The Barefoot Kitchen Witch

FFwD – M. Jacques Armagnac Chicken

Returning to the fold…I joined French Fridays with Dorie back in October 2010, right at the beginning.  I cooked and baked along with everyone consistently for several months…and then I tapered off…and, eventually, stopped.  Not on purpose, not for any reason that I can remember.  I just had lots of other demands on my brain, I think, and something had to go.

But I missed it, I missed the fun of cooking “together” with a whole bunch of other people…and I missed the food.  So not too long ago I decided I needed to get back into the routine.  I may only participate once a month, but that’s okay.  As long as I participate.  Besides, it’s nice to have someone else decide what’s for dinner now and then!

And to kick off my return, I made this week’s selection, M. Jacques Armagnac Chicken. 

Pressure Canning Beef and Chicken Stock

Way back in May, as a combination Mother’s Day, Birthday, Christmas, and any other gift-receiving holiday you can think of, I got a pressure canner.  And I’ve been waiting to use it.  I knew that the first thing I wanted to can was homemade stock.  I make a lot of stock, chicken especially, and I’d wanted the pressure canner especially so I could put the stock in jars and give us more room in the freezer. 

Finally, a couple of weeks ago, the pressure canner made its canning debut….

Notes From Yesterday and Today So Far

Okra! 

We’ve never grown it before, so I had no idea what to look for in terms of the actual ripening fruit.  But here’s what it looks like.  Pretty interesting, no?

FFwD – Chicken B’Stilla

Ohhhh, I totally forgot what day of the week it was.  The snow days we’ve had over the last couple of weeks keep throwing me off track, at least mentally, and yesterday I kept thinking it was Sunday, because everyone was home, and so this morning I had no idea WHAT day it was, and plus I was up at 4:29 am to play with fire and pig meat and then make cheese, and then at some point today it suddenly hit me:

IT’S FRIDAY!

FRENCH FRIDAYS WITH DORIE DAY!

CHICKEN B’STILLA DAY!

French Fridays with Dorie – Spicy Vietnamese Chicken Noodle Soup

I can’t begin to tell you how happy I was when I took a look at this recipe.  Really.  Actually, “happy” doesn’t begin to cover it.  It’s happy plus…familiarity.  Like seeing an old, very dear friend.

Rosemary Garlic Chicken and Potatoes, and a Question

The smell of a roasting chicken says “home” to me.  The aroma is cozy and comforting and evocative of childhood…Sunday afternoons…cool Autumn days…dark, early evenings…cribbage games in the living room, and – a real treat – glasses of ginger ale mixed with orange juice for my sister and me.

We didn’t move – ever – when I was a child.  Our house was also my father’s place of business, so we were pretty well tied to that spot.  But once I was in college and then on my own, I lived in a variety of places in Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maine, and again in Rhode Island.

And whenever I’ve moved, I’ve had to roast a chicken soon after moving in.  I need to.  It’s my way, I think, of blessing the place.  Of saying “this is my  home.”  Instead of burning sage or incense, or popping open a bottle of champagne, I roast a chicken.

Cantonese Lemon Chicken

From Better Homes and Garden’s Wok Cuisine, Oriental to American, page 103.

Yes, Better Homes and Gardens.  Oh, don’t laugh at me.  There are a lot of good recipes, and the layout and photos are really nice, too.  So be nice.

Bill wanted to make something the kids would like, since they’re not always up for spicy stuff.  This sounded very kid-friendly and yummy, so that’s what he went with. 

Deep Fried Chicken Livers - For Jacques, My Brother-in-Law

 

A few weeks ago my brother-in-law (my sister's husband), Jacques, wrote the following on his Facebook status:

"Who the heck deep fries liver?  No, but seriously, who does that?  Really now.  Apalled."

My sister said "Not me"

And I wrote "I would!  Deep fried chicken livers?  Sounds tempting."

And Jacques said "Figures, what else could be expected from a barefoot kitchen witch."

And with those words, the gauntlet was thrown down.

De-Cluttering - Chicken with Lemon, Oregano and Roasted Garlic

Here's another one from March that I didn't post then...

I made (and wrote about) pita bread, and to accompany the bread, I made this chicken dish. 

I had a bunch of nice, big chicken thighs, which I'd rinsed and patted dry with paper towels, you know, like you're supposed to when messing around with chicken.

