Skepticism

Last week, as part of a major restocking in case of swine flu (purchased: Some $500 of frozen/ nonperishable/ yummy stuff to be used up starting now, whether or not a pandemic hits Seattle), Alex made a purchase I cannot condone: Four pounds or so of free-range boneless, skinless chicken breasts, on sale at the PCC for some minuscule discount off the usual extortionary $6.99 a pound or whatever, frozen and shrink-wrapped in a massive "DISCOUNT PAK!!" Ah, commerce.

The thing is, no matter how much you're "saving" on boneless, skinless chicken breast, you always lose. This is because boneless, skinless chicken breast is the plain 35-calorie rice cake of poultry--all but textureless, more than flavorless, and inferior in every conceivable way (unless you're counting calories, but why not just eat less of something actually good?) to any kind of dark chicken meat. This is an indisputable fact. Dark meat just tastes better. And if you have to eat white meat, the skin is its only saving grace--take that away, along with the satisfying experience of biting off the end of a well-cooked chicken bone, and you've got the poultry equivalent of a stale low-sodium saltine cracker--perfectly innocuous, harmless in every way, but why would you eat it?

But--bias, nay, good taste be damned--I've got to figure out a way to cook the freaking things. So far, I'm wavering between Mark Bittman's sauteed chicken cutlets (which redeems the fatlessness of the chicken cutlets by frying them in half an inch of oil); his stir-fried chicken with fermented black beans (the latter, again, for flavor); chicken piccata (a classic, apparently); or the Joy of Cooking's baked stuffed chicken breasts (can't find a recipe online, but it's on page 592 of the 1997 edition). I'll update on whether I ultimately overcome my boneless-skinless-chicken-breast aversion (doubtful) or learn tolerance for America's most popular poultry cut (it's possible!)

Photo of the Day

Photo of chicken gyro by Flickr user ncmysteryshopper.

Success! In Three Parts

After feeling ho-hum about two time-consuming homemade meals in a row, I'm happy to report that the last few days have left me feeling utterly vindicated, culinarily speaking.

The first success was one I can't take even a little of the credit for: That goes to my friend Lisa, who suggested that we go to Tamarind Tree, a fancy-ish-for-my-current-budget Vietnamese place behind the Viet Wah supermarket, for a long-overdue dinner date. We started with an appetizer described on the menu as "stuffed esgargot." In reality, it was more of a pork-snail paste (appetizing-sounding, no?) molded around a four-inch length of lemongrass and served with a ginger dipping sauce. Not my favorite (the texture of chopped-up snails is just too rubbery for my taste), but the salad that accompanied it--sticky-sweet just-seared Pacific sea scallops and greens tossed with pickled lemongrass, onions prepared two ways, and a light, tangy dressing--was fresh and light-tasting, almost summery (a serious bit of relief after two straight weeks of overhanging gray skies and rain rain rain.) And my entree was outstanding, even revelatory. The menu described my entree, somewhat parsimoniously, as "steamed rice batter topped with shrimp bits and green onions served with mixed herb fish sauce." What arrived on the table was nine little bowls filled with what looked like custard, and topped with what, in the dim light, you'd be forgiven for assuming were bacon bits. But the flavor was like biting into a coconut, and the texture had more in common with creme brulee than rice. And the bacon bits? Those were tiny flecks of crunchy, deep-fried shrimp, a perfect textural counterpart to the silky custard. With a generous spoonful of spicy fish sauce, it was one of the most exciting (and visually appealing) meals I'd had in months. Lisa's crepe (an eggy, lettuce-wrapped, meat-brimming affair) was pretty good, too.

Up next: My second attempt at creating this recipe, this time with all the correct ingredients! Although the addition of shredded galangal and fresh Kaffir lime leaves and the substitution of actual long beans for the "any old beans" in my previous rendition didn't seem to make that much difference to the taste of the final product (in fact, it may have been better last time because I froze the pork longer, making it easier to cut into paper-thin slices), I did make one major time-saving deviation from the recipe: Instead of mashing everything to a paste in my trusty marble mortar, I chucked it all into my mini-chopper, saving about ten minutes (and a measure of my sanity). Purists may claim that using a mortar and pestle preserves the aromas and volatile oils in the ground ingredients, but when you're dealing with materials as pungent as ground dried shrimp and as tough as whole Thai chiles, the food processor seems like the way to go, in terms of both taste and texture.

Finally, last night, I finished up two recipes that have been sitting in my "to-do" folder for quite a while: Bittman's Hainanese Chicken with Rice, and Gourmet's spicy glazed eggplant with Japanese seven-spice powder. (Culinary crossover, I know, but trust me). I was beyond skeptical about the chicken, which is poached in nothing more than water with a generous handful of garlic and ginger: How could something so simply prepared--no browning, no brining, just plunked into a pot--have any flavor? I'm happy to say that although the chicken, tasted alone, was pretty bland, the combination of warm chicken and rice (I mixed them together, rather than serving the chicken mounded on top of the rice as the recipe suggests), cool dipping sauce, and cold, fresh vegetables was both familiar and altogether new.

