Recipe: Roast Chicken with Lemons (Marcella Hazan)

From Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking

Roast Chicken with Lemons
A 3 to 4 pound chicken
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper
2 rather small lemons

1) Preheat oven to 350
2) Wash chicken thoroughly in cold water, both inside and out. Remove all the bits of fat hanging loose. Let the bird sit for about 10 minutes on a slightly tilted plate to let all the water drain out of it. Pat it thoroughly dry all over with cloth or paper towels.
3) Sprinkle a generous amount of salt and black pepper on the chicken, rubbing it with your fingers all over its body and into its cavity.
4) Wash the lemons in cold water and dry them with a towel. Soften each lemon by placing it on a counter and rolling it back and forth as you put firm downward pressure on it with the palm of your hand. Puncture the lemons in at least 20 places each, using a sturdy round toothpick, a trussing needle, a sharp-pointed fork, or similar implement.
5) Place both lemons in the bird's cavity. Close up the opening with toothpicks or with trussing needle and string. Close it well, but don't make an absolutely airtight job of it because the chicken may burst. Run kitchen string from one leg to the other, tying it at both knuckle ends. Leave the legs in their natural position without pulling them tight. If the skin is unbroken, the chicken will puff up as it cooks, and the string serves only to keep the thighs from spreading apart and splitting the skin.
6) Put the chicken into a roasting pan, breast facing down. Do not add cooking fat of any kind. This bird is self-basting, so you need not fear it will stick to the pan. Place it in the upper third of the preheated oven. After 30 minutes, turn the chicken over to have the breast side up. When turning it, try not to puncture the skin. If kept intact, the chicken will swell like a baloon, which makes for an arresting presentation at the table later. Do not worry too much about it, however, because even if it fails to swell the flavor will not be affected.
7) Cook for another 30 to 35 minutes, then turn the oven up to 400 and cook for an additional 20 minutes. Calculate between 20 and 25 minmutes total cooking time for each pound. There is no need to turn the chicken again.
8) Whether your bird has puffed up or not, bring it to the table whole and leave the lemons inside until it is carved and opened. The juices that run out are perfectly delicious. Be sure to spoon them over the chicken slices. The lemons will have shriveled up, but they still contain some juice; do not squeeze them, they may squirt.




How did I do:
Really well, actually.  I closed up the cavity with small wooden skewers (which I remembered to soak first).  I turned the chicken successfully (though I did briefly touch the roasting rack with my forearm and have a nice grill mark).  I timed it correctly so that it was done but not over done, and lightly golden.




Lessons learned:
Big chickens take a LOT longer to defrost than I think.  After 2.5 days, my 7+ pounder was still a bit too frosty, so I bought a 5 lb replacement.  Today, of course, the big 'un is completely defrosted so it's getting cooked up using the same method.
The lemons provided a lot of steam inside the cavity, which assisted in gentle, moist cooking.  They did NOT provide a lot of flavor.  There's nothing wrong with that, as long as you know it going in.  Today's chicken isn't getting any additional flavor either, since I'll be using it in multiple recipes and don't want it strongly flavored first.  For that, this recipe is ideal.  For company dinner, I would put herbs and/or butter and/or garlic inside and/or under the skin.  In other words: I'd use another recipe to provide the flavor but this cooking technique with the lemons since I think it gives a perfect texture.




Conclusion:
This is a great blank canvas.  The texture can't be beat, and the flavor is very good though not in itself exceptional.  You can use the cooked chicken as is for recipes like chicken salad, or you can add herbs and/or garlic to the cavity before cooking, to add flavor.  




Yesterday's chicken:

Today's Chicken:

Adventure: Making ravioli using the press

These are pictures I took last month, but it's good to get them organized here in one place.

The upside down inset, the sheet of pasta, and the frame:

The pasta sheet on top of the frame:

The insert, creating pockets in the dough:

You can see the pockets it formed:

A bag of filling (this one is squash):

Pockets all filled (though I've learned since to fill more carefully, so they are completely filled without air, but not bulging over the top.  From here, I could have flattened them into the blank spots with a spatula or something):

Here I have the top sheet of pasta on:

Start rolling over the top, pressing a little harder each time:

You can see it's starting to cut through in the upper corner:

Now they're all cut through:

Turn it over and dump them onto a sheet of parchment:

All lined up, ready to go into the freezer!

