I use a hair dryer to make roast chicken (2018) | Hacker News Reader

I use a hair dryer to make roast chicken (2018)

newyorker.com

21 pointsmitchbob28 comments

Clickbait title. "Use hair dryer to dry a roast before going into the oven for crispier skin". Not to actually cook the bird...

It says to make, not to roast or cook. Make means to create.

There's a persistent belief on the Internet that if something is literally true under some strained reading, it cannot be said to deceive. It can.

To "make" roast chicken, unless it specifically says otherwise, implies cooking it, either on its own, or as a prominent and relevant step. "It's the literal truth, I never said 'cook'" is sophistry.

This is a popular way to cloak misinformation to get it deeper into social networks. Even blatant lies often get pretty deep, but the thing to realize is that the push-back often happens when a more knowledgeable monitory notices an issue and gets loud about it. So you craft miss-information in such a way that it contains a reading where it is true. This reading is not the intended reading, clearly, it only exists to pacify a critical monitory and only when it arises (you have to stick to the original talking points otherwise). Problem solved. Now, rather than your misinformation being blatantly called out the pushback dovetails into plausibly deniable existence of multiple readings, the ill-intent behind that, and which fraction of the community probably consumed which reading... None of these spin-offs are juicy enough to go as viral as your initial message and therefore counter it so your messaging wins handily.

So, "I use salt to make roast chicken" implies you are roasting it with salt? Its called context and comprehension, who believes you can ROAST (prolonged exposure to heat in an oven or over a fire) chicken with a hair dryer

This is a completely appropriate article for HN, and I’m glad I caught it on hckernews.com since it was flagged. Quick read, learned something on the subject of chicken skin science, funny, and mostly about a hack!

What’s more of a hack than using a hair drier in the kitchen? Or using three chopsticks instead of two? (Stallman’s OG interview on “hacker” culture mentions this).

Illustrates one of the big underlying principles of good cooking: moisture management. In this case, removing excess moisture from the outside of something, so that the roasting process can most effectively make it crispy.

The same technique could be applied during the preparation of roast potatoes (after par-boiling), or pork crackling ('rind', as it's known in some countries), for other examples.

Archived: https://archive.ph/YjHW8

I have a Bosch heat gun in my kitchen.

I use it for all kinds of things:

Melting cheese on sandwiches. Adding a crust on Sous Vide meat. And roasting coffee.

Highly recommended.

Probably best to do outdoors to keep from blowing chicken bacteria all over your kitchen?

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