Spatchcocked chicken with mustard brussels sprouts and whipped sweet potatoes
Roasting a whole chicken can require a lot of patience. You're tempted to turn up the heat to speed things along but will be punished for doing so by having to chew (and chew, and chew) on dried out breast meat.
Spatchcocking is the answer. By removing the backbone, you can flatten the bird out and partially submerge it in liquid, getting all the benefits of a braise (more even cooking and no drying out) while also preserving the crispy skin that a roast chicken deserves.
Since this was a sort of Canadian Thanksgiving meal, we served the chicken with some mustard brussels sprouts (recipe here, a very good one) and whipped sweet potatoes. (which were a riff on this).
Ingredients
1 whole chicken
6 cloves garlic, still whole and pressed slightly under the flat side of a knife to crack the skins
6 shallots, halved lengthwise
Juice and zest of one lemon
1 tbsp thyme, dried or fresh
2 tbsp butter
2 tbsp olive oil
2 cups chicken stock or water
How to
Preheat the oven to 400.
Start with the bird. Using kitchen shears or a sharp knife, remove the backbone and put it aside to use later for stock. Once the backbone is removed you should have no trouble flipping the chicken over and pressing down between the breasts to flatten it out a little. Liberally apply salt and pepper inside and out.
Heat the butter and olive oil in a large skillet over high heat. When the bubbles in the butter have subsided, carefully place the chicken in skin side down. When the skin is golden brown (about 5 minutes), flip the chicken over at briefly brown the other side. Remove the chicken to a plate. Add the shallots and garlic and cook until slightly browned (2-3 minutes). Add the thyme and lemon juice and zest and scrape any brown bits from the bottom of the pan. Carefully place the chicken back into the pan skin side up and then add enough stock or water to fill the pan up about three quarters of an inch. The top of the bird should still be exposed.
Cooking time should be about 40 minutes. Keep a close eye on things and add more stock or water if the original allotment starts to evaporate too much.
Grilled pork chops with grape tarragon salad
My thoughts on this recipe can be summed up in three words: Brine, brine, brine. Dunking the pork chops into a brine with just a few ingredients (a bay leaf, thyme, garlic, salt and sugar) an hour before grilling produces incredibly juicy chops. Don't be afraid to pick out bone-in chops with a little fat around the edges -- it crisps up on the grill and adds a little more moisture. The anise-like tarragon and sweet grapes play very well together.
Colicchio's beef short ribs
Sometimes you read a recipe and just know: This is going to be a real improvement over any previous version of this dish. These Tom Colicchio short ribs are a perfect example. I'd noted a few weeks ago my desire to tackle them and compare to other short ribs recipes, so here you go. Look great, no? They taste even better.
The main improvement here is browning the ribs the day before and then marinating them overnight with vegetables and red wine. This really lets the flavor seep in. While it requires some foresight to get started the day before, the combined effort is no greater than the usual short rib braise. The next day you just pull them out of the fridge, braise them for a couple hours, blast them under the broiler for 10 minutes and then cook down the sauce to pour over top. The result of the long, uncovered braise followed by the time under the broiler is a pot full or almost ink-black ribs. They look pure and beautiful and taste as beefy as you'd expect.
Rainbow chard with lemon and parmesan
Here's an easy one:
1. Bring a large pot of water to a boil.
2. Dunk a pound of whole swiss chard leaves into the pot and let boil for 2-3 minutes.
3. Remove the chard to ice water to stop the cooking process, then squeeze as much liquid out of the leaves as you can. Really squeeze!
4. Roughly chop the leaves and toss with a couple tablespoons of melter butter, salt, pepper, the juice of half a lemon, and some shaved parmesan or other hard cheese.
Moules provencales
Another quick but elegant dish. On a cool night, these mussels and a fresh loaf of bread are all you need. Be sure to look for closed mussels with unblemished shells and give each a rough scrub under cold water to remove any grit.