When they're frozen, I put them into a ziplock bag to stay in the freezer until hunger strikes. 

Recipe: Cheese ravioli

I can make homemade pasta in mere minutes!  Start to finish!

Well... as long as you don't include the two screwed up batches.  But I've learned my lesson and hopefully won't repeat those mistakes again.  It's actually kind of funny.  Granted, I didn't laugh much last night when it was going on, but now that it's over it's not so bad.

First I made a perfect batch of pasta.  It was a thing of beauty, truly.  Pliable, even, it just felt good to the touch.  Then I realized that I hadn't actually put the filling together yet.  Ack!  Okay, grab the ingredients... WAIT!  The mozzarella isn't even grated yet!  OMG, it's a pain to grate.  Do I have time to pull out the food processor with the grater attachment?  Is it worth it for making a batch of ravioli for one?  By the time I get it all out, I could be done.  Heck, I didn't want much mozzarella in there anyway.  I'll just keep fighting with the hand grater.  Okay, the filling is ready.  Now to get the sheet of pasta and put it on the ravioli mold...  Um... it's kind of stiff.  It definitely seems to have dried a bit.  Maybe it will be okay?  (I press the form into it to make pockets and the pasta cracks in every pocket.)  M'kay, that's no good.  Should I try to see if I can rescue it?  No, I'm pretty sure that isn't possible.  Let's start again.

I start a second batch of pasta.  It feels a little sticky, so I add more flour.  It still feels a little sticky so I add more flour.  It doesn't feel sticky at all, so I pull it out of the bowl.  It's so dry it just shreds as I try to roll it.  Should I try to see if I can rescue it?  No, I'm pretty sure that isn't possible. Let's start again.

Third batch is perfect.  Just like the first one, except I don't let it sit around and dry out.  In fact, I get it on the mold so quickly I forget to sprinkle any flour on the sheets and they stick to the mold.  But they're filled, and I'm not going to take any more crap from my food tonight, damnit, so I get them out of the mold in spite of themselves.  I also should have let them sit before boiling them, and I also forgot to add salt to the pasta water.  And I used a jarred sauce (but one that happens to be awesome).  But you know what?  They were great.  I'd made enough for leftovers the next night... but I ate the leftovers also.  No, I didn't really have stomach room for them.  But I shook my left leg so it would hollow out a little and stuffed the second batch of ravioli in.


Recipe:

Serves 2... or 1... depending on your self control.

NOTE: 

• Adjust as needed for whatever equipment you're using.  But I'm giving directions for the equipment I had because how would I know how to do it any other way?!?
• I used my KitchenAid for both the mixing and the rolling.   
• I have a ravioli press that's kind of like a ice cube tray with an inset to form the pockets.  It's this one:  Ravioli Maker  I'll make another blog post about how it works, since it's pretty cool.
• I keep flour in a shaker (like the one in Starbucks they keep full of cinnamon) for dusting stuff like hands, cutting board, the entire front of my shirt.  I find it easiest to work with that way.  If you're a pro and can just scatter an even layer of flour across a board from your bare hand... you're probably not even reading this. 
  

Filling:

• About 1/2 cup ricotta cheese
• About 1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese
• About 1/4 cup mozzarella cheese

1. Do this first.  Trust me, it needs to be ready.  In fact, it wouldn't hurt to have the water on the stove already also. 
2. Mix everything up.  I used my stand mixer for this.  A food processor would probably work just as well if not better.  But then, a big spoon would do the job.  Just get it done.
   
3. Put it all in a small sandwich bag, press it all to the bottom, and when you're ready you can just snip off a corner and squeeze the filling out like you're using a piping bag.  Make the hole about the size of a nickel and you'll feel like a pro.

