Reply To: Recipes for People Who Don’t Know How to Cook

Fryers are usually smaller and younger chickens, and roasters are generally larger, older chickens. What makes one better for a specific type of cooking method is that as frying is a shorter cooking time, it is easier to fry small pieces of chicken, which also cook more quickly. Large hens toughen with age, so they are best for stewing, making chicken soup, or roasting in a bit of liquid, (better still if marinated first for a few hours), to soften the tougher parts.