Dinner! 2014 (Part 2)

[huiray]

• Asparagus, spring onions, Chinese chive flower buds, shallots, eggs, salt, oil.  Fried.

• Halibut, bunapi-shimeji, celery, oil, white pepper, hon-mirin, key lime juice, Himalayan salt.  Steamed.

• White rice.

 

 

[Ashen]

Lamb burger and salad. 

 

 

 

 

[caroled]

• Asparagus, spring onions, Chinese chive flower buds, shallots, eggs, salt, oil.  Fried.

• Halibut, bunapi-shimeji, celery, oil, white pepper, hon-mirin, key lime juice, Himalayan salt.  Steamed.

• White rice.

 

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I looked for this big fat asparagus since Easter, all we had at Marsh was the really thin pencil skinny ones. Finally last night we had the big thick purple tipped ones.  Will be roasted for Mother's Day brunch.

Edited May 10, 2014 by caroled (log)

[huiray]

I looked for this big fat asparagus since Easter, all we had at Marsh was the really thin pencil skinny ones. Finally last night we had the big thick purple tipped ones.  Will be roasted for Mother's Day brunch.

 

Ah.  They're available freshly harvested at the farmers' markets.  I got those in the pic from BRFM last week.  I got more today, and also all-purple ones (big and fat) from the Carmel Farmers' Market.

 

ETA: I included a pic of the asparagus in a post here, which also gives links to the various places I got stuff from.

Edited May 10, 2014 by huiray (log)

[David Ross]

Radish and butter sandwich.

Sancerre, Pascal Jolivet 2013, France

Arugula and chickweed salad, poached farm egg, bacon and ramp vinaigrette

Poached arctic char, glazed carrots with mint

beautiful, (and I am sure delicious), dishes......and fresh radishes and butter are one of best...........thanks for posting

[Blether]

Lamb burger and salad. 

 

 

Ashen, did you grind up the burger yourself?  What meat & grind size(s), and how was it ?  I have this on my radar (I'll probably do lamb/mutton sausages first), but have no immediate experience to report from.

[mm84321]

Lobster Newburg

[weinoo]

 

Spaghetti with bottarga, lemon zest and bread crumbs.

[Ann_T]

Huiray,  Love all of your dishes.  Halibut is my favourite and your asparagus with eggs looks delicious.  

 

Ashen, now that is one beautiful burger.

 

A couple of recent meals.

 

 

Halibut and Clams in a Cioppino broth.

 

Roast Chicken Italian style. Cut up a whole chicken. Added onions, garlic cloves, zucchini, potatoes, cherry tomatoes and black olives. Seasoned with fresh rosemary, salt and pepper and drizzled with olive oil.

[Steve Irby]

Ann-T Beautiful complete meals as usual. Huiray and MM84321 continue to turn out an amazingly high volume of great looking dishes.

Last night my wife wanted meatballs and I wanted chicken. So I pulled some meatballs from the freezer that I had prepared with mushrooms and spinach to serve over pasta plus grilled chicken over pasta with curly kale and garlic. Both served with a generous amount of Piave cheese.

And from earlier in the week a tomato basil soup topped with a little feta. The soup base included some of the jelly from the easter ham which really adds a lot of extra flavor.

[rotuts]

S.I.:

 

those Chickens look delicious.  Breasts ?  

 

how did you season to get such delicious looking skin ?

 

Bon Appetite !

[weinoo]

Those look like thighs to me - and a bit of smoke.

[rotuts]

yes,  they do.

[Steve Irby]

yes,  they do.

I cooked the chicken thighs with indirect heat in my weber kettle. I used a pretty hot fire with lots of pecan to get a heavy smoke. No basting or flipping either.

[patrickamory]

Roast chicken. Prepared via the Hazan method which means trussing.

 

 

 

I know there are disputes about this, but my roast chicken comes out with perfectly cooked white and dark meat every time - the former is juicy and flavorful, the latter just done. I wonder whether the need for spatchcocking and all that stems from using modern chickens which are bred for larger breasts and thus have that real imbalance between the white and dark meat?

 

In any event, whether it's my chicken (small, New York farm-raised, with normal-sized breasts), or the method (Hazan, started upside-down with self-basting lemons, and trussed tight), I urge you to try this one. 

 

Here's my adaptation of Hazan.