Pasta:

• 1 egg
• About a teaspoon of olive oil
• A pinch of salt
• About a cup of semolina flour

1. Put egg, oil, and salt into work bowl of stand mixer with regular paddle (NOT the hook or the whisk!)
2. Beat until fairly homogeneous on about speed 3 or 4.
3. Pour in about 1/2 cup of flour.   Ideally, the dough should want to stick to itself more than to the beater or the bowl or your fingers.  It will still feel sticky to the touch, but shouldn't feel soaking wet.  If it's hitting the sides of the bowl and all totally flattening out, looking like cake frosting, it's too wet.  If it seems to want to come together if you'd just help it, it's probably about right.  Reach in (after turning OFF the mixer, obviously!) and pinch a little to see if it's sticking all over your hand and needs more flour.  If so, add sprinkle some over the top of the dough and run it another 15 - 20 seconds before checking again.  Unless it totally looks like liquid, don't add more than a teaspoon or two at a time.  When you think it's good, let it run in the bowl with the paddle for another minute or two.  It should clean everything up from the sides and bottom of the bowl as it runs.
4. Dust your hands with some AP flour and pull out the dough.  Just that small amount of flour on your hands, coating the dough, should be enough to stop all feeling of stickiness.  If not, it's still too wet and needs more semolina and more time in the bowl.
5. Flatten out your dough into a disk about 1/3" thick.  Feed it into the roller on its widest setting.  The dough should neither stick to the roller nor need to be force-fed into it.
1. If it sticks, try coating it with AP flour before folding it on itself, and give it another coating before re-feeding.  Keep doing that until it stops trying to stick.
2. If it has to be forced through, and it completely shreds as it comes out, you've got it too dry.  Trust me, just toss it out and start over.  Life's too short and you should have another egg on hand, right?
3. If it's just a little ragged on the edges, that's okay.  That will fix itself as you run it through several times and the gluten is formed.
6. As your dough comes out, fold it in half or in thirds and feed it back through on the same width setting.  If it starts getting too misshapen, feed it sideways next time (folding it enough so it will fit).
7. Feed it through 5 or 6 times.  Or 8 or 10 if it takes you that long to get the hang of it.  But this is the kneading process, continuing the kneading you did in the bowl, and without this you won't form enough gluten and the pasta won't have the right texture.  You probably shouldn't overdo this.  Don't go 50 times or anything, or you might end up with chewing gum.
8. Finally, when you've got a respectable looking rounded rectangle, start running it through on successively narrower settings.  I ran mine down to 5.
9. Dust the finished pasta with AP flour on both sides.  I lightly flour a cutting board, lay a section of pasta on there, sprinkle flour on and use the palm of my hand to brush it across the entire surface.  Then move the next section onto the board and repeat until the whole side is coated.  Then flip it over and do the other side.

Assembly:

1. Place one end of your pasta sheet over the ravioli tray.  Make sure it covers the whole tray.
2. Use the form to make the pockets
3. Use your baggy of filling to fill the pockets, filling them completely but not bulging up over the top.  When you're done, you want neither air pockets nor overflow.
4. Take a brush and some water, and lightly brush the top edges of the ravioli to help them seal.
5. Fold the loose end of the pasta sheet over the top, to cover everything.
6. Run the roller over the top, sealing and cutting the ravioli.

Cooking:

1. Let the ravioli sit and dry for a few minutes.  
2. Gently drop them into boiling, salted water.
3. When it comes back to a boil, boil them gently (so they don't fall apart) for several minutes, turning occasionally.  You'll see by the texture of them which side has been out of the water the whole time and needs to be flipped (turn one over and compare).

Sauce:

• Pick something.  Make something.  Whatever.  Personally, I used some Mario Batali Marinara.  This year I plan to see if I can make anything better than that, but it's going to be a challenge.

No, I didn't clean up the bowl or get good lighting on it or anything.  This was dinner and it was ready.  You're lucky I stopped to take a picture.

Improvements: My house the store

It has finally happened.  I have reached the age where things in the pantry might expire before I use them, things in the freezer become dessicated, unidentifiable masses of frosty protein, and there are bottles of salad dressing in the fridge that I no longer even remember buying.

And I've now begun to seriously look at bulk purchasing.

I have a standard fridge/freezer in the kitchen, another one in the garage (though it's unplugged at the moment) and a full-sized standing freezer (also in the garage).  I have a pantry that is quite literally the size of my front hall coat closet - I could step into it, close the door behind me, and have room to turn around without hitting the encircling shelves (assuming I first removed the trash can that occupies the floor space).

And who am I feeding from these industrial-sized food storage facilities?

Me.

