Chicken in a Dutch Oven

I don't know if this is really necessary as a recipe, but I kind of wanted to remember the specifications for how we did this, because the chicken really came out perfectly.

Ingredients

• 1 Chicken - ours was about 2.5lbs, but you can go up to 5-6 lbs so long as it fits in your (covered) Dutch oven
• 1/2 lemon, sliced thin
• Something onion-y - we used 2-3 shallots, cut in half (root to tip), though you could use onions.
• Celery - we used about 2 stalks worth, cut down so they fit inside a bird.
• Garlic - about 2 cloves, chopped
• 1:1:1 mixture (ish) of sage, rosemary, and thyme, with a bit of salt and pepper

Preheat the oven to 250. Yeah, just 250. Wash the bird thoroughly in lukewarm water, including the inside. Then pat dry with a towel, making sure the outside is quite dry. Insert the onion, celery, and garlic into the bird, then fit the lemon slices in under the skin and in the cavity. We then trussed the bird, but that's not really necessary. Coat with some olive oil and sprinkle liberally with the seasoning mixture to coat the bird.

Place the chicken breast-side up in a lightly oiled dutch oven and cover. Place in the oven for about 80-120 minutes, until a thermometer inserted into the breast is just shy of 160 and the thigh is just shy of 175. Then turn on the broiler onto high and uncover the dutch oven. Let the bird cook just a little while longer (flipping it over after a couple minutes) to brown under the broiler. Remove from oven and cover with the dutch oven lid. Allow to rest for 20-30 minutes.

Thoughts: This was really easy. Why don't we do this more often? We prepared this chicken for use in chicken matzo ball soup (we used the carcass and vegetables again afterward to make the stock). It was really delicious. Would make again. Some recipes recommend searing the chicken FIRST and then just baking it, but I thought, well, it's in the oven already. Why not use that? It worked pretty well, but toward the VERY end the oil started to pop inside the oven. Not great. Maybe searing would be better if we want to eat the skin. OTOH, I could still sear individual pieces AFTER carving it. I think that may be my preferred approach, since it's so much more manageable.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Salmon with Fennel and Pernod

This is what magic tastes like. CLASSY MAGIC. From Bon Appetit.

Ingredients

• 1.5 tsp crushed fennel seeds
• 1/2 stick butter, softened
• 2 tbsp minced red onion/shallot
• 1 large fennel bulb with fronds -- bulb sliced into 1/4 inch pieces, fronds chopped
• 2 salmon fillets
• 2 tbsp Pernod

Make compound butter: In a large non-stick skillet, cook fennel seeds over medium-high heat until fragrant, about 1.5 minutes. Transfer to a small bowl and let cool. Mix in  butter, shallots/onion, 1 tbsp fennel fronds, and whatever salt and pepper you want. 

Melt 1 tbsp of this mixture into the same skillet over medium-high heat. Add sliced fennel and 1/4 cup water. Cover and cook until fennel is tender, about 8 minutes. Uncover and let cook until fennel is brown, another 2 minutes. Remove fennel from skillet and set aside.

Season salmon. Add the rest of the compound butter to the skillet and let it melt. Add salmon, skin side down. Cover and cook for 5 minutes. Turn salmon over, add 1/4 water to skillet. Cover and continue cooking another 5 minutes. 

Slide salmon over to one side of the skillet and add the cooked fennel back in. Add Pernod, some more butter, and the rest of the fennel fronds. Heat through.

Serve with the rest of the butter on top of the fillet.  

Thoughts:

UGH DELICIOUS. This was our first foray into cooking salmon and it was the best-cooked salmon I've ever had. I give all credit to BA. I would eat this all the time if it weren't so complicated. Dan says it was amazing and he's right. Not much to say here. Go make this. Dan edit: we actually used the salmon cooking instructions from Serious Eats. It yields a really crisp salmon skin that is super delicious. I don't think we actually cooked it 5 minutes and flipped with water. I think we cooked it just like the Serious Eats post.

Disaster Index: 1/10 but actually like -2/10. Can we do that? We just did.

Bandh Gobhi Ki Sabzi (Buttered Smothered Cabbage)

After we made corned beef and cabbage, we had half a head of Savoy left over and couldn't figure out what to do with it until I was awesome and found this recipe.

Ingredients

• half a large head of savoy cabbage (or whatever cabbage you have)
• 1.5 tsp ground cumin
• 2 tbsp butter, oil, or ghee (we used plain butter)
• 1/2 tsp turmeric 
• 1 tbsp minced ginger
• 1 tsp hot curry powder
• 1 tsp red pepper flakes
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 large tomato, chopped
• 1/2 chicken stock, hot
• 1/2 cup heavy cream
• 1 handful of cilantro, chopped

Core the cabbage and shred it. Heat the butter in a large saucepan over medium-high heat until melted. Add the cumin and stir until fragrant (about 30 seconds). Add cabbage and turmeric and stir to coat. The cabbage doesn't have much internal water, so you might have to add a splash of water to keep everything from sticking to the bottom of the pan. Cover and steam until cabbage is wilted (about five minutes).

