The chicken can be prepared in almost any way imaginable, including baking, broiling, barbecuing, roasting, frying, poaching, braising, and stewing.
Boning chicken will shorten any cooking time but will also slightly diminish the flavor. White meat and chicken without skin have fewer calories.
Chicken falls into several classifications:
The broiler-fryer can weigh up to three and a half pounds and is usually around two and a half months old. These chickens, as the name implies, are best when broiled or fried.
The larger and more flavorful roasters have a higher fat content and therefore are perfect for roasting and rotisserie cooking. They usually range from three and a half to five pounds and can be up to eight months old.
Stewing chickens (also called hens, boiling fowl, and fowl) usually range in age from ten to eighteen months and can weigh from three to six pounds. Their age makes them more flavorful but also less tender, so they’re best cooked with moist heat, as in stewing or braising.
A capon is a rooster that is castrated when quite young (usually before eight weeks), fed a fattening diet, and brought to market before it’s ten months old. Ranging from four to ten pounds, capons are full-breasted with tender, juicy, flavorful meat that is particularly suited to roasting.
Source: Cooking Smart by Sharon Tyler Herbst
