'' or ``Cornish game bird.'' The existing terms for this poultry class, which provides for the use of the term ``hen'' for young immature chickens of either sex, has been in place since FSIS established this poultry class definition. The term ``hen'' can be used for immature chickens of either sex because birds of this class are sexually immature. FSIS is not aware of any data to support that consumers are misled with the reference to ``hen'' in these terms. Changing the name of the class is likely to spur confusion. FSIS also disagrees that the proposed ``Cornish hen'' definition is inaccurate because it allows industry to call a bird that is not necessarily Cornish, and not necessarily a hen, a ``Cornish hen.'' The existing standards in FSIS' regulations do specify that a Cornish chicken be the progeny of a Cornish chicken crossed with another breed of chicken. However, FSIS continues to believe that it is doubtful that any purebred Cornish lines currently exist in commercial chicken production today and, therefore, the birds cannot be reliably distinguished on the basis of progeny. FSIS also disagrees that it should add a new poultry class that would define poussin. The poultry classes in 9 CFR 381.170 represent poultry that are typically marketed to consumers and are more broadly used than the standards for poussin in NAMP's Poultry Buyers Guide.

Relative to whole raw chickens? Sure, rotisserie chickens may not be cheaper but that doesn't mean their value isn't a bargain.

They're a bargain at Costco, assuming you need to buy other stuff there, otherwise the value of time to park and walk to the back of the store might dominate.

They're a bargain unless your free time has no value.

Some people like cooking and don't see free time as fungible for work/freelance/learning

Sure, I like cooking too. However, I have a family, a full time job, my wife has a full time job, and we can't always allocate the time to roast a chicken.

> However, I have a family, a full time job, my wife has a full time job, and we can't always allocate the time to roast a chicken.

I'm in the same boat you are, but reading it put like that ('we can't always allocate the time to roast a chicken') kinda puts it in perspective. That's terrible, for you and for me alike. 'Doesn't have time to cook a bird' sounds awful, and is.

Specifically, I mean: after I come home from work/picking up kids, there isn't really time to cook a chicken. Normally, I plan for this on the weekends by using my free time to cook items that can be reheated. For example, precook rice, some casserole. Veggies can be prepped from raw in ~5 minutes using a microwave. However, by the end of the week, people are tired of leftovers, so the convenience of being able to get a precooked chicken provides real value.

Note that rotisserie chicken isn't just a cooked chicken. It's been brined for many hours (it takes time to prep the brine, then dry the chicken after brining), which makes the meat moist, it's been roasted evenly on all sides (hard to do without a rotating axle), and placed into a convenient container.

It seems totally reasonable to swap the time to make an item that is pretty hard to reproduce at home (I don't want to manage a rotisserie or do brining on a regular basis).

> It's been brined for many hours (it takes time to prep the brine, then dry the chicken after brining), which makes the meat moist

For what it's worth, there are a number of simple recipes for roasting chicken that don't require brining or any long marinating period but still come out nice and moist.

Even a basic roast will be fine as long as you don't overcook it.

Ah, but it's not that simple. A chicken is not a spherical piece of uniform meat. Getting the temp right and pulling the chicken at the right time (so that the legs are fully cooked while the breast is not) isn't really easy. Techniques like spatchcocking make this easier, but it all trades off time and convnience.

Ultimately, however, brining has outright phenomenal effects on meat tenderness and moisture that simple cannot be replicated by timing and temperature changes. It creates complex chemical changes in the muscle that lead to a far simpler cooking process, and the meat also stays moister longer than cooking. This is covered in detail in cooking chemistry books.

See, for example: http://modernistcuisine.com/recipes/injection-brining/

"Yet the perfect roast chicken is nearly impossible to achieve in practice. The temperature required to brown and crisp the skin is so high that it leaves the meat underneath scorched and dry. The dark thigh and leg meat similarly need higher heat than is ideal for the white breast meat. Brining the chicken in salt water can help the delicate breast meat retain more juice at higher temperatures, but the brine has the same effect on the skin, which then ends up unpleasantly chewy."

This is basically scientific fact: you cannot achieve what you want without brining without putting in effort and time.

> Getting the temp right and pulling the chicken at the right time (so that the legs are fully cooked while the breast is not) isn't really easy.

It's not trivial, but I think it's pretty easy after you've done it a couple of times.

> Techniques like spatchcocking make this easier, but it all trades off time and convenience.

Right. I do something similar, though I cut the legs all the way off. It takes a couple of minutes, but it's pretty simple.

Wow HN, you are eating way too much rotisserie chicken!

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