Limousine Chicken

Many African-Americans never thought they’d live to see the day a black man ascended to the presidency. Most Americans both black and white  never thought they’d hear a president, any president,  own up to making a mistake and taking responsibility for it, not years after the event or after he left office, and certainly not barely three weeks into his tenure.

Yet today, President Obama sat down with Brian Williams on the NBC Nightly News and held himself accountable (“I screwed up” were his exact words) for proceeding with Tom Daschle’s nomination for secretary of Health and Human Services despite his owing $128,000 in back taxes. The president accepted that both he and “his people” had made a mistake.

Well…yea. Anybody in their right mind could see that; and we saw it as soon as    Daschle admitted to tooling  around town in a chauffeur-piloted limo provided by, shall we say, someone with more than just interest in getting Tom to the church, I mean Senate, on time. What was he thinking?

In the interest of public disclosure,  you should know that back in the mid-60s my dad answered a newspaper ad and soon found himself the proud owner of… yes, a  stretch, shiny black, limo (what was he thinking?) complete, with a Neolithic car phone. ( “Hello? Hello? Can you hear me?” yelled into the heavy hand-piece was about all the communication possible back then).

On the (thankfully) rare occasions that my sister and I were taken to school in this undoubtedly comfortable voiture, we insisted on being dropped off blocks away where no one could possibly see us exiting such a humiliating form of transportation.  Unlike Daschle’s wheels however, it vanished about six months later after about as many burglaries and vandalisms. Of course, the phone was the first thing to go….so don’t think I don’t know something about what I’m talking about here.

What is it about Washington, or is it government in general, that makes elected officials (see States of Illinois and Connecticut) feel that they are either above the law or below the radar when it comes, in particular, to paying taxes?

Is it the corridors of power that supply just enough oxygen to develop a tax code that makes the word Byzantine come to mind, but not enough fresh air to enable delicate legislative brains made cognitively lax by too many rubber chicken dinners to think logically, let alone ethically?

And here one has to include the President and “his people”.  Maybe it’s not the air. Maybe it’s the light inside the White House and what all those klieg lights (alluded to by the departing Bush), do to a president’s ability to really see, not visually of course, but as in to understand the implications of one’s actions.

Thankfully, Obama’s youth and relatively short time (compared say, to Tom Daschle) on the campaign circuit, in the corridors of power and in the White House, haven’t (yet) permanently clouded his judgment or blinded him to his ethical commitments.

No doubt he stepped outside the White House today as much to visit a charter school as to get a breath of fresh air and clear his brain.

Definitely Not Rubber Chicken Dinner in a Pot

This is a delicious and easy dinner when you want something elegant enough to serve guests but not at all fussy. Take your time browning the chicken, and the rest is done by the oven.

Serves 4-6

1 whole 4-5# chicken
1 Tbsp olive oil
1 each carrot, onion, celery, shallot diced
1 cup chicken stock
2 sprigs fresh thyme
1 bay leaf
1/2 each sweet potato, turnip, fennel bulb, diced
6 shiitake mushrooms, quartered
1 zucchini, quartered lengthwise, cut into 1” pieces
1/2 cup sweet white wine
juice of 1/2 lemon
fresh parsley

1. Preheat oven to 400F (175C).
2. In an oven-proof casserole with a lid, heat the oil on the stove over high heat.
3. When it shimmers, place the chicken breast side down. Lower the heat to medium and cook until very fragrant and the sizzling has become subdued. Check the colour of the skin: it should be a deep, rich, caramelized brown. If not, return it to the heat until it is. This can take about 10 minutes. Be sure not to burn the skin.
4. Turn the chicken on its side and brown as above. Then the other side and finally the back.
5. When all sides are nicely seared, sprinkle the carrots, onions, celery and shallots over the top. Add the chicken stock and herbs.
6. Put the lid on and place in the oven for about 40 minutes. The broth will be bubbling, the vegetables cooked.
7. Remove the pot from the oven and place the chicken on a carving platter, lightly covered with foil.
8. Return the pot to the stove and add the remaining vegetables and wine. Simmer covered for 10 minutes. Remove the lid and simmer until slightly thickened, another 5-10 minutes. Taste for seasoning. Skim excess fat if necessary.
9. Add the lemon juice and parsley.
10. Carve the chicken at the table. Ladle some sauce onto each plate and top with a piece of chicken.

Stove-n Chicken

Why is it that the day after I wash my long, curly locks I decide to make the one chicken dinner that perfumes the house for days with minute particles of tasty chicken fat that cling to everything including my hair which only this morning smelled of mangoes and now with only the addition of some curry,  might tempt someone to eat off my head?

That block of chicken flesh that defrosted overnight on the counter (I know, I know, you shouldn’t defrost at room temperature but it’s so cold in the house that it’s as good as a fridge),  sat patiently and wanly on the counter awaiting its final, final fate (Is that your final answer? Roasted or panfried?).

All day long I had walked around work wrestling with the weighty decision of another Friday night roast chicken, roast vegetables and predictable salad, or my world famous chicken and bread salad varied with the spiced pears that were poached in red wine and pomegranate syrup a few days ago, or the boned chicken recipe from Red Cat cookbook? As people asked for help to solve their problems, find products; as I replied to emails and wrote a few snarky ones, the back of my mind was simmering the question down to a final clarity: thinking about the golden brown, crispy skin of the Red Cat chicken set the decision.