Hainanese Chicken with Rice (adapted from the Minimalist)
Salt and freshly ground pepper
1 whole (3- to 4-pound) chicken, trimmed of excess fat
Several cloves smashed garlic, plus 1 teaspoon minced garlic
Several slices fresh ginger, plus 1 tablespoon minced ginger
1/4 cup plus two tablespoons peanut oil, or 1/4 cup peanut oil and 2 tablespoons chicken fat
3 shallots, roughly chopped, or a small onion
2 cups long-grain rice
1/2 cup minced scallions
2 cucumbers, peeled and sliced
2 tomatoes, sliced
Chopped fresh cilantro leaves
2 tablespoons sesame oil

1. Bring a large pot of water to a boil and salt it. Add chicken to pot along with smashed garlic and sliced ginger. Bird should be just submerged. Cover, reduce heat to medium, and cook for 10 minutes. Turn off heat and let bird remain in water for 45 minutes to an hour, covered, or until it is cooked through.

2. Remove chicken from pot, reserving and straining stock, and let bird cool to room temperature. Put two tablespoons peanut oil or chicken fat in a skillet over medium heat. When oil is hot or chicken fat is melterd, add remaining garlic, along with shallots; cook, stirring occasionally, until lightly browned, about 5 minutes. Add rice and cook, stirring, until glossy. Add 4 cups reserved chicken stock and bring to a boil, then reduce heat to low and cover; cook for about 20 minutes, until rice has absorbed all liquid. Stir in salt and pepper to taste.

3. Make a dipping sauce of remaining oil, ginger, half the scallions and a large pinch of salt.

4. Shred or chop chicken, discarding skin. Put rice on a large platter and mound chicken on top of it; decorate platter with cucumbers, tomatoes, remaining scallions and cilantro. Sprinkle sesame oil over all and serve with dipping sauce.

Spicy Glazed Eggplant
Adapted from Gourmet
1 1/4 lb Asian eggplants (about 4), trimmed, halved lengthwise, and cut diagonally into 1 1/2-inch pieces
2 tablespoons mirin (Japanese sweet rice wine) or rice wine vinegar
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1/2 teaspoon finely grated peeled ginger (use a Microplane)
1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon Japanese seven-spice powder* (sometimes labeled “shichimi togarashi”), or to taste
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 tablespoon finely chopped chives

Toss eggplant with 1 teaspoon salt and drain in a colander, stirring occasionally, 45 minutes.

Rinse eggplant under cold water and dry well, pressing out any excess moisture.

Stir together mirin, soy sauce, ginger, and seven-spice powder.

Heat oil in a 12-inch heavy skillet over medium-high heat until it shimmers, then sauté eggplant until browned, about 8 minutes. Stir in mirin mixture and cook, gently stirring and turning frequently, until sauce becomes a glaze and eggplant is browned and tender, about 1 minute.

Serve hot or at room temperature, sprinkled with chives.

* Or you can make your own, like I did; the recipe I used is available here.

Make This. Now.

I was going to write about the ongoing question of who Obama will pick to lead the USDA's (maybe, maybe not irradiation apologist Michael Osterholm), which Obama Foodarama has been covering somewhat, um, obsessively.

But then a bag of kumquats got in the way.

In case it isn't obvious from the shot selection on the Photos of the Day, I'm not a big fan of sweet stuff. A good piece of dark chocolate? Yum. Chocolate Blackout Orgasmic Explosion Cake? Blech. So when a bag of kumquats arrived in my CSA box last week, I knew I wanted to figure out something savory to do with them.

For the uninitiated (and those who avoid kumquats because of the vaguely dirty-sounding name--kumquat kumquat kumquat!), a kumquat (alternate spelling: kumquat--snerk) is a small citrus fruit that tastes like an inverted orange: Super-sweet skin, puckeringly sour interior. They originated in China, their season is from late fall to midwinter, and they look like this:

Photo by Flickr user CoCreatr

Cute, aren't they?

Anyway, trolling around the Internet for a suitably savory recipe (there aren't many out there, and neither Bittman nor Joy had any), I came across Gourmet's very '90s-haute recipe for "sauteed chicken over wilted spinach with kumquat sauce" at Epicurious. As I may have mentioned earlier, I'm pretty sure Gourmet can do no wrong, so despite my skepticism about that particular combination of flavors, I decided to give it a whirl.

And seriously? OMFG it was good. The sour kumquats married just perfectly with the bitter arugula (which I substituted for spinach--sauteed spinach just squicks me out) and piquant vinegar-based sauce, and the sauteed chicken (I used legs instead of the breasts called for) was a suitably savory but unobtrusive base. I can imagine this recipe working well with a bland, sturdy whitefish like halibut, too. Yum! Here's the recipe, with my changes noted.

