{"id":10018,"date":"2014-08-29T09:48:57","date_gmt":"2014-08-29T13:48:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/?p=10018"},"modified":"2014-08-29T09:48:57","modified_gmt":"2014-08-29T13:48:57","slug":"chicken-divine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/chicken-divine\/","title":{"rendered":"Chicken Divine"},"content":{"rendered":"

September 2014 | view this story as a .pdf<\/a><\/p>\n

Who knew Portland’s restaurants would be squawking over bragging rights to the best bird?<\/h3>\n

By Claire Z. Cramer<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Chicken-Divine-Sept14\"<\/a>From our second-floor window booth at the East Ender on Middle Street, we\u2019ve got a nice view of Nova Star<\/em>\u2019s bow and a slice of the harbor. We\u2019ve come for chicken, and we discover we\u2019ve also lucked into \u201cWine-down\u201d Wednesday. A platter arrives, heaped with half a mahogany-skinned chicken set on a smear of sweet-sour mustard barbecue sauce. Hush puppies stand adjacent with a ramekin of maple sour cream for dipping. There\u2019s tangle of saut\u00e9ed spinach\u2013the fresh farm kind with actual stems\u2013garnished with paper-thin slices of seared prosciutto.<\/p>\n

This feast, simply \u201csmoked hen\u201d on the menu, is enough for two to share; it\u2019s $20, and tonight our half-price bottle of French white burgundy is $18.<\/p>\n

How is it that so many local restaurants are working so hard to make a star out of chicken just now? Owner Meg Schroeter is proud to reveal her secret. \u201cLast weekend, the chef and sous-chef drove up to Rumford and brought back 30 from Roaring Lion Farm.\u201d The hens spend a day soaking in a brine of spices, bay leaves, and honey before a \u201clow and slow\u201d spell in the restaurant\u2019s smoker. They\u2019re finished on the grill.<\/p>\n

This chicken is meaty and juicy, tasting of each step it\u2019s undergone in East Ender\u2019s kitchen. The hush puppies\u2013crusted, cakelike, and golden with yellow cornmeal\u2013may have just knocked Salvage BBQ\u2019s out of first place.<\/p>\n

When you start asking around about chicken sourcing, you get a lot of different answers but absolutely no indifference. Chefs are as serious about chicken as anything they serve. And diners care. No more dried-out boneless breast fillet orphaned at the bottom of the menu.<\/p>\n

At Timber on upper Exchange Street, whole golden chickens revolve slowly in a fridge-sized rotisserie oven. It\u2019s a tempting sight through the window on the door.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think I ever ordered chicken in a restaurant before I started working here,\u201d says bartender Michael Wescott. \u201cBut this rotisserie oven is outrageous.\u201d<\/p>\n

Timber sources two-and-a-half-pound Patuxent Farm chickens (a brand of natural bird distributed to\u2013but not from\u2013Maine) which are offered as half or whole birds with a choice of dipping sauces including bearnaise, lemon garlic, Thai peanut, and bacon\/blue cheese.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese chickens come in fresh<\/em>. We brine them with salt, a little sugar, fresh herbs, chicken stock, and a bit of bourbon,\u201d says Timber\u2019s chef Casey Christensen. \u201cWe rotisserie them slowly, at about 275 degrees.\u201d A half-chicken ($18) comes out on a platter garnished with spears of fresh rosemary and\u00a0 thyme and a whole lemon that\u2019s been halved and charred on the grill, adding depth to the\u00a0 lemon flavor. The chicken\u2019s been brined so subtly it\u2019s indiscernible\u2013except for the juicy effect it\u2019s had on the meat. You may forget that Timber is a steakhouse as you eat this chicken with your fingers.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe make our fried buffalo croquettes from rotisserie chicken, pulled off the bones and minced with onions and blue cheese,\u201d says Christensen. Drizzled in spicy buffalo sauce and served with celery sticks and blue cheese dip, these crumb-crusted treats are just the thing at happy hour for $5 with a glass of $4 local brew.<\/p>\n

