A Tale of Two Chickens

This week I decided to take on a couple of recipes from Thomas Keller's Ad Hoc at Home Cookbook. The recipes from Ad Hoc are intended to be family-style "you can make this at home" recipes. I like this idea because some of the recipes from say his French Laundry Cookbook which might call for something like, an entire pig's head (not really an everyday ingredient) or require three days of prep are not too accessible for the casual cook and are certainly not intended for weeknight dinner type cooking (at least not at my house). Not to say I don't cook from it, or from his other cookbook Bouchon, because I have and everything I have made has been phenomenal, it's just not "everyday" cooking.

I had lots of tasty root vegetables waiting around so I decided to start with the recipe for Whole Roasted Chicken on a bed of Root Vegetables. Out of respect for the author, I'm not going to reprint the recipe here, but if you have the book (and if you don't I recommend it) you'll find the recipe on page 22.

The thing about Thomas Keller recipes is that they are precise, explaining exactly how each ingredient should be trimmed and cut. The thing about me is, I'm not that precise when it comes to chopping vegetables, I mean, I cut everything pretty close to the prescribed sizes, but I certainly am not as exact as he is.

I did make a couple of changes to the recipe. First, it calls for leeks, rutabagas and turnips in addition to carrots, onions and potatoes. Well I didn't have leeks and I just flat out don't like turnips (and I am a grown up so I don't have to eat them if I don't want to). It's been so long since I've had rutabagas I can't remember if I like them or not. If I get the opportunity to get them in my CSA box I will happily try them again, but I had no interest in a special trip to the store to pick up a item I may or may not like, so I left them out too. What I did have was parsnips and golden beets, and since I like both of those things, into the mix they went.

Otherwise I followed Keller's instructions. I pulled out my ginormous cast iron pan and deposited my olive oil dressed vegetables along with my trussed chicken which I had rubbed the inside of with fresh thyme and garlic. Then I but 4 TABLESPOONS or butter on top of the chicken (along with some salt and pepper) and popped it into the oven. The thing is, I must have been really sleepy when I was making this because after I trussed the chicken I stupidly put the chicken into the pan breast side down instead of breast side up.

So, while it cooked just fine, the yummy crispy skin was on the wrong side of the chicken (sad). However, the chicken itself was wonderful, moist and gently seasoned. While the vegetables were really good, I personally think that 4 tablespoons of butter was at least 2 tablespoons to much. A little too greasy and not quite crispy enough for my taste. So when I make this again I think I'll go with less butter and maybe a few less vegetables in the pan (I think they might brown better if they weren't as crowded).


So, one chicken down, one to go. Each year I cook dinner for two of my best friends, their family and of course the husband and myself as my birthday gift to them (their birthdays are on two consecutive days so I can get away with one dinner as two gifts). The recipe that seems to get the most attention from this cookbook is the one for Buttermilk Fried Chicken. Because I had heard so much about this recipe I asked if I could put it on the menu. I like to try out new things on this group because they are always (luckily) a forgiving group.

This recipe is really easy to find online (in fact it is on the Amazon sale page linked above) so I'll leave you to find it for yourself. You can also buy it as a kit (which frankly seems silly to me, but you know, to each his own).

Keller specifically calls for 2 1/2 to 3 pound chickens stating that you may need to go to a farmers market to find them. However, I did not have the time to search out tiny chickens, so, I went for the smallest chickens I could find at my local QFC which were 4 pounds each.

So, once again I followed the instructions. Brined the chicken overnight, combined all the ingredients for the coating then packed everything up to prepare at my friends house.

Once there I set up two pans with oil (one for light meat and one for dark) as well as a dredging station (the chicken goes through the flour coating, then into buttermilk, then into a second batch of coating, then onto a parchment lined baking sheet until each piece was coated) and a cooling rack. This took A LOT of room.

So into the oil went my first two batches of chicken (one with thighs and one with breasts). This is when I started having serious heat control issues. A lot of the coating came off and even though the chicken was cooked to temperature the skin wasn't even crispy. Sad fried chicken.

This is when I started to get despondent (and thankful for a kind group of friends (and my cocktail)). Time for a few adjustments. We turned off the kitchen fan, readjusted the temperature controls and waited for the oil to come back up to temperature. In went the drumsticks, a second batch or breasts and once they were done, the legs.

Success (mostly). As we gathered around the table I encouraged everyone to try the drumsticks first (as they were the most golden brown and delicious) then the breasts, then the legs (I didn't even serve those first two batches, bleaagh). I was supposed to have fried up some fresh thyme and rosemary to sprinkle over the top, but at this point I was just happy to be getting something edible on the table so we decided to just dig in.