 

1 chicken - preferably not stuffed with antibiotics & big breasted - 3 1/2 lbs

2 1/2 tbs kosher or sea salt

3/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper

1/2 tsp sweet paprika

1/2 star anise, ground

3+ Sichuan peppercorns, toasted for 2 minutes till fragrant, and ground

2 small lemons

butchers' twine and trussing needle

 

If possible, start 4-6 hours before cooking. Remove giblets and save for whatever. Pat chicken thoroughly dry with paper towels, inside and out, and place on a cookie rack over the roasting pan (I use an oval glass baking dish that is just the size of the bird).

 

Combine all dry ingredients thoroughly and rub chicken all over with the mixture, inside and out. Set on top of rack over roasting pan and refrigerate 4-6 hours, in an area of the fridge where the air can circulate all around the chicken.

 

When ready to cook: preheat oven to 350 F. Remove chicken from fridge; discard any liquid at the bottom of the roasting pan. Remove cookie rack and place chicken directly in pan.

 

Take each lemon and roll back and forth on the counter top, using flats of both hands if necessary, so that all the juice inside gets free of the segments. (Some liquid may leak on to the counter top.) Place each lemon sequentially in a bowl and pierce at least 20 times all over with the trussing needle. Make sure to pierce the ends (more difficult) as well as the sides of the lemons. Place both lemons inside the chicken's cavity.

 

Thread your trussing needle and sew up the cavity. You may have to stretch the skin and pope's nose to squeeze around the second lemon, which will be poking out. Try to sew as tightly as possible. Now sew the neck cavity shut. Finally, tie the two drumsticks together tightly above the point of the breastbone, one atop of the other.

 

Turn the chicken upside-down (legs on the bottom). Place in center of oven for 30 minutes.

 

Remove from oven, turn the chicken right side-up. Cook for another 30 minutes.

 

Now, raise temperature to 450 F and cook for another 20 minutes.

 

Remove from oven. Resting doesn't seem to make a huge difference unless you're just short of being done - it will help get the breast meat just right if it's slightly rare on the very inside. I don't find that internal thigh temperature is a great guide here because what you're really trying to do is get the breast meat right, and that can vary. You have to use your sense of whether it's done. The breast will go from underdone to overdone in a very short time.

 

When carving, make sure you save the internal juices that come out to pour over the chicken. I like to serve with white rice and pour the juices into it. The pan juices, alas, will be too salty to use, so discard those. Also discard the lemons inside the chicken - the juices will have become bitter - and serve the chicken and rice with fresh lemon slices.

 

Notes (most of the following is conjecture):

 

- the paprika adds a wonderful bronze color in addition to flavor - use good fresh paprika

- the salted refrigeration step is essentially a "dry brine" and tightens the skin

- the Sichuan peppercorns and star anise add depth of flavor - very background but great

- the upside-down cooking the trussed bird with the rolled pierced lemons self-bastes the breast

- the final 20 minutes gives you that wonderful crisp breast despite the upside-down stage

- for a 3-lb chicken, do 30 mins, 25 mins and 20 mins

- for a 2 1/2 lb chicken, do 25, 25 and 20

- generally, think 20-25 mins per lb, but keep in mind this method doesn't work well for much larger than 4 lb chickens, and probably not for the big-breasted ones

 

It may sound complex but it really isn't. I make this all the time including on weekdays. It's a real staple in our house and I've rarely had better roast chicken. Trust Marcella! (I've made quite a few tweaks to the original over the years, but the basic method is the same.)

[rotuts]

Big Yum on that chicken.

 

"""   modern chickens which are bred for larger breasts and thus have that real imbalance between the white and dark meat """

 

Back in the Day, various BBQ true experts  ( Schlesinger, et. al. ) suggested that a Ck. on the grill > 3.5 to 4 lbs was difficult to execute

 

perfectly.  Its True.  Now serious  BBQ experts concentrate on there sudsy personal beverage after Its on the Grill.

 

I think its very difficult to 'Roast'  ie Weber a Chicken ( which is just a smoky oven ) a bird > 4lbs.  I do vertical which makes it even easier.

 

to get back to you observations, I just did two Perdue-ish birds.  on sale.  smallest i could get was 7.5 lbs apiece.

 

did the vertical method.  Rub, nothing else.

 

the dark meat in the thickest part was fine, over cooked on the other bits.  Breast OK to a little less than OK

 

so i think you are correct.   the saved dark meat however, turned out terrific  over then next few days in a Chicken over

 

rice dish   ( sauce/gravy  thickened   then the cooked chicken added   this then the topping for the rice.

 

the chewy bits were delicious over the rice.

