Wings or drumstick? Roasted chook is a favourite worldwide.
Miracle Mike was a Wyandotte rooster who, in 1945-46, lived for 18 months after his head had been mostly cut off.
No, really. Though it was long thought a hoax, headless Mike was taken to the University of Utah in Salt Lake City where his authenticity was duly verified.
It all started with farmer Lloyd needing a chicken for dinner to feed his mother-in-law. He swung the axe at Mike but missed the jugular, leaving one ear and most of rooster's brain stem intact. The mishap left him still able to be fed on a mix of milk and water via an eyedropper, and balance on a perch and walk clumsily - thus launching a new career as part of an animal sideshow which also included a two-headed calf.
At the height of his popularity, the chicken earned $61,500 and, distressingly, its success resulted in a wave of copycat chicken beheadings, though no other chicken lived for more than a day or two. Miracle Mike eventually choked to death in March 1947.
Mike may have bizarrely escaped the dinner plate but, today, chicken is one of the most regularly purchased protein grocery items, and it is found in a diverse range of dishes.
At top-end restaurants in Europe, chefs cook chicken on the crown. This is a method of patting dry the chicken, seasoning it and searing it in a frying pan before placing it on a trivet of root vegetables to roast until the breasts are just cooked. The breast meat is then removed and the bird returned to the oven to cook the legs. When they're done, they are also removed and the carcass is chopped and simmered to make a sauce. At the end, you will have two crunchy chicken legs and tender breasts. If you are roasting the bird whole, one of the best tests to see if it's cooked is to make a small incision between the breast and leg. If the juice runs clear and the meat seems tender, it's done.
The other tip for preparing a drumstick is to remove the foot end to expose a pin bone before cooking. As it cooks the meat will pull back on the bone and make the drumstick easy to pick up and eat with your fingers. Try cutting through the joint of chicken wings to remove the wing tip and pull the meat back over the central bone so it resembles a parachute. It makes a delicious, easy-to-handle finger food. And there is always chicken neck, rolled through beaten eggs and buttermilk, then crumbed in cornflour and polenta and fried until crunchy.