You can see from the picture that I also served a tower of biscuits. What not pictured is some very delicious macaroni and cheese (which my 5-year old picky-eater Goddaughter actually approved of) and a salad made with greens, the white-wine poached pears that I canned in November, blue cheese and glazed nuts.

The chicken was really good. The brine kept it really, really moist (and added a great flavor) and the coating was lightly seasoned, crispy and delicious. In the cookbook Thomas Keller says that once you try this chicken you'll want to add it to your weekly routine. Well, while it was very good, it was a lot of work. It might make an every six months routine at our house.


To end the meal I served cake balls (similar to these). One of my diners was almost two-year old Rowan. He was cracking me up while he was eating them so I snapped a few pictures (yeah, they're a little blurry but it was a little dark and little kids move fast).

Here's the approach.

Next a few nibbles off the bottom.

Then the whole thing went in.

He looked like a chipmunk hoarding nuts.


Too cute.

Dinner For Friends

Friday night I had the opportunity to make dinner for a few friends to celebrate two of their birthdays. I always like to try out a new thing or two when I cook for friends as they are generally a forgiving group if something doesn't turn out right.

I presented a few menu options to my friends and they picked this one:
Fettuccine Bolognese with Homemade Egg Pasta
Chopped Salad
Garlic Bread
Lemon Creme Brulee with Fresh Blueberries

I wanted to make a classic Bolognese sauce so I turned to Italian Classics from Cook's Illustrated.

You can look up the recipe, but basically the sauce is made up of equal parts minced carrot, onion and celery (4 tablespoons of each) with equal parts ground beef, pork and veal (a half-pound each). This gets browned then you add milk and let it simmer until it is gone, then add white wine and let it simmer until it is gone, then add tomatoes and simmer for what seems like forever. All in all it was simmering for about 8 hours. I served this over some homemade fettuccine.

Check out my mad knife skillzs.









And the finished product.














The chopped salad I made is a copy of the Pagliaccio salad from Pagliacci's Pizza here in town. About a year ago I asked them is they would share the recipe for the dressing. The person who responded to my request said that they could tell me what was in it, but not the amounts. After a little tinkering I have created a reasonable facsimile. Here's the recipe I came up with.

Chopped Salad with Dijon-Tarragon Dressing
1 head romaine lettuce, chopped
1 can garbanzo beans, drained and rinsed
1 red bell pepper, chopped
1/2 red onion, chopped
1 cup mozzarella cheese
4 ounce salami, diced
1 recipe Dijon-tarragon dressing

Toss together all ingredients with enough dressing to coat.

Dijon-Tarragon Dressing
1 clove garlic
2 Tablespoon red wine vinegar
2 Tablespoon lemon juice
1 egg plus 1 egg yolk
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1/4 teaspoon sugar
1 Tablespoon Dijon mustard
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1 Tablespoon fresh tarragon
1 2/3 cup olive oil

Add all the ingredient except the oil to the work bowl of a food processor. Pulse to chop. Turn processor on and add oil in a steady stream until incorporated. Keep at room temperature for 2 hours. Refrigerate for up to 1 week.


I bought a par baked foccaia bread (I was feeling too lazy for bread baking, especially after the fresh pasta making) and made an olive oil and herb topping with minced garlic, rosemary, sage, basil salt and pepper. This smelled divine as it was cooking (and received a very picky four-year old's thumbs up, high praise indeed).

I used the recipe for creme brulee from Cook's Illustrated but, knowing that I was going to pair it with the fresh blueberries from the CSA box this week, I added the zest of a lemon and a little squeeze of lemon juice to the cream as it was steeping (because I love lemon with blueberries).



















Yum.

















Since I had some extra egg whites (since the Creme Brulee only uses yolks) I did the only responsible thing. I made Meringues. But not just Meringues, Five-Spice Cocoa Meringues.

I started with the recipe from Epicurious for Cocoa Meringue Kisses but with a few tweaks. I added about two teaspoons of five-spice powder and since I didn't have cream of tarter, I used lemon juice instead and since I used lemon juice instead of cream of tarter I added about a tablespoon extra of sugar. I toyed with adding some cayenne to the mix but since a four-year old was to be one of the guests I didn't think that was a great idea (but I do think it would have been fantastic). I baked them for 35 minutes. They were crunchy on the outside and chewy on the inside.

Here they are.
Again, yum.














Dinner (and dessert) was all great! And of course the company was delightful. I'm always so glad to be able to share my gifts with people in my life (and judging from the raves, they are happy for that too).

I'm so glad that I had the forethought to make lots of extra sauce so that I can eat it again (perhaps tonight). And, oh my, I just remembered that I have extra creme brulee in the fridge. Gotta go!