The Art to Roasting Chicken?

The past few times I've roasted chicken, I've under roasted slightly. For fear of over roasting.

Another go at it today.

Seasoniong: 1 T salt, 1 T fennel seeds, 1 tsp cayenne, tons of fresh cracked black pepper
Cavity: small bunch of thyme
Surrounding veg: baby red potatoes, carrots, garlic cloves (not peeled)
Prep: (1) Liberally rain the spice/salt mixture all over the chicken, inside the cavity and out. (2) Tie the drumstick together with twine. Tuck the wings behind the chicken. (3) Place in roasting pan. Drizzle a little olive oil and toss potatoes and arrange around the bird. Season lightly with salt and pepper. (4) One final sprinkle of salt on top of the chicken and then into the oven.

Goal: A crisp, golden, salty skin. Tender, falling off the bone meat. Golden potatoes swimming in chicken jus, soft caramelized garlic encased in papery husks

Checking Done-ness: Bird should be golden. Cut off the twine. Wiggle the drumstick. If it is a bit loose, wiggles very freely, it's most likely done. Poke a chopstick into the deepest part of the thigh. Juices should run clear.

What I've discovered: Due to the quirks of my oven (heat streams out of the upper right stove top burner), I have learned that I need to keep my bird (usually about 3-3.5 lbs) in the oven at 425 for what seemed to me an unusually long time--approx 1 hour and 15 minutes--in order to achieve the desired falling-off-the-bone tenderness.

I've experimented putting lemons in the cavity, brushing melted butter on the skin (basting seems totally unnecessary as it ruins any chance of the skin becoming crispy if you're continually brush juices over it...plus, every time you open that oven, the temp lowers significantly), haven't rubbed herbed butter underneath the skin yet due to laziness but i'd like to try it just to see the difference.

I love asian food, but sometimes, there is nothing better than picking apart a roast chicken with your fingers. For me, the fennel seeds and potatoes are the clinchers.

(Also, love using the carcass to make a richly flavored chicken broth the next day to go with thin noodles or white rice.)

Creme Caramel (bc it's French and sounds prettier than just "flan")

I forgot to take a shot before portioning it. The picture doesn't really do it justice. It was pretty, pale yellow with a glistening burnished top layer. Lighting is bad, plate is bad. And it's all cut up. Sorry! Use your imaginations.

So, I love desserts, but am not really a chocolate cake kind of gal. Creme brulee, cheesecake, fruit tarts/pies, ice creams, sorbet are more my speed. Every now and then I might want a chocolate molten cake (like at Finale's) but generally...I'm more into custard.

I think ideally, you're supposed to use a mix of heavy cream and whole milk...to get a more richness and a more luscious texture. But since I hardly ever find a way to use up all the leftover heavy cream, I just made do with using only whole milk. It's just as tasty but obviously lighter, not as rich.

This recipe is not difficult, but it can be time consuming if you don't plan ahead and make sure you have all your equipment ready. As with anything, read the recipe ahead of time and make sure you have all your bowls and saucepans and sieves and waterbath in readiness so that you're not wasting time trying to find stuff. Also, if you need to make a dessert for a dinner or event, you would have to make this either the day before or early on in the day to give it enough time to chill after the hour long bake.

Creme Caramel Recipe:

-Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Rack in the middle of the oven.
-Make sure you have equipment for your waterbath in readiness: a baking pan or roasting pan and plenty of hot water to create a water bath.
-Have your loaf pan ready on the side for when you need it (or ramekins).

In a saucepan, heat til scalding hot:
-3 cups whole milk (or 2 parts heavy cream, 1 part whole milk)
-1 vanilla bean, split, scraped

In a medium bowl, slowly whisk until well combined
-3 yolks
-2 eggs
-1 cup granulated sugar
-pinch salt

Combining the milk and eggs to make the custard:
Once the milk/v.bean mixture is scalding hot (stick your finger in. should be too hot to the touch. you'll see small bubbles on edges of saucepan), pick up the saucepan with your left hand and slowly pour into the bowl with the yolk/sugar mixture while whisking continuously with your right hand. This is called tempering. If you pour the hot milk all in at once and/or do so without whisking continuously, the hot milk will scramble the eggs mixture.

Strain the custard through a sieve into another bowl. Set aside and allow to cool while making your caramel.

Making the Caramel:
-1/2 cup sugar, H20 to dissolve

In a small saucepan, pour in 1/2 cup of sugar and add a bit of water to dissolve some of the sugar. Cook on med high/high heat until the sugar has bubbled into a dark brown syrupy caramel. Need to keep your eye on it--it happens fast. Remove saucepan from stove top immediately once desired dark amber color is achieved.


To bake:
Pour the caramel into the loaf pan. Next, pour all of the custard in.