I planned to bake them in the oven somehow, and since I was already taking pictures of the pita bread in progress, I figured I'd get all fancy with the chicken, too.

My Kind of Gold

No, it's not jewelry or coins or highlights in my hair.

No, it's not the sun, which is finally out after days and days of "should we be building an ark?" weather.

It's stock.

Shiu Ng Heung Gai (Oven-Roasted Spiced Chicken)

   

Another winner from the Charmain Solomon's massive work The Complete Asian Cookbook.

Earlier this week, while I was making the Tea Eggs, I realized I needed to make something for dinner (we cannot survive on eggs alone...well, Julia could but Alex would mutiny) so I started flipping through the pages and found the perfect recipe for everyone in my little home.

Shiu Ng Heung Gai, or Oven-Roasted Spiced Chicken, gets a lot of its flavor from the use of five spice powder, which I'd also used in the eggs.  I love the flavor, love the smell - spicy, a bit sweet, exotic.  Sold.

Here's the recipe:

Shiu Ng Heung Gai

"This method of preparation is particularly suitable for chicken drumsticks, thighs or wings.  If if is not possible to buy selected joints, a whole chicken can be used.  See variation at end of recipe."

Oven temperature:  170-190 degrees C/350-375 degrees F

Serves:  6-8

1.5 kg (3 lbs) chicken pieces

1/3 cup light soy sauce (I didn't have light, I used what I had)

1/4 cup peanut oil

1 tablespoon Chinese wine or dry sherry (I had neither - I used whatever white wine was in the fridge)

1 clove garlic

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon finely grated fresh ginger

2 teaspoons five spice powder

Wash chicken pieces, dry well on paper towels. 

In a large shallow dish mix soy sauce, oil and wine. 

Crush garlic to a pulp with salt and add to soy mixture with ginger and five spice. 

Mix well.  Put chicken joints in marinade and turn to coat all sides. 

 

 

Cover and marinate for 1 hour or more.

 

 

Remove chicken from the marinade, put in a roasting pan in one layer and spoon about 2 tablespoons of the marinade over.  Roast in a moderate oven for 45 minutes to 1 hour or until chicken is brown and crisp, basting every 20 minutes with the marinade.  Serve hot or cold.

Wings need about 45 minutes roasting time, drumsticks from 45-55 minutes and thighs 1 hour.  Thighs should be roasted skin side uppermost.

Variation:  Make a marinade as above and rub it well all over a 1.75 kg (3 1/2 lb) roasting chicken.  Spoon some of the marinade into the cavity of the chicken as well.  Marinate for 1 hour, then roast as above, turning the chicken first on one side and then on the other so it is browned all over.  Baste frequently.  Finish cooking shicken breast upwards.  It should take about 1 hour 45 minutes.  To serve, carve chicken as for red-cooked chicken*. 

* The directions for red-cooked chicken, which is another recipe in that same section, has this to say about the carving of the whole chicken: 

"Traditionally the chicken is put on a chopping board and cut in two lengthways with a sharp cleaver.  Each half is chopped into 3.5 cm (1 1/2 inch) strips and reassembled in the original shape.  If this proves too much of an undertaking, simply carve the chicken into joints."

