Tuesday, February 24, 2009

ZUCCHINI AND BRIE SOUP


This is one of my older recipes (so old, I don’t remember where I got it and can’t find it online), and apparently I don’t make it too often because I’ve never posted it here before. So when I made it last week, it was with a critical eye—obviously it’s not one of my cherished faves, so should it be eliminated from the repertoire?

Luckily, this simple-but-unique soup passed the test with flying colors. It’s exceptionally quick and easy to prepare, requiring only a few basic ingredients. It’s a lovely, cheerful pale-green color, with the delicate flavors of zucchini and Brie. And even though it’s cheesy and creamy, the overall effect is light and refreshing, the kind of soup you could enjoy year-round. Keeper!

2 cups sliced zucchini
1½ cups diced peeled potatoes
1 medium yellow onion, chopped
4 cups vegetable or chicken broth
1 cup diced Brie cheese, rind removed
salt and pepper to taste

1. In a soup pot, combine the zucchini, potatoes, onion, and broth. Bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer, and cook, stirring occasionally, about 15 minutes or until the potatoes are tender. Remove from heat, add the cheese, and stir until just melted.

2. Puree soup in batches in a blender or food processor until smooth. Return to the pot, heat through, and season with salt and pepper to taste.

Serves: 4–6
Time: 30 minutes
Leftover potential: High

Friday, February 20, 2009

ROASTED CHICKEN v.2.0

This photo doesn't begin to do justice to the majestic roasted chicken that emerged from my oven that night. But that's only because while carving the bird, I happened to lick my fingers and they tasted so delicious that all of a sudden I was hunched over the carcass stripping leftover scraps of meat off it with my hands and popping them into my mouth like some kind of animal. So this photo is inadequate because it was taken under the influence of a frenzied need to EAT THAT CHICKEN LEG ALREADY. But at least you can get a sense of the beautiful golden-brown skin on the chicken. (The potatoes look really dark, but that's because some of them were purple and red potatoes, not Yukon Golds.)

Forget my other roasted chicken recipes.

OK, maybe don’t completely forget them, but try this one first.

Usually, I don’t like to be bothered too much with methodology when I’m cooking. I just want to know the ingredients I need and how to assemble them. I like to follow directions, but I don’t like to fuss. I find America’s Test Kitchen interesting on an academic level, but I never want to make their recipes.

Some foodies loooove to bicker about the best way to do things, comparing chocolate-chip cookie recipes or potato-mashing techniques. I tend to just find a recipe I like and stick with it. I rarely spare a glance for new potato-leek soup recipes, for instance, because I already have a potato-leek soup recipe I really like. It’s just more restful for my easily-overwhelmed brain that way. And let’s face it, I like consistency and routine. Occasionally, yes, it turns out that what I like can be improved upon—I liked this mac and cheese just fine, right up until I found my super-awesome no-white-sauce 2:1-ratio-of-cheese-to-macaroni version and promptly left the old one in the dust. But I thought I was perfectly happy with my reliable, made-dozens-of-times roasted chicken with vegetables recipe. I was wrong.

The trouble all started with the post on the Zuni CafĂ© roasted chicken and bread salad at Smitten Kitchen. I’d heard plenty of praise for the Zuni chicken before—it’s downright developed a cult—but never seen photos that made it look so droolingly good, that made me hungry for it right then and there. Reading the recipe, it became clear that it would be best achieved using a cast-iron skillet or a roasting pan, which I don’t have. (I want a cast-iron skillet at some point, but I didn’t want to have to buy one before I could have roasted chicken. Typical hunger logic.) I did a quick online search for a workaround, and while I didn’t find much information about what else I could roast the Zuni chicken in, I quickly gleaned two pieces of information: (1) To hear some people tell it, the Zuni chicken-roasting method is transcendent, possibly life-changing; (2) It is likely that the high-heat cooking will make a mess of your oven, fill the kitchen with smoke, and possibly set off your fire alarm. Then there were the people who thought Zuni was overrated and professed their allegiance to some other chicken-roasting religion, like Cook’s Illustrated or the Barefoot Contessa. I was starting to feel overwhelmed. But still hungry.

Apparently just a glutton for punishment, I straight-up Googled “best roasted chicken recipe.” Just as my head was starting to spin, I happened on this post at My Husband Hates Veggies. First of all, the chicken looked delicious (and oh wow, those perfectly browned potatoes!). Second, it seemed to be a thoughtful synthesis of several popular methods (I recognized the day-long brining and careful drying from the Zuni method, and the lemon and thyme in the cavity from the Barefoot Contessa recipe). Third, it had some intriguing-looking features that included boiling the potatoes with the lemon and garlic before roasting. Feeling adventurous, I decided to give it a try on a Sunday night.

The process wasn’t hard, and since I could boil the potatoes while preheating the oven, it didn’t take any longer than my old recipe (in fact, the bird cooked for less time because the heat was higher). And the results were completely miraculous. Unless it’s sort of emergency, I will never roast a whole chicken without rubbing salt on it 24 hours beforehand, and I will never forget to dry it thoroughly. As promised by the Zuni devotees, those two easy measures ensured the crispest skin and most flavorful meat I’ve ever eaten. Meanwhile, the hot lemon and garlic infused the whole chicken with additional flavor and kept the meat, even the breast, unbelievably moist. The higher-temperature cooking made for a perfectly cooked bird (with my old recipe, even with the help of a meat thermometer, I sometimes ended up undercooking). And the trick of boiling the potatoes before roasting them was brilliant—while with my old recipe they’d sometimes get blackened on the outside before they were soft on the inside, here we had perfectly tender interiors surrounded by an addictively crisp-fried shell (like French fries! But unlike fries, they even stayed crunchy when eaten as leftovers the next day, after being reheated in the microwave). And, to mimic my favorite part of my old recipe, other vegetables could be added to the mix—I threw in some carrots and parsnips (unboiled) that I needed to use up, and while I should have cut them into bigger pieces to prevent charring, they still turned out tasty.