Ingredients
3 lbs mussels, scrubbed clean
3 tbsp butter (reserve 1 tbsp of it for the sauce)
3/4 cup white wine
2 shallots, chopped fine
1 bay leaf
3 tbsp parsley, chopped fine
1 tsp dry thyme (or a few sprigs fresh)
1 clove garlic, minced
Handful or two of cherry or grape tomatoes, halved if need be
One lemon, quartered
How to
Put a large pot over high heat and add all of the above ingredients except for the lemon, parsley and 1 tbsp of butter. Cover and leave on high heat until all of the mussels have opened up. Remove the mussels, add most of the parsley and the remaining butter, and cook the sauce down to a less runny consistency. Pour the sauce over the bowls of mussels and garnish with the lemon and the remaining parsley. Serve with lots of fresh bread. to sop up the sauce.
Beef short ribs
I'll admit to being a bit of a short rib fanatic. Grilled, braised, stuffed inside pasta, shredded on top of polenta -- I just can't resist their many hearty charms. For some reason yesterday I got a fiending for short ribs, so here they are. (Part of me regrets not having spent some time looking into recipes in advance, as this one from Tom Colicchio looks incredible but requires planning a day ahead.)
I've tried a lot of braised short rib recipes and so far the best I've found is from The Silver Palate. Whereas a lot of options rely on reducing red wine, this one uses red wine vinegar. The result is a brighter tomato sauce with something bordering on tartness, which resists some of the unavoidable heft of the beef. (Some people may be turned off by this. If so, just substitute red wine for some or all of the vinegar.)
Here is the link for the recipe.
Rigatoni with sausage and fennel
This one comes from Lidia's Family Table, one of the many cook books that have piled up in our kitchen thanks to Anna's employer. I've generally not been that thrilled with the book, but this one is a winner because it hits most of what I look for in a recipe: It's fast, it's cheap, and it pays off.
I'll save myself some time and just link out to the original.
Grilled beets and bulbs
This recipe is a bit of a strange combination - vegetables that I often associate with winter cooked in a method saved for summer. The sweet cippolini onions and beets are nicely balanced by the char from the grill. The smokiness can be almost overwhelming -- I'd recommend trying serving this topped with something to smooth out the flavor. (An orange aioli, perhaps?)
Ingredients
1 1/2 lb beets, peeled and sliced crosswise into 1/2-inch thick rounds
1 bulb fennel, sliced crosswise into 1/2-inch thick rounds
1/2 lb cippolini onions, peeled or not
A few cloves of garlic, unpeeled
Olive oil
How to
Raise a grill to medium heat. Toss all of the ingredients in a bowl until the vegetables are well coated with oil. Put the vegetables in a basket on the grill and toss occasionally until they are well browned and the beets can be pierced with a fork with only a little resistance. Serve warm or at room temperature.
Pesto ratatouille
Ingredients
1 zucchini, sliced
1 medium onion, chopped
1 pepper, chopped
1 clove garlic, finely minced
Handful of cherry tomatoes, halved
Pesto
How to
Heat 2 tbsp olive oil in a large skillet until very hot. Add the onions and saute until they begin to become translucent. Add the pepper and zucchini to the pan and sauté for another five minutes before adding the tomatoes and cooking for another five. Toss in the garlic and stir until fragrant, no more than 30 seconds. Stir in the pesto and serve warm or at room temperature.
World's best tomato sauce
The first time you take a bite of the sauce you'll feel joy -- it's that good. By the second chew, anger sets in -- "Why have I spent all these years wasting all this effort making sauce more complicated than this?!" And by the third, creeping guilt -- "What have I done to deserve this divine revelation? At whose hand will I later suffer as a result?"
The only guilt I now feel every time I make this sauce is in my inability to track down the place where I first saw the recipe. Googling "world's best tomato sauce" has not been much help. Well, at the very least if you are reading this then I can sleep a little easier at night. Everyone deserves to know this recipe.
Ingredients
One can whole peeled tomatoes
1 medium onion, cut in half crosswise
4 tbsp butter
How to
Melt the butter in a heavy-bottomed pan. Add the onion and the canned tomatoes, bring to a simmer, and lower to the lowest possible heat. Either break the tomatoes up with a wooden spoon against the side of the pot, or squeeze them through your fingers before adding them to the pot. Cover and simmer for at least 45 minutes, then remove the onion and serve.
That's it! The butter adds a rich, uncomplicated silkiness that doesn't interfere with the tomatoes' intensity. The onion lends its depth without altering the texture. The end result is a complex-tasting sauce with a richness beyond belief.