But, like childbirth, one soon forgets the pain, although in this case the “pain” isn’t in the cooking but in the cleaning. Recipes that work well in restaurants where there are cleaning brigades, not to mention heavy duty ventilation systems, tend to frazzle the home cook; and not because they are difficult per se but because they are very messy.

The Red Cat’s chicken is a case in point. First you have to bone the damn thing. Make sure your knife is a real boning knife and that it’s sharp: the chicken is very slippery when cold and the more you handle it the warmer and  slimier it gets.

After you’ve accomplished this no small feat in about 10 minutes, you heat a pan with some hot oil and place the chicken in skin side down. If it doesn’t immediately make so much noise that you can no longer hear the evening news in the background, turn up the heat, until the only thing audible is the sound of sizzling, frying chicken.

It’s at this point that you must turn on the vent, perhaps consider putting on a bathing cap to keep your hair from smelling like you’ve spent the night in a KFC, and keep a damp cloth handy to wipe down the splatters from the pan that cover the stove and all surrounding areas.

After about 8 minutes, when the skin is a deep golden brown, you pop the pan into a 450F oven for exactly 20 minutes. It’s that easy. And that messy.  You’ve spent about 10 minutes actually handling the chicken, 8 watching it cook, and then another 20 waiting for it to bake. Ideally, you want it to sit for an addition 5-10 minutes after coming out of the oven.

That’s a good thing since you’re also probably going to want to open all the windows and doors (never mind it’s -19C outside)because as soon as the oven door opens up, a billow of chicken smoke emerges the size of Casper the Friendly Ghost, and if not given an outlet will   set off your smoke alarm,  and hang in the air like smog for several days. Trust me, open your windows and doors or else every piece of clothing in the house will tell the story of Red Cat chicken. And by the time all the windows and doors are open, and you’re now freezing your ass off, the chicken will be ready to eat. Incidentally, while it’s been cooking in the oven, you’ve been whipping up some mashed potatoes and simmering some leftover chunky tomato sauce.

You may be shivering by the time you sit down to dinner (unless you make it in the summer in which case you might be cursing) , nevertheless, the technique  produces a very fine specimen: beautifully juicy and tender on the inside, deliciously crisp and tasty on the outside.

This time it was served surrounded by the simmering chunky tomato sauce beneath a mound of red bliss potatoes, parsnip, celeriac and a matzoh ball puree. That got your attention! Yes, this is now the second time I have added matzoh balls to my mashed potatoes.

Why?   Because I am lazy; because I am convinced when I portion out the matzoh ball soup, I will know exactly what’s in the container 6 months later and therefore do not label anything. Never mind that blond chicken stock with a matzoh ball frozen in its centre looks exactly like chicken stock without a matzoh ball!

But back to the stove: the  melting chicken stock (for de-glazing the pan and smoothing out the potatoes) suddenly ceased to melt, or so it seemed. There was a stubborn center that wouldn’t melt: looking closer I recognized a fluffy matzoh ball from Rosh Hashanah. Oh well, as you know, nothing goes to waste in my house, so in it went into the mashed potatoes (it is starch after all). My SO watched with a kind of morbid fascination; actually, I don’t think he realized what I was doing so dumbstruck was he, but that didn’t stop him from second and third helpings.

The meal took 45 minutes to make, perhaps a half an hour to consume if you include our brownies for dessert, but the cleanup itself took an hour. The stove had to be completely disassembled and wiped down as did the back splash and side counters. The oven? I had to use my blade scraper and a scrubber to make sure the interior  was clean. The sink was slick with fat. The saute pan was a basket case (is that mixing metaphors?) or in this case, a mess of baked on fat that needed real and commercial elbow grease to clean its surface. And my hair? I’m too tired now to wash it. And that’s a good thing: the aroma will no doubt cling long enough to remind me that this is a great recipe…for my next restaurant.

Stove-n Chicken

1 chicken

vegetable oil

chicken stock, white wine or Madeira

chunky tomato sauce

mashed potatoes/polenta

Preheat oven to 450F

1. Bone the chicken. Better yet, get it cut in half and boned for you, keeping the wing bones but removing all other bones. If you’re doing it yourself, remove the back, cut down the center of the breast and work your way from the leg and thigh bones, scraping the flesh off the bone, to the breast where it’s fairly easy to do.

2. Reform the leg which in all likelihood will be turned inside out so that you can reshape the chicken half into more or less its original shape, only sans bones. Season with salt and pepper

3. Heat an oven proof saute pan large enough to accommodate both halves over high heat and add about 2 Tbsp of vegetable oil. When it shimmers, carefully lay the chicken halves skin side down. Turn on your ventilation. It will sizzle and pop vigourously.

4. From time to time, after about 6 minutes, lift the chicken up using tongs to see how brown the skin is. It should be a deep, golden brown.

5. Place the pan in the oven and bake for an additional 20 minutes. Through the window you will see lots of smoke swirling around. It’s okay, as long as you get the windows and door ready to open.

6. While the chicken is in the oven, heat your tomato puree and make your mashed potatoes or polenta, both are great.

7. Remove the chicken from the oven and let sit for about 5-10 minutes.

8. Pour the fat out of the pan, making sure you use a dishcloth to hold the handle since it’s HOT from the oven. Deglaze it with some chicken stock, white wine or Madeira, scraping up the crispy bits. Bring to a boil and simmer down until it’s thickenend.

9. You can either swirl it into the mashed potatoes/polenta, or reserve it and pour over the chicken. In either case, spoon some tomato sauce in the bottom of a plate and make a large circle. In the center place a mound of potatoews/polenta and top with a chicken half. Serve immediately.