Ingredients
3 kumquats (I had a large bag, and they were pretty small, so I used 5 or 6)
1 large shallot
2 boneless chicken breast halves with skin (I used whole legs, which take a little longer to cook)
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
2 tablespoons sugar (I used a little less)
1/3 cup water
3 tablespoons white-wine vinegar
1/8 teaspoon dried hot red pepper flakes (or more to taste)
1 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley leaves
4 cups packed spinach leaves (I used arugula)

Preparation

Cut kumquats and shallot crosswise into thin slices, discarding any kumquat seeds. Season chicken with salt and pepper. In a skillet heat butter over moderately high heat until foam subsides and sauté chicken, skin sides down, until skin is golden and crisp, about 5 minutes. Turn chicken over and cook over moderate heat until just cooked through, about 5 minutes more. (Legs will take longer than this--I covered mine up once they were brown). Transfer chicken to a plate and keep warm, covered.

Add shallot to fat remaining in skillet (I poured a lot of the fat into my chicken-fat jar and don't think the flavor suffered) and cook, stirring frequently, 1 minute. Sprinkle sugar over shallot and cook, undisturbed, until sugar is melted and golden. Immediately stir in kumquats, water, vinegar, and red pepper flakes and simmer, stirring, until sugar is dissolved. Stir in parsley and salt to taste and, if sauce is too liquid, simmer until thickened to desired consistency, about 1 minute.

Transfer two thirds sauce to a small bowl and to remainder add spinach (/arugula) and salt to taste, turning with tongs until just wilted.

Divide spinach between 2 plates and top with chicken. Spoon sauce over chicken.

Photo of the Day

Photo of fried chicken in bento box by Flickr user FromEast2005.

So Many Potatoes!

To amend something I alluded to below: It's not that I don't like potatoes, exactly. It's just that I don't really know what to do with them. Mashing, boiling, roasting--all are possibilities, but none really present much challenge or excitement. Consequently, my response to potatoes is a little 'meh.' So when I recently found myself with a literal breadbox full of fingerlings--a combination of French red fingerlings Alex picked up at the PCC and four pounds courtesy of my Full Circle Farm CSA--I was a bit bewildered.

Far be it from me, however, to let this questionable bounty go to waste. Here's what I did with them.

First, I made a roasted chicken. I halved the red fingerlings, which were shaped more like new potatoes, and --after boiling them briefly to make sure they'd cook through by the time the chicken was finished roasting--used them as the "rack" for a brined four-pound chicken, which I'd stuffed with rosemary, a lemon, and half a head of garlic. (My method for making roast chicken--the only method you'll ever need--is described in excruciating detail here.) Although this was kind of a standard preparation for me (and thus a bit of a cop-out on the challenge and excitement fronts), it was, as usual, awesome: The potatoes cooked up creamy inside and lightly browned on the outside, and the chicken was superb. I know it sounds like I'm bragging, but my recipe--more a method than a hard-and-fast list of instructions--is the result of years of experimentation, and I've found it to be nearly infallible in producing the crisp skin and juicy interior (including the white meat) that are the marks of a good roasted chicken.

That was all well and good, but I still had a good three pounds of potatoes staring me in the face. This time, as I often do in such situations, I turned to Bittman. Eschewing all the braised-potato recipes as insuffiently exotic, I decided to make the chicken variation of his stuck-pot rice--a dieter's nightmare that includes two kinds of simple carbs (white rice and the potatoes) and dark-meat chicken whose fat gets absorbed into the rice. The preparation is incredibly simple--you brown the meat and remove it, pouring the fat into the jar where you're reserving chicken fat for later uses. While that's going, thinly slice enough potates to cover the bottom of your pot and boil a cup or two of rice in a large pot of water for about five minutes. Drain the rice, melt a couple of tablespoons of butter, add a pinch of saffron, and put the potatoes in a thin layer on top of that. Add half the rice, the chicken, and the other half of the rice; place a clean kitchen towel on the top of the pot, add the lid, and walk away. Don't come back, Bittman admonishes, until "the potatoes smell toasty"--adding, encouragingly, "you'll know." After about 45 minutes, when the potatoes are toasty, dump the whole thing out onto a big plate; if you've done everything right and haven't fallen prey to the temptation to mess with it, the potatoes will have formed a beautiful crust on top of the rice. I listened to Bittman and it was a total success. But unless you actually burn the potatoes (unlikely, especially if you're making it with chicken), I can't imagine this tasting anything less than delicious--rich and comforting, with just a hint of mysterious saffron warmth.

By this time, it was the work week again, and I had little time or patience for kitchen experiments. So the rest of the potatoes--a good-sized bagful--came with me to work, destined to be microwaved and doused in butter and sour cream. Sometimes, when you're hungry and broke and have no time to cook, a bowlful of microwave-"baked" potatoes is the most comforting food in the world.