Add ginger, curry powder, red pepper flakes, salt, and tomato. Stir to coat/combine. When things start to stick, add the chicken stock. Reduce heat to medium-low, cover and let cook for another 10 minutes.

When cabbage is tender and all the liquid is absorbed, remove from heat and stir in the heavy cream. Add chopped cilantro. Eat.


Thoughts: Pretty damn good. I was worried this recipe would be totally lame and I'd be like "why am I eating a bowlful of lame cabbage?" But it was awesome instead. You could serve this with rice, but why? Just eat it.


Disaster Index: 1/10

Kedgeree

A Victorian era Anglo-Indian colonial breakfast dish (possibly invented in a Scottish regiment?). History is interesting.

Ingredients

• 8-12oz haddock, cod, or similar fillet
• 2 eggs
• 2 bay leaves
• 1c basmati rice
• 2tbsp butter
• 2 small onions, chopped
• 2 tsp fresh ginger, minced
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1 tbsp ground mustard
• 2 tbsp madras curry powder
• 2 tomatoes, chopped
• 1/2c cilantro, chopped
• 2 lemons, juiced
• salt
• plain yogurt

Place the fish in a pan and add a little water - not enough to cover, I think. Add the bay leaves, bring to a boil and cook about 5 minutes. Remove the fish and set to cool, at which time you can flake it apart. I think smoked fish might be a good alternative here (and more flavorful) so if you can get smoked cod, I'd say go for it.

Set up the rice cooking. If you use a rice cooker, do that. I use 1c rice and 1.25c water. If you use a pot, use those ratios, bring to a boil, simmer covered on low for 10 minutes, then set aside covered for 10 minutes. Done.

Meanwhile, set a small saucepan of water to boil. When it's boiling, add the eggs. Boil for 10 minutes, then remove and run under icy cold water to stop the cooking.

OK. Now, in a large-ish saute or similar, add the butter and onions. Cook until softened, then add the garlic and ginger. Cook another minute or two, then add the mustard and curry. Cook another couple minutes, then add the tomato and lemon juice.

When that's done, remove from heat. Add the rice to the onion / tomato mixture, along with the cilantro and the flaked fish, and toss to coat. Peel the hard-boiled eggs and cut into quarters. Top the dish with the hard-boiled eggs, then serve with a little yogurt.

Thoughts: This dish was a little too lemon-y for our taste, and it needed a bit more salt. The fish lost some flavor to the weird boiling process (leave it to the Brits, amirite?) but if we had smoked fish, that might have worked well. I think next time we go with one lemon, smoked fish, and more salt. That would make this a pretty damn good dish.

Disaster Index: 3/10

Moroccan Lamb Stew with Israeli Couscous

There's getting to be a bit of a back-log of recipes in my browser's tabs. I don't want to close them because I need to blog how we made something, but I put it off until I forget what I did.

In this case, I decided the recipe was too good to let it meet that fate. Also, it was kind of made up as recipes go, so it went really well. This recipe makes about enough for two hungry people with limited amounts of self-control.

Ingredients

• 1 lb lamb stew meat (probably lamb shoulder? Cut to 1.5" cubes) - beef or similar would work as well.
• 3 smallish carrots with their greens (or you can use some parsley instead if you don't have the carrot greens? Or just leave that out); Carrots peeled and sliced, greens chopped and set aside.
• 3 cloves of garlic
• 1/4 tsp thyme
• 1 small onion, chopped
• 1.5 tsp ras-el-hanout (look it up - it's a moroccan spice blend. We made our own a long time ago so I can't say exactly what we put in it, but it's stuff like cumin, turmeric, cinnamon, and clove - sort of sweet-and-savory)
• 1 c beef broth
• 1/4 c dry white wine (we actually used vermouth)
• 1 c Israeli couscous
• about 1/4 c dried apricots, quartered
• about 1/4 c raisins
• olive oil, salt

Preheat the oven to 300 degrees. In a large sautee pan or dutch oven, heat oil until quite hot and then add the lamb and sear it a bit. After about 5 minutes of this (when you get sick of it?) add the onion and carrots. Cook for another 5 minutes. At this point, stuff will probably be sticking to the bottom of the pan. Add the thyme, garlic, beef stock, vermouth, a couple extra tbsp of olive oil, and the ras-el-hanout. Bring to a boil, scraping up the browned bits on the bottom of the pot. Reduce to a simmer and cover, then put in the oven for 90 minutes.

When that's done, remove the pot from the oven. Using a slotted spoon, remove the lamb, carrots, and as many onions as you care about and set aside. You should have quite a bit of beef/lamb broth left over in the pan. Add the couscous, apricots, raisins, and carrot greens and probably a little water. Proceed to cook the couscous kind of like you would risotto - add water when it's looking dry until it's pretty close to cooked through. When it's very close, re-add the lamb/carrot mixture and mix. Cover and leave on the warm burner for about 10 minutes to let the couscous finish cooking through. Salt to taste.

Thoughts: For serious, my only regret is that we had just one pound of lamb so there are no leftovers.

Disaster Index: 1/10