This really is the perfect roasted chicken. It’s my go-to recipe for now on, and even if in the future I decide to return to my other recipes for the different flavors (smoked paprika, honey) they can offer, I will always follow some of the basic steps of this one (SALTING and DRYING, people). I may have finally learned the value of methodology.

1 whole 3-pound chicken (the best quality you can find, preferably organic and free-range)
1 large lemon
10 garlic cloves, unpeeled
2 sprigs of fresh thyme
Plenty of coarse kosher salt and fresh-ground pepper
Olive oil
1½ pounds small Yukon Gold potatoes

1. Prep your chicken about 24 hours ahead of time by patting it down with paper towels and covering it liberally with kosher salt. Really massage it into the skin, and inside the cavity as well. (Be sure to remove giblets or any neck pieces from the cavity first!) Place in a baking dish (not the one you’re going to use to roast the bird) in the refrigerator and cover with tin foil or plastic wrap.

2. When ready to roast, preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Slice the potatoes in half, or in quarters if they are larger. Add them to a large pot and cover with cold water. Add the lemon and the garlic cloves, and cook over high heat until water boils. When it does boil, add salt to the water.

3. Remove chicken from refrigerator and wipe it off with paper towels until it is as dry as possible. Place in a roasting pan (I use a roasting rack on a heavy baking sheet).

4. Once the potatoes are tender, drain everything. Add the potatoes back to the hot pot you cooked them in to dry off. Take the lemon (use tongs and be careful; it’s hot!) and pierce it 8–10 times with the tip of a sharp knife. Stuff the lemon inside the chicken cavity, along with the hot garlic cloves and the thyme. Drizzle the bird with olive oil and rub it all over, then rub kosher salt and freshly ground pepper all over it. Place the bird breast side up to cook, and tuck the wings underneath.

5. Place the roasting pan in the oven and cook for 30 minutes.

6. Remove the pan and lower the oven temperature to 375 degrees. Give the cooled potatoes a quick stir in their pot, then add them to the roasting pan. Stir them around in the hot fat and juices that have accumulated, so none are dry. Position the potatoes cut side down. Return the tray to the oven and cook for another 45 minutes.

7. Chicken is done when juices run clear and a meat thermometer inserted into the thickest part of the thigh reads 180 degrees. Remove pan from oven and let stand 10 minutes. Remove the potatoes to a serving dish and sprinkle with coarse salt. Remove everything from the chicken cavity (carefully, again!)—you can discard the lemon and thyme, but it’s great to serve the garlic with the potatoes. Carve the chicken and serve.

Serves: 4–5
Time: 2 hours, plus 24 hours of brining
Leftover potential: Insanely high. Aside from being eaten plain the next day (with the magically still-crisp leftover potatoes), leftover chicken can be used for sandwiches, salads, soups, pizza, or anything else you like (you can freeze it for months). And once you’ve stripped off all the meat, don’t forget to use the carcass to make chicken stock. Delicious and thrifty!

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

CRISPY SALTED OATMEAL WHITE CHOCOLATE COOKIES


Two Saturdays ago, A and I were feeling under the weather and had canceled our afternoon plans in favor of lying limply around the house. But first, I managed to drag myself to the kitchen and bake these easy cookies, and they made us supremely happy. I don’t care for white chocolate, and I usually prefer my oatmeal cookies on the soft side, but there’s something irresistible about these. The recipe is from the Smitten Kitchen, where Deb sums it up perfectly: “They’re crispy, but not because they’re hard or because they’re thin but because they practically hollow out when they bake, leaving you with this… shell of an oatmeal cookie with rich bits of white chocolate scattered about and the tiniest flaking of sea salt on top.” And oh, that salt is so so good, providing an excellent counterbalance to the sweetness of the white chocolate, as well as an excellent opportunity for me to use the fleur de sel I got for Christmas (thank you!). I won’t be throwing dark chocolate over for white chocolate anytime soon, but these cookies are well worth trying and are a unique addition to my repertoire.

I’m sure hand-chopped chunks of great-quality white chocolate would rock these cookies even harder, but I’ll admit I took the shortcut and used Trader Joe’s white chocolate chips. They contain cocoa butter, so they’re “real” white chocolate, and they taste good to me.

1 cup all-purpose flour
¾ teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon table salt
14 tablespoons (1¾ sticks) unsalted butter, slightly softened
1 cup sugar
¼ cup packed light brown sugar
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2½ cups old-fashioned rolled oats
6 ounces good-quality white chocolate bar, chopped (or non-artificial white chocolate chips)
½ teaspoon flaky sea salt (like Maldon or fleur de sel) for sprinkling on top

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line your baking sheets with parchment paper or Silpat. Whisk the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and table salt in a medium bowl.

2. Beat the butter and sugars until light and fluffy. Scrape down the bowl with a rubber spatula, then add the egg and vanilla and beat until incorporated. Scrape down the bowl again. Add the flour mixture gradually and mix until just incorporated and smooth. Gradually add the oats and white chocolate and mix until well incorporated.

3. Divide the dough into 24 equal portions, each about 2 tablespoons. Roll between your palms into balls, then place on lined baking sheets about 2½ inches apart. Using fingertips, gently press down each ball to about a ¾-inch thickness.

4. Sprinkle a few flakes of sea salt on each cookie.

5. Bake until cookies are deep golden brown, about 13 to 16 minutes, rotating baking sheet halfway through. Transfer to wire rack to cool.

Yield: 2 dozen
Time: 45 minutes