At Lolita, \u201cWe spatchcock game hens or poussins by removing the backbone and pressing them flat before grilling,\u201d says chef Guy Hernandez. And what a grill\u2013it\u2019s cuisine as theater, wood-fired with adjustable racks visible to curious diners. \u201cJust before serving the whole bird [$24], we cut it in two so it\u2019s easy to share.\u201d His birds are supplied by \u201cProvisions International\u2013they find us New-York-state poussins and Cavendish Farm quail from Vermont\u201d\u2013and other quality farm birds around the Northeast as available.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe use organic Bell & Evans chickens,\u201d says Paige Gould, who owns Central Provisions with her husband, Chris. Their dazzling Chicken Bo Ssam ($21) electrifies with green papaya and Thai condiments.<\/p>\n

\u201cI eat my own all-natural chickens every day,\u201d says Ryan Wilson at Common Wealth Farm in Whitefield. \u201cI like raising them, processing them, cutting them up, selling them, and eating them. I do this 7 days a week, 12 hours a day. Chicken farming\u2019s not for everyone, but I don\u2019t want to do anything else.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wilson, 26, and his girlfriend and business partner, Gina Simmons, are raising and processing about 20,000 birds a year. Right now, they\u2019re setting up a collaboration with Maine-ly Poultry of Warren. \u201cJohn Barnstein\u2019s been my mentor for the past three years. Maine-ly will do the raising, and we\u2019ll [transition to] a federally inspected slaughterhouse in Gardiner where we can handle higher volume.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wilson and Simmons raise Cornish Cross chickens, which Wilson explains yield a higher weight in meat for the commitment of time and feed required. Their wholesale customers extend \u201cfrom Kittery to Bar Harbor.\u201d Common Wealth\u2019s restaurant clients include Fore Street, Hugo\u2019s, Duckfat, Outliers, and the Small Axe food truck. If you buy the excellent chicken at the Rosemont Markets, you\u2019re a Common Wealth consumer, too.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur chickens are from Serendipity Acres farm in Yarmouth,\u201d says David Levi, the chef\/owner of Vinland, Portland\u2019s most exactingly local restaurant. \u201cWe run our crispy-skin chicken dish. We occasionally do special chicken hearts, and we\u2019ll be doing something with livers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Serendipity Acres also supplies the Blue Spoon on Munjoy Hill, where they serve a terrific chicken roasted under a brick ($26), a method that\u2019s long been the cafe\u2019s calling card. Only the sides and pan sauces vary with whim and the seasons.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re so lucky\u2013we have such loyal customers\u2013people who\u2019ll pay a little more for quality,\u201d says Jules Fecteau, owner for the past seven years of the chicken farming enterprise within her mother\u2019s Serendipity Acres in Yarmouth.<\/p>\n

Serendipity is \u201cMOFGA-certified organic and open pasture\u2013not just moveable cages. They have huts, but they can come and go as they like. We do our own processing, which is good, because from the moment they get here as chicks, we have complete quality control.\u201d Serendipity supplies chicken to restaurants including Fore Street, Back Bay Grill, Local Sprouts, The Well at Jordan Farm in Cape Elizabeth, and Earth in Kennebunkport.<\/p>\n

Fecteau also brings fresh and frozen birds\u2013whole and parts, including livers\u2013to the Saturday farmers\u2019 market in Deering Oaks. She and Maine-ly Poultry set up at the western edge of the market, closest to Deering Avenue. They\u2019re not alone as meat purveyors. There\u2019s more local poultry, and more meat\u2013and eggs\u2013than ever at Portland\u2019s Saturday and Wednesday markets. Local chicken costs more, but it tastes like chicken, and this is a bigger deal than you might think. And yes, you\u2019ll pay $5 for a dozen eggs, but what eggs!<\/p>\n

I roast Serendipity chicken thighs I purchase in Deering Oaks; they are memorably delicious and flavorful. Fresh livers, quickly pan-fried and then finished with a flash of wine and fresh herbs, are a revelation. Jules Fecteau is doing something rather magical up in Yarmouth.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

September 2014
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