Well, and the two cats, but their stash consists of a 5 lb. bag of dry food and a box of variety-pack cans. And, of course, when Paul ever moves out here he'll be helping with the eating (and cooking and shopping, I'm sure).  But in the meantime, it's just me.

So what am I doing with all that space?  Well, I'm pretty much wasting it right now, to be honest.  Not all of it.  I've got 8 whole 7+ lb. chickens in the garage freezer, plus the parts of another two.  And the pantry became the safe storage for everything while I had new floors put in... and I haven't gotten around to getting all of the non-pantry items back out of there.  And that other standard fridge/freezer in the garage isn't plugged in using electricity for no reason or anything silly like that right now.

But the reality is that I'm set up to be able to do seriously smart things in terms of bulk purchasing and/or bulk cooking.  But right now I barely even know what I have, where it is, or what I plan to do with it.

This Must Stop.

Last night I finally got around to purchasing a dry-erase board in order to start taming this beast.

First steps (simultaneously):

• Actually inventory what I've got.  Particularly in the freezer outside, since it's less convenient to go look (and I shouldn't stand there with the door open anyway).
• Start making specific plans to use what I have.  It's okay to purchase new stuff, but the majority of the time it should be to supplement ingredients from my existing stash.
• Get each of the areas organized in some fashion.  Right now things are piled in where ever they'll fit, with no rhyme or reason.  And, of course, I have only vague notions of what's in there.  In addition to having the inventory list, I want some idea of where to find the gem I choose to unearth.  The garage freezer should be for long term, larger volume/portion, overstock stuff.  The house freezer is for things I intend to use in the next few weeks.  The pantry shouldn't have the raisins stuffed on top of the candy canes.  (Yes, I know it's April.  The candy canes are actually from 2 - or is it 3? - years ago.  Like I said: it's time to cope with all of it.)

So I'm going to use the big dry-erase board to hold the inventory. This will be a good place to check prior to making a menu plan.  It doesn't do me any good to have 8 whole chickens if I don't ever schedule any dinners requiring whole chicken.

How it will work in a perfect world:

• Paul and I will get produce in season from stores, local farms. CSA's, our own garden.  We will can or portion and freeze.
• We will purchase things in bulk and on sale, break them down as needed, and store them in pantry/freezer/garage-shelves.
• The grocery store is still a short hop from the house, but will be for things like milk, eggs, fun gourmet ingredients.  But not for purchasing the food for the week.  The grocery store is for the add-ons, not the basics.
• I will plug the bread machine back in and have tasty, homemade loaves. 
• I will make and dry and/or freeze pasta.
• I will make and freeze sauces, soups, stocks.
• I will go back to using the composter, and filling it with the weeds and trimmings and scraps of vegetation from kitchen and garden.

No, I'm not stockpiling for Armageddon.  No, I'm not a hoarder in need of an intervention.  No, I don't have an eating disorder that makes me feel uncomfortable with less than 6 months of food within arm's reach.  No, I don't have any intention of giving up all of the lovely, gourmet items that I can neither grow nor practically stock up on.  No, I'm not suddenly going fanatical and refusing to eat anything that wasn't grown right in front of my eyes from sterilized soil and watered from a triple-filtered source.  Yes, if the power goes out for more than a day I'll be absolutely screwed.

But think about it.

If I do this right, in a perfect world, I will have a home bursting with food, all purchased at better-than-store prices or purchased as their oh-so-inexpensive components and fabricated without chemicals, all used before their expiration date or joined-the-ice-age date.

I will be eating better quality foods, since they'll all be eaten or frozen when absolutely fresh, or made with less processing and chemicals and stabilizers.  I'll be saving money on most items, which gives me more to splurge on specialty items (or equipment - omg do I love kitchen gadgets!).

All it will take is a little planning and organization, and I will be able to "shop" from my own, well stocked shelves.

Welcome to my house, the store.

Recipe: Chicken Cacciatore - new (Marcella Hazan)

Recipe:

This is from Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking

I don't have the recipe in front of me as I write this, but it was simple enough I expect I can reproduce it fairly accurately.