And now I want to sharpen my cleaver and red-cook a chicken.  Perhaps a post for another time.

~~~

To round out the meal, I also cooked up some rice and I sauteed broccoli florets in a mix of peanut oil and butter with sliced almonds.  I'm delighted to say that everyone - yes, EVERYONE - in my little family enjoyed it.  Phew!

Chicken Tetrazagne

Chicken what?

I pronounce it "tet-ra-ZAHN-yah," in case you're curious.

I had roasted a great big chicken recently and we had a lot of leftovers, so I thought I'd make chicken tetrazzini one night.  And chicken stock with the bones.

 

But.  I already had a ton of dishes to do and I didn't want any more than I really, really needed to.  Which meant I didn't want to use a pot to boil up spaghetti.

So.  I had those Barilla no-boil lasagne noodles in the pantry and thought I'd make a lasagne-ish tetrazzini.  Or a tetrazzini-ish lasagne. 

So that meant I'd only dirty a pot for the sauce and a pan for the lasagne.  Yay!

As you can see, my counters are a bit overcrowded. 

 

And that's the tidy area.  What?  The cat food?  Oh, yeah, it absorbs excess liquid and provides extra calcium and other nutrients.  I used about a quarter cup.

Okay, not really.

Here's what I really did.

I melted half a stick of butter in a big pot...

 

And then I whisked in a quarter cup of flour which makes...anyone?...that's right - a roux.

 

To that, I added a about 2 and a half cups of chicken stock, a cup of white wine, and the rest of the gravy I'd made when we first had the chicken.  Once that started bubbling, I stirred in the chicken (maybe about 3 cups or a bit more) and the leftover vegetables - in this case, grilled string beans (about half a cup), and potatoes and onions I'd roasted in the pan with the chicken (about a cup and a half of them).  And once everything was heated through, I stirred in a cup of cream. 

 

Now for the assembly...

I poured a couple of tablespoons of chicken stock in a 13 x 9 inch pyrex baking dish, swirled it around to coat the bottom of the dish, and then placed a layer of the lasagne noodles over that.

 

Then I ladled in a third of the chicken mixture...

then another layer of noodles, half the remaing chicken, more noodles, and then the last of the chicken.

 

(Yes.  I see them.  Sloppy drips I should have wiped off the edge of the pan.  Sorry.)

And before it went in the oven, I topped it with about 1/2 - 3/4 of a cup of grated parmesan cheese.

 

I also sprinkled paprika on top, but that image didn't come out too good, and these shots are wonky enough with the ugly lighting.

I baked the whole thing at 350 degrees for about 35-45 minutes - til it's golden brown on top and all bubbly and hot.

Here's a glimpse of the edge of the pan (because my picture of the top looked horrible).

 

Mmmm...goopy and bubbly and comforty.

Let it sit about ten minutes to set - if you can.  And then go on and dish it up.

 

The kids liked it - Julia especially liked the pasta.  Alex especially liked the chicken and the rest of the inner glop.  (I mean "glop" in the yummiest possible way.)  Bill had his later - he had played a wedding and didn't get home til later.  And he said he wasn't all that hungry, at first, but said he'd have a little, probably because of the "What do you mean you're not HUNGRY???  After I worked for hours and hours and hours slaving away on this?????" look on my open-book face.

And then he went for seconds.

Big Chicken Sandwich

So, what do you do when you've got a loaf of bread that looks like a really big bagel?  And you've got some leftover beer can chicken? 

You make a really big chicken salad sandwich.

Valentine's Day Ideas: Roast Chicken with Onion Mushroom Gravy

Again - comfort food.  You walk into the house while the chicken is roasting, and you want to stay for a while.  At least, that's how it should be.

I don't do anything ultra-fancy - no herbs, no lemon cut up and inserted in the chicken...mine is very basic.  And I think that's why it's so good, if I may toot my own horn on my own site.

Here's all I do.

First, preheat your oven to 400 degrees F. 

Cut up a couple of large onions - just in chunks - and put them in an oven-proof pan of some kind. 

Then wipe off 20 oz (2 10-0z pkgs) of white button mushrooms or baby bellas.  You want whole ones, not the sliced ones.  Put them in with the onions.

Next, clean out a good-sized roasting chicken - rinse it with cold water and pat it dry with paper towels.  SAVE THE PACKAGE OF INNARDS!!  Tuck the wings under the back - as if the chicken is leaning back in an office chair, fingers interlaced behind his head - well, if he still had one.  Basically you want the tips of the wings tucked under the chicken's back.  Place the chicken on top of the mushrooms and onions.

Oh - and that package of innards?  Actually, it's not just innards - it contains the liver, heart, gizzard and neck.  Place them all around the chicken on top of the mushrooms and onions.  Flavor, folks.  Flavor.

Now, in a little bowl, combine kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper - either half and half or about 2/3 salt to 1/3 pepper.  Sprinkle this mixture liberally all over the chicken and the liver, neck, etc.  You want most of it on the chicken's skin.

