ROASTED BREASTS & CHICKEN SALAD

SOMETIMES YOU WANT THE FLAVOR OF ROASTED chicken but don't have the hour or more needed to cook a whole chicken. Or maybe your family likes roasted chicken, but no one will eat the wings and legs. Roasting bone-in breasts offers a good solution to either problem.

The main challenge when roasting chicken breasts is getting the skin crisp. We like to roast a whole chicken on a basket or V-rack to circulate the heat evenly around the bird and prevent any part of the skin from sitting in fat or cooking juices. We assumed the same thing would hold true for parts, and our tests backed up our hunch. When we roasted parts directly in the pan, the skin was flabbier than when we lifted the parts off the bottom of the pan with a flat rack. You will need a roasting pan large enough to accommodate a flat rack. A 13 by 9-inch roasting pan with fairly shallow sides (about 2 inches high) and a rack that is slightly smaller work especially well.

We next turned our attention to oven heat. We started out using the same temperature we found best for roasting a whole chicken—375 degrees. Given the shorter oven time, we found that the skin did not crisp when parts were cooked at this temperature. Next, we tried 450 degrees. After setting off several smoke alarms, we realized that this superhigh oven heat was going to cause pan drippings to burn. We eventually settled on 425 degrees. At this temperature, the skin was nice and crisp by the time the meat had cooked through. As an added protection against smoking, we found it useful to add one-half cup water to the roasting pan about 15 minutes into the cooking time.

Given the configuration of chicken breasts (the skin is generally on one side, bones on the other), we found no advantage in turning the chicken during the cooking process. Cooking them skin-side up results in the most crispy and best-browned skin. While we found that basting actually makes skin less crisp (coating the skin with liquid and/or fat makes it soggy and slows down the crisping process), we clearly detected a benefit from slipping a little butter under the skin of each piece before cooking. The melting butter helps lift the skin off the meat and causes it to puff up nicely. The butter is also a good medium for herbs, spices, chiles, and other seasonings that can flavor the meat.

Finally, as with grilled or broiled chicken breasts, we like the effect of brining on parts destined for roasting. Although not essential, brining seasons the meat through to the bone and firms up the texture, giving the chicken breasts a meatier taste.

The timing in this recipe will vary depending on the size of the breasts. We found that 7-ounce breasts cooked in 30 minutes, but that 14-ounce breasts took 45 minutes. The best serving size was 10 to 12 ounces. If you have any doubt as to whether the chicken is cooked through, use an instant-read thermometer and pull breasts from the oven once the temperature hits 160 degrees.