• 1  3-4 lb. Chicken, cut into 8 pieces
• 2 Tbs olive oil
• 1 cup onion, sliced thinly
• 2 cloves garlic, sliced thinly
• 1/3 cup dry white wine
• 1 1/2 cups raw plum tomatoes, peeled and chopped (or a can of italian San Marzano tomatoes)
• Salt and pepper

1. Wash chicken pieces in cold water and pat thoroughly dry with paper towels.
2. Put oil and onions in skillet over medium heat.  Cook until onions are translucent.
3. Add garlic.  Add chicken pieces, skin side down, being careful not to crowd the pan.
4. Brown chicken on all sides.
5. Add salt, pepper, and white wine.  Continue to cook until wine is reduced by half.
6. Add tomatoes.  Turn heat down to simmer, cover (but leave slightly off to vent), and cook 40 minutes or until thigh is cooked through, stirring and basting occasionally.

How did I do:
Well I didn't follow the recipe precisely, since I was using a particularly large chicken and only cooking for one (plus leftovers) so I just made the legs and thighs.  But the rest of the ingredients I kept in the same amounts.

I chose NOT to use a non-stick pan, since I was cooking in oil and wanted to brown things and had some vague idea that a non-stick wasn't the right pan for this.  And when I went to turn the chicken I discovered that everything had stuck.  LOL.  But I just kept scraping the onions and the chicken skin off the bottom of the pan, and tried not to let it bother me.  It smelled fantastic, and didn't have any burnt smell at all, so I decided not to worry about it too much.

It was so delicious!  The depth of flavor was fantastic.  I was so proud!


Lessons learned:

• Just as Marcella said in the intro of her cookbook, you cannot rush the food or you won't get the rich flavors.  So I have learned that this is not a quick dish, even though it is simple, and that I shouldn't expect it to be.  Take my time and let the flavors develop.  My patience was rewarded.
• Peeling tomatoes really IS simple if you blanch them.  I mean, yeah, all the cooking shows say so.  But I hadn't actually DONE it before.  Cinchy! 
• When I realized everything had gotten stuck, I had been tempted to cook some more onions in my non-stick pan and transfer the chicken (and some freshly sliced garlic) into there, and throw out the stuck-on onion from the original pan, and continue the process in the new pan.  I'm glad I didn't.  Yes, a few of the onion slices got really dark, but they still tasted wonderful.  A mistake is not a disaster.

Isn't it beautiful!

Adventures: Cutting up a chicken

I used this video:

Pampered Chef - How to Cut a Whole Chicken

And the actual process was a little harder than that, but a lot easier than I had feared.  Of course, it probably doesn't help that I'm doing this on a HUGE chicken that is slightly frozen in some spots, making it sometimes difficult to tell bone from ice.

This is not a "How To" guide.  The above video is that.  This is my attempt to follow what he said to do, with varying success.

The HUGE chicken:

(That dark stuff on the left is the sack of neck and giblets.)

Address the chicken:

 

(Hello, Mrs. Chicken!  How are you today?  Dead?  Oh, yes, well, moving right along...)

Slit the skin alongside the legs so you can see the meat:

After you crack the legs back to pop the joint out, it is fairly easy to cut the thigh from the carcass:

Separate the thigh from the leg:

He said there would be an obvious line of fat to follow.  He was mistaken.  Perhaps because of the quality/breed of chicken?  Perhaps because I'm an idiot?  I don't know.  But I did find that I could squeeze the leg and thigh together, making the top of the joint a *little* easier to find, then gently figure out where my knife should go to separate them.  Perhaps with practice this will be easier.

Separate the breast/wing combo from the carcass:

Note: The rib bones are sneaky things.  I'd get the knife fairly deep and then realize it was on the wrong side of one of those tiny bones.  But I got better at it with each one.

On my second chicken I didn't do it the way this video showed - removing breast and wing together.  I really don't want the wings.  I'll leave them with the carcass and use them for making stock.  So on the second bird I followed this breast-removal concept instead:

Cooking Tips : How to Debone a Whole Chicken

She did a crappy job IMO but the concept was simple enough.

Separate breast from wing:

Parts vacuum sealed and labeled, ready for freezer!

That wasn't too bad.  My first attempt, including stopping to wash hands and photograph, took 30 minutes.  The second bird only took 15 minutes.  I think with some practice I could easily get it down below 10.  With a second person to bag and tag (cutting out multiple stop-and-wash steps), I could probably do it in 5.

Official: I will join the ranks of people who feel foolish paying extra for an already parted-out chicken, when I can do it myself.