All set?  Now, place the chicken in the middle of your oven, and set the timer for an hour.  No - it might take longer, but this is when I want you to start checking on it.

At the hour mark, turn the pan so that the side of the chicken facing the back of your oven is now facing front.  Ovens have hot spots inside, and you want the chicken to cook evenly.

When the skin is a gorgeous dark golden brown, and when the legs are very wiggly when you shake one, and when the juices run clear when you slice into the thigh, remove the pan from the oven.

Take the chicken - carefully - off the mushrooms and onions and put it on a platter - and don't touch it.  Don't cover it with foil either - the skin is crackly and crisp right now - if you put foil over it, you'll basically be steaming the skin and it will lose its cracklyness. 

Now, take a look at the onions and mushrooms.  Are they nice and dark, or are they still kind of light in color?  If they aren't dark, put the pan back in the oven and check on it in fifteen minutes or so.  Now they should be nice and dark - if they aren't, then put them back in again for another ten minutes or so until they are well cooked.

While the onions and mushrooms are finishing up in the oven, take about half a stick of room temp butter and an equal amount of flour, and mash them together with a fork until the flour is completely incorporated in the butter.  Also you want to have available some chicken stock (home made or not - whatever works for you - and some dry white wine.

Okay, once the mushrooms and onions are nicely cooked, place their pan on a burner of your stove and remove the onions and mushrooms for now - just put them in a bowl nearby and keep them handy.  Same thing with the various chicken parts.  In with the mushrooms they go - we're not done with them yet.

Now add the butter/flour mixture into the liquids left in the pan.  Your flame should be about medium.  Whisk the butter/flour mixture (or beurre maniere, I believe) until it basically melts into the other liquids in the pan.  Now pour in a couple of cups of chicken stock and a cup or so of the wine.  Whisk together and now add the mushrooms and onions and giblets back into the pan.  Cook on medium, stirring occasionally, until the liquids thicken and reduce a bit and the alcohol in the wine is not longer noticeable when you taste it.

I add about a teaspoon or so of dried thyme to this while it's cooking, and salt and pepper to taste.  Remember, some of the salt and pepper you sprinkled on the chicken and giblets at the beginning will have ended up in this mixture - you don't want it to be over-salted.

While this is bubbling away, you can cut up your chicken if you want.  I find it's easiest to remove the wings and legs, then cut each side of the breast along the breast bone and cartilage so you have two big chunks of breast meat. 

And just so you know, when I was cutting this chicken apart, the wings and legs practically fell apart.  And the breast meat - not a hint of dryness.

What to serve with this?  I made mashed red-skinned potatoes - with milk and cream and horseradish and some roasted garlic I had in the fridge.  And salt and pepper.  I was going to make another vegetable, but I...well, I forgot.  Still - mushrooms and onions are vegetables...

Oh, yes, back to the gravy simmering away on your stove top.  I actually mashed up the liver and stirred that into the gravy too.  I like chicken livers, and my husband has come to like them since we've been married.  But if you think that idea is revolting, then go ahead and remove all the chicken parts - liver, heart, gizzard and neck - and discard them.  You can also, at this point, remove the mushrooms and onions and put them in a separate bowl from the gravy.  Or, you can just serve them in the gravy, which is what I usually do.  OR, you could even puree them with the gravy to thicken it and intensify the flavor.  Your choice.

Here's what a plate of it looked like.

Flavor, upon flavor, upon flavor.  Serve with the rest of the wine you used for the gravy, if you like. 

Thai Spring Rolls, Green Chicken Curry, Sesame Noodles, and Rice Noodle Soup with Shrimp and Banana Blossoms

Before we had kids, Bill and I used to cook meals together a lot.  When we had kids, that kind of fell by the wayside for a while because someone usually had to tend to a baby or a small toddler or a baby AND a small toddler or two small toddlers...until now.  Now, we've got a kindergartener and a preschooler, and they are amazingly tolerant of their parents' desire to both work on something AT THE SAME TIME. 

So we've started doing that, mainly on weekends.  Sometimes one of us does more of the cooking, and the other one is kind of the assistant and will maybe take charge of one dish.  But still - it's nice to be elbowing each other out of the way and fighting over burner space on the stove top again.

The weekend before last, we did up some Asian dishes.  Now, sometimes we'll stick to a particular country, like Japan or Thailand, when we pick recipes.  Other times, it's just whatever sounds good to us or whatever we have ingredients for.  Bill actually planned ahead for this meal, and went to one of the local Asian markets on Saturday so we'd have everything we needed to cook on Sunday.

