Whole Chicken

Potatoes roasted with olive oil and chopped fresh rosemary are a nice accompaniment. What to drink: Poggio del Sasso.

Active time: 30 min Start to finish: 1 1/2 hr

Use leftover chicken if you have any on hand, or start with a rotisserie chicken. Be sure to pick up the sliced peppers from the salad bar while you're at the market. Crunchy sesame breadsticks are all you need to complete the meal — except, of course, dessert, which could be pineapple slices sprinkled with coconut and broiled.

Renee brings the flavors of the Middle East to her special Friday-night chicken. Roast chunks of butternut squash and potatoes alongside to cook the whole meal at once. Look for roasting chickens next to the fryers.

This will make more barbecue sauce than you'll need for the chicken. After measuring out basting and serving amounts, save the leftover sauce for another grilling use. It will keep, covered and chilled, 2 weeks. Active time: 1 hr Start to finish: 3 hr

We recommend using the freshest watercress possible — if not at its best, it can give the sauce a slightly bitter taste. (Try hydroponic watercress; it's generally better than conventionally grown supermarket cress.) Tanis suggests skimming all the fat from the cooking liquid and serving the broth as a first-course soup, garnished with toasted slices of French bread.

I came up with this recipe one day when I was boiling a big old hen for chicken soup and had plenty of meat left over, but if you don't care to fool with that, the casserole can easily be made with a nicely roasted chicken picked up in a deli or supermarket.

One could cook this on the stove and reduce the time by 10 minutes, but oven baking gives the chicken time to thoroughly absorb the flavors of the pepper and garlic. See how to joint a chicken.

A simple but flavorful poultry main course.

Serve with black-eyed peas, biscuits, a watercress salad and cold beer or iced tea.

What to drink: The menu's sweet-tart flavors call for a floral Riesling or spicy Syrah.

As a working mother with four daughters, my mom had very little spare time, yet she always managed to turn out meals reminiscent of her native Canton, China. This dish, one of her specialties, takes its name from the moist, velvety texture the chicken gets from being poached at a low temperature. My mother loved the short preparation time (the chicken finishes cooking through heat retained in a covered pot) and that the poaching liquid can be strained and then chilled or frozen to be used again. Active time: 20 min Start to finish: 1 1/2 hr

Perfect for a picnic, this roasted chicken is as flavorful cold as it is hot - and it even tastes good at home.

For this robust and easy entrée, chicken is baked with a barbecue-style glaze. Removing the skin cuts back on fat.

A sensational version of roast chicken that is great with rice.

(Braised Chicken with Chilies and Chinese Long Beans) The intoxicating seasoning paste in this Eurasian stew may be used to flavor chicken, beef, lamb, or seafood.