Make a waterbath:
Put the loaf pan into the roasting pan. Fill the roasting pan with hot water til it reaches halfway up the loaf pan. The waterbath allows the custard to cook evenly and gently in the oven without scrambling. Cover the entire roasting pan with aluminum foil. Carefully slide into the oven and cook for 55-60+ minutes. It takes less time when you bake them in ramekins. Around the 55-60 minute mark, check the creme caramel. Take a peek and jiggle very gently. It's probably not done at this point. But it's probably almost there. If it still looks liquidy and not fully set, cover back up with aluminum foil and set timer at 10 minute intervals. I ended up baking mine for about 1 hour and 15 minutes.


When the custard looks set, test by sticking a knife in the middle of the flan. It should come out cleanly.

Remove the entire roasting pan from oven when custard is set. Take off the aluminum foil. Allow the creme caramel to cool in the waterbath. Then remove from the waterbath, cover with plastic wrap and put in your fridge for at least an hour or 2 to chill.

To serve:
Take a knife and run it around the edges of the loaf pan. Place a large plate on top of the loaf pan and quickly flip over. Do it quickly so that you don't get the caramel sauce running all over the place.

The texture came out like perfect young silken tofu. Very delicate. Next time I make this I may decrease slightly the amount of sugar used.

Recipe credit:
Joanne Chang's recipe as found here:
http://www.finecooking.com/recipes/creme_caramel.aspx

Showstopper: Citrus Salad with Vanilla Bean Syrup and Mint

Hello. Simple, beautiful, palate-cleansing, delicate, sweet. This "dish" involves no real cooking, and has the added bonus of wowing people under protest (All I did was cut up some citrus fruit!)

I felt bad bringing this to Vivian's surprise bday potluck dinner last night because I really did not have anything in my house that I could cook an entree or appetizer with. Problem was that I didn't have a car. I had planned on doing a last minute run to buy ingredients. At the very least, I could do a simple but tasty stirfry. Without my car though, this was what I had on hand 2 hours before go-time:

-2 sweet potatoes
-a bag of yellow onions
-frozen chicken breasts in the freezer
-bag of old carrots
-carton of leftover chicken stock
-not enough time to make anything with any of the above
-half a head of napa
-head of bibb lettuce
-bananas
-1 ruby red grapefruit
-3 blood organes
-honey tangerines (for my grandparents)...2 of which I ended up using

...ergo, Citrus Salad. I made this for my belated bday dinner party last year and it was a wonderful palate cleanser...but this time I didn't have as much citrus fruit as before. Still, I had to bring *something right?

Without further ado, the recipe:

Citrus Salad with Vanilla Bean Syrup and Mint

Having great ingredients is half the battle. The other half of the battle is having a really really sharp knife. Without a sharp knife, you'll bruise the fruit, crush the cells of the citrus fruit, thus crushing out too much juice in the process, and end up with ugly, haggard, bedraggled citrus segments. You want clean, cute little slices...with minimal juice dripping from your hand as you go along.

Salad:
-1 ruby red grapefruit
-3 blood oranges
-2 honey tangerines

Sauce:
-1 vanilla bean, split, scraped
-1/2 cup granulated white sugar
-1/2 cup water
-1-2 tsp leftover blood orange+tangerine juices

Garnish:
-fresh mint

Equipment:
-REALLY SHARP KNIFE

Directions:

1) To make the simple syrup, in a small saucepan, add 1/2 cup sugar + 1/2 cup water. Take 1 vanilla bean, split, scrape out the gooey black seeds. Chuck the v. bean seeds in with the sugar/water mixture.

2) Stir on med or med-low heat til all sugar has dissolved and consistency of liquid is slightly thicker..syrupy. Then take off heat. Takes about 5 minutes tops.

3) Pour into a container and chill to room temp. I put it in a freezer and shook it up to help it cool down faster. If the vanilla beans are still clumped up and not dispersed in pretty black speckles all throughout the sauce, then take a whisk and whisk it a bit until the v. beans are well incorporated.

4) Set v.bean simple syrup aside til ready to serve.

5) With your really sharp knife, supreme (segment) each citrus fruit, working over a different bowl/plate for each type of citrus. Alot of juices will come out while you do this. Keep the plates/juices/diff citrus separate from each other at first, so you can decide later how much you want to use of each juice. Keep in mind that grapefruit will leak the most. Since grapefruit is the most bitter and stringent tasting citrus, you probably don't want very large quantities of the grapefruit juice mingling with the blood orange/tangerine juice. (Well, you might. But I didn't. Personal pref.)

Here's how:

-Cut off both ends of the citrus fruit so that the fruit sits flat on your cutting board. You want the fruit to be exposed on both ends. Make sure to cut enough off so that no membrane or pith is showing on either end. You want the meat of the citrus fruit to show.

-Take really sharp knife, and cut the pith off the fruit methodically, making sure to cut the pith off in slices thick enough so that no membrane is showing.

Doing this neatly, efficiently, and without wasting too much fruit in the process, takes a little practice. It's all in the motion of your knife.

6) Find a nice big serving platter: you don't want to pile the fruit on top of each other. Pick a plate with enough surface area to spread the fruit out a bit. White is a good contrast to the gorgeous colors.