 

but thats day to.

 

i think you are correct on the ratio of White to Dark, independent of the chickens life style before it gets to our place and the

 

oven.

 

I think spatchcocking just cooks the bird quicker.

[Anna N]

What I really wanted for dinner tonight was garlic shrimp with a baguette. No baguette in the house and too late to make one. This then was a compromise. Never compromise.

[chefmd]

First of the season wild king salmon!  The fish was so perfect, I felt it did not need much but a squeeze of lemon juice and blanched green beans and peas. " It's like butter" said my friendly fishmonger.  And she was right.

[rotuts]

Yum on that salmon.

[SobaAddict70]

nice roast chicken, patrick. my roast chicken is the Thomas Keller recipe which shares one similarity with Marcella's in that they both advocate for trussing.

tonight:

Roasted asparagus and poached farm egg, with mullet bottarga and shaved Appalachian cheese

Soupe au pistou (adapted from pages 92-93 of "My Paris Kitchen")

This differs significantly from the recipe in the book. The pistou was scaled down to serve two people (so 1 cup loosely-packed basil leaves instead of 4 cups), and the method by which the soup was prepared is different (canned chickpeas for example, instead of soaked dried beans).

[Plantes Vertes]

Soba, does 'farm egg' mean something specific like 'free-range', or do you mean you got it from the farm?

[SobaAddict70]

Soba, does 'farm egg' mean something specific like 'free-range', or do you mean you got it from the farm?

It's to differentiate them from eggs from factory farms.

The eggs I buy are from USGM, from vendors like Quattro's Game Farm and Violet Hill Farm. They sell heritage meats (heritage beef, pork, lamb, chicken) and eggs that are antibiotic-free/free-range/organic.

There are some folks who don't see a difference between farm eggs and non-farm eggs; it's a big planet, with room for them and people like me. 

[Plantes Vertes]

Thanks for the explanation.

 

Egg shopping habits in the UK have thankfully changed massively over the last ten or so years. Free range overtook battery farm eggs in 2012 and several supermarkets only stock free range. Tesco is the biggest supermarket over here; they have said that consumer choice is their priority so still sell eggs from caged hens.

[SobaAddict70]

Thanks for the explanation.

 

Egg shopping habits in the UK have thankfully changed massively over the last ten or so years. Free range overtook battery farm eggs in 2012 and several supermarkets only stock free range. Tesco is the biggest supermarket over here; they have said that consumer choice is their priority so still sell eggs from caged hens.

 

Probably material for another thread (although I'm sure not news to folks who have been around for a while ... you have only to look elsewhere to see the debates/arguments that roil back and forth between those who think one way and those who feel differently ), but the U.S. is regrettably years behind such a state of affairs.  Still, some things are better now than years ago, but we have miles to go before the phrase "factory farm" disappears from our vocabulary.

[Ashen]

Ashen, did you grind up the burger yourself?  What meat & grind size(s), and how was it ?  I have this on my radar (I'll probably do lamb/mutton sausages first), but have no immediate experience to report from.

Sorry it was bought ground. I do often grind my own beef for burgers but I haven't looked into good choices of cut or grind for lamb. The burger itself turned out quite well.  I am a plain  beef burger fan,  patties that are simply seasoned with s&p and cooked hot and fast .   If I am making burgers with other meats on the other hand , I usually end up tarting it up a bit more.  This time  I sweated down some diced onion and sweet red peppers  , juice of half a lemon in the pan then left to reduce down. I put this aside to cool .  In a bowl I had minced garlic, lemon zest, dried  greek oregano, the onion/pepper mixture , a good pinch of a spice blend I made with coriander seed, red chile flake, white pepper, and marjoram, S& P and the lamb.. mixed til just combined and made the patties. ( actually I fried off a small bit first to check seasoning and needed a bit more s &p)  homemade tzatziki and fine slice onion on top. 

 

 

 

Ashen, now that is one beautiful burger.

 

 

 

 

Thankyou

 

 

 

My wife has been bugging me about a couple of large stewing hens that have been in the freezer for a while . I  broke one down for dinner tonight and braised it  in a braising liquid  I made earlier  from beer,water, the chicken back, onions, carrots, a couple of baby bok choy  , garlic.     Slow oven for a few hrs.   Drained the braise liquid off and made a  sauce with beurre manie  , browned off the chicken pieces.   served with salad and  smaltz roasted hasselbacks 

 

 

Edited May 12, 2014 by Ashen (log)