Calvados Chicken

This is an easy and delicious way to jazz up that chicken you've been too bored to face.

For one whole chicken or three to four pounds of chicken pieces:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Slick a pan (that can later go into the over, covered) with oil, heat to medium low.  Add half a pound sliced mushrooms.  Salt and pepper, toss around a bit, and cover for five minutes (you will interrupt the cooking to stir them around a bit).  Remove mushrooms (now intensely mushroomed flavored) onto a plate.  Braise your salt and peppered chicken pieces, skin side down first, 3-4 minutes a side, half that for the breasts.  Remove to plate with mushrooms.

Saute 4 peeled and diced granny smith apples (really, I'm not fussy about which kind) 2-4 minutes until browned.  Add a diced shallot, and four minced cloves of garlic. Saute and stir around until everything's soft.

If you have Calvados, a fancy French apple brandy, now's your time to add 1/4 cup.  If not, brandy will do.  Cook until reduced by half (the heat of the pan seems to do that practically immediately). Add two cups chicken broth, one half cup apple cider.  Stir around, bring to a simmer, add chicken pieces (except white meat.  Not yet!).  Sprinkle 1-2 tablespoons of flour on top, and place into your oven for ten minutes.  Remove, now add the white meat.  Return to oven, covered, and braise for another 20 minutes. Stir in the mushrooms and a tablespoon of butter.  Gently mix, and it's ready!

Spectacularly full of flavor.  We ate it with the English peas and Rosti potatoes, potato details to follow in a future post.

Dutch Babies

Kinda sounds like gangster patois, doesn't it? 

Original photo! Shocking, isn't it?

 In Anaheim there is a restaurant called the Original Pancake House.  Along with simple, satisfying coffee you could get Swedish crepes and a dish of lingonberry jam or an apple pancake that can feed a small country.  On spring mornings, where the birds had been singing before dawn, and the air was as cool as the clear sky, we'd head over and I'd order a German pancake, also known as a Dutch baby.  Garnished with lemon wedges and powdered sugar, it was an ethereal treat, between the tang of the lemon and the sweet, and the crunch of the edges.

Easy to do at home, while the Meyer lemons are falling off the backyard tree:
(adapted from James McNair)

Heat your oven to 475 degrees
Place two tablespoons butter in a 4 inch baking dish (skillet, ramekin). Melt in oven.

Blend:
one egg
1/4 cup milk
1/4 cup flour
1/4 tsp almond extract
lemon zest

Pour batter into melted butter.  Bake 10-12 minutes until the edges raise and crisp.  Garnish with lemon wedges and powdered sugar, or toppings that sing to you: sliced bananas, toasted walnuts, shredded coconut, fresh berries.

Make larger batches in pie plates.

Did it disappear too quickly? Easy enough to make another one.

Peas in a Pod

Over at the LA Times Russ Parsons shares a simple way of cooking English peas.
And you know, I've always wondered.  I've bought the things shucked, and boiled them too little or too long.  I've bought the things in their pods, and been annoyed by the labor of freeing them.
So, what's the secret? According to Russ and his buddy Sylvia Thompson:

In a saucepan bring an inch of water to boil.  Add a chunk of butter.  Throw in your English peas, cover and simmer for three minutes or longer (if older and larger).  Drain, salt, and eat as if they were edamame.
Very delicious indeed.

Game of Downton Thrones

Spoiler Alert

Season Recap:
Eddard Stark lost his neck to Lord Grantham; Tyrion dreamed of burying his face between Lady Sybil's teats.  Bran fell from the top of Downton Abbey, while Arya threatened to slice Thomas from soup to nuts. Tom Branson and Theon pledged fealty to Robb Stark, Her Grace Cersei sent Matthew to Harrenhall, while promising Mary a more appropriate match, to her son Joffrey.

Carsten and the maesters became unwilling servants of the Night Watch---
Edith is wed to Tyrion, and is plagued by dreams of dragons.  Lady Grantham plots revenge.

Do Not Disturb

 
I blame my daughter.
She came home last summer and read all the books.  HBO offered a freebie, and I watched two episodes.
"Ignore the naughty bits" my daughter urged, knowing me.  Once I did I was captivated by the complicated plot line and the complexity of characters. Pick up the novels and they are even more layered.  You hate someone, and a thousand pages later you have such understanding you are now rooting for them

Wow.

I devoured Tomes 1, 2 and 3.  I briefly thought of quitting my job, ignoring my family, renouncing my worldly possessions and aspirations to continue Books 4 and 5.  Then I realized there are two more books planned, and it took George R R Martin 5 years to complete the most recent.

Sigh.
If I'm not posting, you'll know I'm savoring every page of this epic called "Game of Thrones."

Sweet Nothings

Sonnet XLIII

What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why, 
I have forgotten, and what arms have lain 
Under my head till morning; but the rain 
Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh 
Upon the glass and listen for reply, 
And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain 
For unremembered lads that not again 
Will turn to me at midnight with a cry. 
Thus in winter stands the lonely tree, 
Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one, 
Yet knows its boughs more silent than before: 
I cannot say what loves have come and gone, 
I only know that summer sang in me 
A little while, that in me sings no more.

---Edna St Vincent Millay 

Croque Monsieur

First of all, it is an OPEN face sandwich.  Second, it is NOT a grilled cheese.  And, third, it does NOT involve bechamel, a white sauce.

If you have a broiler, it is a simple as slicing bread.

Take a thick piece of bread, I prefer pain de campagne, a rustic hearty loaf.  Lightly butter.  Place slices of ham on the butter side, covering the bread (trim to fit, precisely, if you are French).  Add a layer of sliced Gruyere.  Dab dots of butter on top.  Run under the broiler until cheese has browned.
No broiler?  Butter both sides of bread, and pan fry gently until the cheese melts.
Not enough protein?  Top it off with a fried egg for a croque Madame.

Perfect for lunch on a cold, cold day.

Pudding!

"The Matchmaker" Thornton Wilder's play turned movie later turned musical, stars Shirley Booth, Anthony Perkins, Robert Morse and Shirley MacLaine.

My sister and I laughed in giddy delight as kids, watching Anthony Perkins and Robert Morse, two lowly clerks, searching for adventure.  And the code word for when they found it? "Pudding!"

I suspect you think puddings are dull and pedestrian things.  If so, you've been eating the instant version.  Here's a recipe, dark, sweet, silky smooth, with all the promise of a sweet adventure.

Double Chocolate Pudding
adapted from Home Desserts by Richard Sax

In a mixing bowl blend two tablespoons corn starch, 1/4 cup sugar, 3 tablespoons high quality cocoa powder (Note: okay, I don't sniff at any chocolate bar, I accept all, from Hershey's to Valhrona, but your cocoa's gotta be good.  No, better than good, it's gotta be great.  Break the bank, dole it out to yourself in your mochas, trust me, it's worth it.)  Whisk in two egg yolks, a whole egg, then 1/4 cup cold milk.

Over a medium flame bring 2 1/4 cups whole milk and a 1/4 of sugar to boil.  Remove from heat.  Whisk half a cup of the hot milk into the chocolate mixture, then another half a cup, then another.  Return to saucepan, and gently bring to a boil, whisking all the time. Gently boil for two minutes, by then the corn starch and eggs will have wrought their magic, making the liquid into a thick pudding.

Remove from heat, add 5 ounces semi sweet chocolate (I use chocolate chips) and two tablespoons of butter.  Whisk well.  Add a teaspoon of vanilla extract. Pour into a container to cool. (I will admit to eating it warm, out of the saucepan). 

In Connecticut the Jewish delis top their puddings with a splash of half and half.
I recommend it highly.