After you're done segmenting the various citrus, using clean hands, gently transfer all of the fruit onto the serving platter, leaving the juices behind. Pour a bit of the blood orange and honey tangerine juice on top, using your best judgment. More juice will leech out while they rest. You don't want your citrus to be swimming in all the unnecessary juices.

Reserve 1-2 tsp of both orange juices to add to vanilla bean simple syrup if you want. I did. I don't like waste. I drank the rest. (Or save for other uses. Sorbet? Granita? Vinaigrette?)

7) When ready to serve, sprinkle fresh chopped mint all over the citrus. Drizzle vanilla bean simple syrup to taste. Keep it on the side for people to add more if they want.

8) Let the compliments roll.

Long and verbose for something simple, but when it comes to simple things, the little details add up. If the fruit isn't cut well, if there's too much liquid, if there's no mint, no v. bean, the subtle variations in flavor that make this so tasty to eat will be gone. The difference between good and great is the interplay between tart/sweet/bitter/herbal mintiness/mellow, round flavor of the vanilla. Oh yea. I didn't have any fresh mint in the house, so I asked Dave (my ride) if we could swing by a Shaw's on the way there. Problem solved.

Enjoy.


bad picture. the best i have.

To do:

1) Buy vanilla beans in bulk
2) Make preserved lemons
3) Practice making gingerbread
4) Finish at least 2 books on my reading list before April 5

Cooking as Therapy (4/3/07)

Mimosa Braised Chicken: http://www.seriouseats.com/2007/03/my-first-recipe.html

Braising liquid: 3/4 cup champagne, 1/4 cup fresh OJ, 1/4 cup Grand Marnier, 1 tsp soy sauce

Aromatics: 2 stalks sliced scallions, 2 crumbled hot dried red peppers

Seasoning: salt and fresh ground pepper on chicken

Frozen Dark Chocolate Mousse: http://orangette .blogspot.com/2005/07/on-misunderstood-mousse-and-girl-who.html

6 egg yolks, heavy cream, caramel, 7 oz of dark Scharffen Berger chocolate (70% cacao)

Penne w/ Zucchini Fennel Garlic Tomato Sauce

No pictures. In an effort to utilize my produce before it begins sprouting in my fridge, I decided to use my extremely old bulb of fennel and a zucchini that'd been hanging around a bit too long to add to my pasta. I dribbled in some jammy beaujolais nouveau into my tomato sauce to give the sauce more depth and flavor, but I think I could have added more. I like drinking fruity soft wines like b.n. as an everyday wine. I recenltly bought a $6.50 pinot noir from this wine shop near my apt, so we'll see how that pans out. I've been reading from the bible lately...the wine bible, that is. I really want to try more Italian wines and compare notes on them (chianti, lambrusco, barolo, nebbiolo). Also, interested in learning more about French wines. Had a delicious Chateuneuf-du-Pape at Pigalle when I went there for restaurant week with my Mom, Jess and Steph. C-d-P had a distinct raspberry flavor, not sweet though, and a bit herbal and acidic.

Tonight, I'm going to make egg noodles with goat cheese cream sauce, basil and walnuts.

The Orange Diet.

I've been subsisting on a strange diet of bananas, coffee yogurt, whole wheat pita + hummus, hot salsa + Lays chips, cranberry juice, grapefruit, lemon and various other yellow/orange/blush colored foods (butternut squash, orange bell peppers).

my favorite snack: (too bad freaking Shaw's @ Porter Sq charges $4.99/lb for orange bellpeppers! I am outraged! I paid $2.99/lb for 4 peppers last week and that was a SALE...I need to hit up MarketBasket)

On deck: yams, cantaloupe, pummelo. Last night I cooked up some rainbow chard (same as swiss chard but with vari-colored stems instead of just the usual scarlet) a dark leafy green whose magenta, bright fuschia, and yellow stems have enchanted me since I first spotted them on lexculinaria's blog.

I sauted the greens in olive oil, garlic, a squeeze of lemon juice, salt. They tasted good, except next time, I'll probably chop off more of the stems which I neglected to do since I was completely seduced by their color.

Stems are rather tough, but, hey, at least I can skip the Metamucil.

Although none of these foods are unhealthy in and of themselves (except the chips), as a whole, I think they are wreaking havoc with my digestive system. Too acidic or something. I woke up at 5:30 am with an aching stomach. (Then again, could be the fact that after dinner I decided to eat a huge bowl of noodles tossed with sesame oil, soy sauce, and scallions right before going to bed.)

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Wednesday Night Cocktails: Coconut Rum Sunrises (OJ+cranberry juice+cocorum+a lil bubbly; the drink was much prettier in person! rosy and misty)

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Curious about making chocolate pudding:

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/recipe_views/views/230485
http://www.browniepointsblog.com/2006/12/10/the-often-maligned-chocolate-pudding/
http://orangette.blogspot.com/2005_07_01_archive.html

Damn the weekly archiving of NYTimes articles (which includes recipes..specifically Mark Bittman's minimalist chocolate pudding recipe I'd been meaning to cut and paste onto a document for myself)