Here's some of the haul:

That brownish bud-shaped thing to the right of the limes is a bud from a banana tree.  You peel away the petals and underneath are little skinny banana blossoms that (obviously) haven't bloomed.  They're a couple inches long and the same color as the outer petals.  They don't taste like much, but you can detect a little sweetness.  You could use them like lily buds, though lily buds, to me, have a distinct apricot flavor.

Anyway.  That's what Bill likes to do - he'll pick a couple of items he's never seen before (usually labled "Fresh Vegetable" in English and something in Thai that he can't read.  And sometimes he'll ask what it is, and other times he won't.  It's fun.

He did most of the cooking that Sunday.  My job was the spring rolls.  We got our ideas and actual recipes from two books:  Keo's Thai Cuisine, by Keo Sananikone and published by Ten Speed Press, and Classic Oriental Dishes, edited by Lisa Dyer - a bargain book put out by Smithmark years ago.  We've had these for about ten years - along with a couple of other Thai and Japanese cookbooks we bought one day.  They all bear the splatter stains from frequent use. 

One of the nice things about having a garden (and growing a variety of hot peppers) is that we can make up batches of green and red Thai curries and freeze them in ice cube trays, to use all through the winter.  (I say "we," but this is really Bill's territory.)  So one of the easiest things to do for this meal was the green curry Chicken.  (Extremely easy for me because Bill cooked it.)  All Bill had to do was take out a couple of cubes of the green curry...

 

thaw them, and cut up some chicken,

and throw the whole thing together.  (Those skinny brown things in the upper right are the banana buds, which he used in his soup.) 

It's a delicious, hot/spicy, fragrant dish, and the recipe actually calls for shrimp, but you can use chicken, pork would work, and we've also used tempeh, which is a fermented soybean and grain product that's got a nice non-meat but meaty texture.  For this meal, Bill also added in sliced red chilis (hot), mushrooms, scallions, cilantro, and baby corn.  Here's a little glimpse of the final product....

Bill also made sesame noodles, primarily because if the kids didn't like any of the other stuff, sesame noodles are a sure bet.  He's made these so often he doesn't use a recipe.

And the soup...it was kind of a thrown-together noodle soup using rice noodles and shrimp, cilantro, scallions, banana blossoms and a chicken stock.

I made the Thai spring rolls, as I mentioned, which I've put up in a separate post so it's easier to find later.  But for now...some snapshots of the evening...

Bill at his "station" - the wok and the pot on the back burner are his.  He'd already made the sauce for the sesame noodles, and the noodles themselves were in the warming drawer of our stove.  Those bowls over on the right, near the glass of beer, are all his too.  I have to juggle all my stuff in order to deep fry the spring rolls.  He hogs the whole place....

 

This is the green curry chicken coming together in the wok.

And these (above) are some spring rolls just after I put them in the oil. 

   

Time to eat...

We serve the soup in this...with some sterno in the center to keep it hot and to scare the heck out of Alex when the flame flares up.  Heh heh.  Dinner should be exciting, we say. 

And speaking of exciting, we always put out chopsticks for the kids to use when we have any kind of Asian meals.  Their techniques vary a bit....

They do love their sesame noodles...

They both tried a spring roll and some of the soup.  Julia liked the mushrooms in the soup.  Alex didn't like the soup or the spring rolls - he's a sesame noodles guy, and that's that.  Julia also tried one of the baby corn from the green curry chicken dish, but didn't like the heat from the chilis.  We don't force them to eat everything, especially the spicier dishes, but they can try anything they want.  Sometimes if we don't put something on their plate, they'll want to try it, which is nicer for us than if they just see something odd we've put on their plates and they reject it without even knowing what it is.  Alex will sometimes take a look at a new dish and just tell us he doesn't like it.  But as long as it's not spicy, he has to try it.  Just have a taste.  If he doesn't like it, fine.  But the point is to always try new foods.  To be adventurous. 

Homemade Tortellini

My sister and my brother-in-law went out to eat the other night at Arturo Joe's - a fabulous restaurant in Narragansett.  They both had the Tortellini Carbonara for their meals - my brother-in-law had chicken added to his - and of course the food was sublime.

Anyway, I couldn't figure out a way to sneak down to their house and steal the leftovers, so I figured I had to make my own.

Chicken and Gravy and Mashed Potatoes

(from my old blog...) Monday night I wanted comfort food for dinner. So this is what I did: