Normandy Chicken Fricassee (EP)

• 1 chicken (about 3 1/2 pounds), cut into 8 pieces (2 legs, 2 thighs, and 2 breasts, halved), skin removed
• 1/2 teaspoon salt, or to taste
• 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, or to taste
• 3 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 1 cup diced (1/2-inch) carrots
• 2 medium onions, cut into 1-inch dice (1 1/2 cups)
• 1/2 cup diced (1/2 inch) celery
• 2 garlic cloves, coarsely chopped (1 teaspoon)
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
• 1/4 teaspoon dried thyme
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 cup dry white wine (such as Chardonnay) [I guess I used a Chenin Blanc Viognier]
• 1/2 cut water
• 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup heavy cream
• 1/2 cup frozen baby peas
• 2 tablespoons Calvados or applejack [I used the applejack I bought for the Duck and Apples dish]

Mise en place.

Browning the chicken pieces.

Add the carrots, onions, celery, garlic, parsley (what parsley?  hahah), thyme, and bay leaf.  Cover and cook for five minutes.  Add wind and water, cover, and simmer for 20 minutes.

I made my first beurre manie which is a paste one makes of equal parts flour and butter.  The combination of fat and butter is not a novel one to me since I've cooked a roux a handful of times, but it's sort of cool to do something for the first time.

Remove and reserve the chicken.  Add beurre manie, whisking steadily.  Add cream and peas and bring to a boil and then a 1 minute simmer.  Off heat, stir in the Calvados and taste for seasoning.

This was quite good.  As a classic French dish, it doesn't have much of a chance to really wow me, but this wasn't a bad dish at all.  It'd be nice to eat off a dinner plate, but we didn't have the luxury at that time.
The vegetable were a little less than tender, but overall, I executed this well.  It came together effortlessly after the prep.

Crispy Braised Chicken Thighs with Black Bean Tapenade (GK)

Marinated Chicken

• 1/2 cup salt
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 orange, sliced
• 4 or 5 sprigs fresh thyme
• 1/2 onion, chopped
• 5 garlic cloves, peeled and smashed with the back of a knife
• 1 tablespoon black peppercorns, toasted
• 1 tablespoon coriander seeds, toasted
• 1 teaspoon red pepper flakes
• 3 pounds chicken thighs with skin (about 8), bone-in

Bring all the ingredients and 6 cups of water to a boil.  Then brine the thighs overnight.

Draining a bit on paper towels.

Sauce

• 2 tablespoon blended oil(half vegetable, half olive oil) [Just now realizing that the recipe called for the same two lines in the list of ingredients for 1 tablespoon blended oil.  In its second use in my execution, I said "Screw it.  I'm just using olive oil."]
• 1/2 onion, chopped
• 4 garlic cloves, chopped
• 1 quart chicken broth
• 1/2 cup white wine
• 2 tablespoons butter

Mise en place.

Browned chicken.

Browning the onion and garlic.

I realize here that I messed up by omitting the step of reducing the white wine (or in my current case, dry vermouth).  I brought it and the chicken to a boil in the same sauce pan.

Pour the liquid and aromatics all over the chicken, cover tightly with foil and braise in the oven for 2 hours at 275 degrees F.

Crisping the skin.

Reducing the strained liquid until it coats the back of a spoon.  Then enrich the sauce with butter.

Black Bean Tapenade

• 1/2 cup nicoise olives, pitted and roughly chopped [JP's Whole Foods didn't have any and I wasn't willing to make another trip for this dish before cooking it since I had delayed enough.]
• 1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
• 1 tablespoon fermented black beans
• 1 tablespoon chiffonade [Basically one rolls up broad-leafed herbs and cut super-thin ribbons of them.] of fresh mint
• 1/2 teaspoon sambal
• 1/2 teaspoon honey

None of these things are prepped.  I figured I would have enough time considering two hours of braising to do the prep during that period of time.

The dish was really damn good.  True perfection the night I cooked it.  Very moist, flavorful, rich.  Nice to see a sauce get so silky with the addition of butter.
I was worried about prepping a side (I rarely make side dishes), but the posole I made recently didn't stand on it own and proved an interesting complement.

Chicken Braised in Vinegar (BRW)

• 3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• 1/4 cup chopped pancetta or bacon
• 1 teaspoon chopped fresh rosemary leaves or 1/2 teaspoon dried
• 2 fresh thyme sprigs or 1/2 teaspoon dried
• 3 garlic cloves, peeled and lightly smashed
• 1 chicken, 3 to 4 pounds, cut into serving pieces, or 2 1/2 to 3 pounds chicken parts, trimmed of excess fat
• Salt and black pepper to taste
• 1/2 cup good-quality red wine or balsamic vinegar
• Chopped fresh parsley leaves for garnish
  

Mise en place. Except for, notably, the chicken.


Browning the pancetta, herbs, and garlic in olive oil. An awful lot of olive oil.


Adding the rendered fat from the pancetta and browning the chicken, I was left with a crazy amount of oil left in the pan. After I reduced the sauce, it looked like all fat and I was right.
But one couldn't exactly pour out excess grease with all the aromatics.


The chicken was well cooked, but the sauce was quite useless. I accompanied it with some salted (to draw out moisture) and charred summer squash (at its peak in my repertoire, it's basically all I had for dinner).
If I was looking for a vinegar-y, Italian chicken dish, I'd probably just go back to the first dish I ever blogged about: Sweet and Sour Chicken, also from Bittman's The Best Recipes in the World. Though it was really really heavy.

Pan-Roasted Chicken with Sage-Vermouth Sauce (CATKTV) and Mashed Potatoes (The Best Light Recipe)

I'm pretty sure this is the first time I've broken out two cookbooks for one dinner. I'm kind of allergic to making side dishes, but I couldn't just call the chicken recipe a meal and leave it at that. Besides, I managed to finish both dishes at about the same time.
Yes, both cookbooks are America's Test Kitchen cookbooks.

Pan-Roasted Chicken Breasts with Sage-Vermouth Sauce

• 1/2 cup table salt
• 2 (1/2-pound) whole bone-in, skin-on chicken breasts, split in half along breast bone and trimmed of rib sections
• 1 teaspoon vegetable oil
• 1 large shallot, minced (about 4 tablespoons)
• 3/4 cup low-sodium chicken broth
• 1/2 cup dry vermouth
• 4 medium sage leaves, each leaf torn in half
• 3 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into 3 pieces
• Table salt and ground black pepper

Brining chicken for 30 minutes. I was supposed to do this in the fridge according to the recipe, but after a day of defrosting in the fridge, the breasts were still largely frozen so I did this at room temperature.
from Wikipedia:

Brining makes cooked meat moister by hydrating the cells of its muscle tissue before cooking, via the process of osmosis, and by allowing the cells to hold on to the water while they are cooked, via the process of denaturation.^[1] The brine surrounding the cells has a higher concentration of salt than the fluid within the cells, but the cell fluid has a higher concentration of other solutes.^[1] This leads salt ions to diffuse into the cell, whilst the solutes in the cells cannot diffuse through the cell membranes into the brine. The increased salinity of the cell fluid causes the cell to absorb water from the brine via osmosis.^[1] The salt introduced into the cell also denatures its proteins.^[1] The proteins coagulate, forming a matrix that traps water molecules and holds them during cooking. This prevents the meat from dehydrating.


Browning skin-side down on the stove top in my rarely used cast-iron skillet.


Flipping them over. It sort of looks golden brown.


After browning, the breasts go into a 450 degree Farenheit over for 15 to 18 minutes or however long it takes the thickest part of the breast to reach 160 to 165 degrees. Then you remove the chicken from the pan and begin to build the sauce.


Sauce mise en place. Completed at some point while juggling the chicken and mashed potatoes.


Brown the shallot until softened.


Finishing the sauce by whisking the butter in 3 tablespoons at a time after the sauce had reduced to about 3/4 cup.


The finished chicken with light mashed potatoes. I wish the sage had been a bit more forward.

Mashed Potatoes

• 2 pounds russet potatoes (about 4 medium), scrubbed, peeled, and cup into 1-inch cubes
• Salt
• 3/4 cup 2 percent milk, warmed
• 1 tablespoon unsalted butter, melted
• 1/2 cup low-fat sour cream
• Ground black pepper
  

The potatoes I peeled.


Boiling the potatoes until tender enough for a knife to easily slip through... Took longer than I thought.


Apparently my roommate must have packed her potato masher already. I swear that I must've bought one when I lived in Sunset Park in Brooklyn about 2 years ago, but couldn't locate it. (It'll be a different story tonight [I own up to the fact that it can sometimes take me a rather long time to finish a blog entry]) when I mash sweet potatoes for another dish tonight.
I was somehow supposed to fold the sour cream into the potatoes. Perhaps that would actually have seemed to have happened if the potatoes has been processed finer (BTW, apparently the way to make the smoothest representations of this dish to use use a ricer or a food mill. the latter is totally on my Amazon wish list.). The potatoes were perfectly edible if far from perfect and I could see how the recipe would be a success low-fat version of the dish with the right equipment in hand.

In any case, I feel I should say a little bit about the book the mashed potatoes came from The Best Light Recipe from America's Test Kitchen. ATK usually doesn't give a damn about fat and calorie content while perfecting their recipes; the bottom like is flavor. But the staff begged founder Chris Kimball to do a light cookbook and he set out a challenge for them: to make a great low-fat cheesecake. I'm sure you can figure out the rest.
Anyway, after reading enough Michael Pollan and getting freaked out by the artificiality of low-fat food (even basic dairy), I come from the same position as ATK stands for in general. However, I'm game if they are. Never hurts to cut back on unnecessary richness every now and then and I'll own up to ordering Starbucks drinks made with skim. They're so damn sweet.

Pipian Verde de Pollo (Chicken and Green Pumpkin Seed Sauce)

So I've worshiped Rick Bayless ever since I had his food for the first time when I visited Chicago in April. It was going to be a long time before I finally start reading Authentic Mexican, but lo and behold, I discover he's released an iPad app and those take much less commitment to absorb.
Anyway, here is my first go at his cuisine. Even though it has none of what I probably loved so dearly in Illinois: smoke.

from the Rick Bayless iPad app

• 1/2 teaspoon dried marjoram [Immediately I know that I haven't bought marjoram yet out of the forty something other things I own already]
• 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
• 3 bay leaves
• Salt (divided use)
• 6 (about 3 3/4 pounds total) bone-in chicken breast halves
• 1 1/4 cup (about 6 ounces) hulled untoasted pumpkin seeds
• 1/2 small white onion, sliced 1/4 inch thick
• 2 garlic cloves, peeled and halved
• 8 ounces (5 to 6 medium) tomatillos, husked rinsed and roughly chopped
• 2 large romaine lettuce leaves, torn into large pieces
• Fresh hot green chiles to taste (roughly 2 serranos or 1 jalapeno), stemmed, seeded [You pussy] if you wish and roughly chopped
• Leaves from a small sprig of fresh epazote, plus an additional sprig for garnish [Can anyone tell me where to find fresh epazote in Boston?]
• 1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro, plus a few sprigs for garnish
• 1 1/2 tablespoons vegetable or olive oil
• 12 ounces (about 2 medium chayotes, peeled if you wish, pitted and cut into 1/2-inch cubes
• 10 ounces (about 2 medium zucchini, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
  

Mise en place.


Raw pepitas.


The directions led me to believe that the seeds would all pop like popcorn and turn round in shape. I stopped when they totally looked toasted.


Marjoram, thyme, gray salt (thanks Michael Chiarello), and bay leaves. All and all the essence used to poach:


The bone-in, skin-on chicken breast for 10 minutes. They should also rest in the broth off-heat for ten more minutes... Or however long it takes me to get the endless amount of prep done.


Poached chicken.


Vegetables and sauce mised.


A 1/2 cup of chopped cilantro is no light task. I used half of a bunch of this herb.


Before. A truly rather complex sauce


After.


Cook sauce until darkened and then add 2 cups of broth.
One cup had already been used in the blender since blenders don't work without some liquid.


I steamed both the chayote and zucchini squashes.


Everything goes back in the sauce to reheat for 5 minutes.


The finished dish was quite good, but it didn't send me to heaven like the presumably chipotle-infused dishes at the Frontera Grill and the airport.
I plan on cooking through all the dishes appropriate to my situation (all main courses and can kick around the fridge for a little while) until I get sick of Mexican food or more likely just wind up cooking all five of them. There'll be an entry on Slow-Cooked Achiote Pork shortly.

The Overbearing Richness of It All

Here's a photo of the Sweet and Sour Chicken I mentioned yesterday. I used double paper plates while microwaving the dish at work and still it sloshed all over the microwave and the rug (though the latter entirely camouflaged the spill). This plus a MMB cookie was overwhelming in terms of richness. I'm eating a salad for my post-work meal tonight; definitely not leftover risotto.
I've known for a couple weeks that I need to pull back from the extravagance I seem to be exhibiting in terms of the recipes I choose while menu planning for bi-weekly grocery shopping trips my parents take me on (I'm also constantly shopping in the interim for items I don't dare ask my parents to buy, aren't available at Stop & Shop, or simply won't be at its peak by the time I get around to executing a dish [i.e., produce]). Yes, Sweet and Sour Chicken does not even touch the Cassoulet I made back in December (The Complete ATK TV Show Cookbook) and I later described as the heaviest dish in the world, but I need to start thinking lighter soon. Weekly batches of MMB cookies will not help with this.