A frying chicken, or fryer, is a young chicken slaughtered under about 10 weeks of age and typically weighing 3 to 5 pounds, prized for tender meat and pliable skin that make it well suited to frying. It sits between a broiler (the smallest, most tender class) and a roaster (older, larger, and better suited to whole roasting) in standard poultry classifications, and is distinct from a stewing hen, an older bird with tougher meat suited to long, moist cooking rather than frying. The term is sometimes used loosely for the dish of chicken fried in oil, but that dish is properly called fried chicken; it spans traditions from Southern American fried chicken to Korean double-fried chicken and Japanese karaage, while frying chicken itself refers to the bird, not the preparation.