As I sit here with A., with whom I took a brisk constitutional earlier this afternoon, I find my thoughts wandering toward the question of dinner. What to eat tonight. Something to reflect the mood of the season, the mood of the day: not quite spring, but hardly winter.
Like the hardy first shoots of the tulips and daffodils bursting from the ground, a vision appears. I see a chicken. And it's in a pot. The broth is light: delicate and pale in color. There are some vegetables around it.
This should not resemble coq au vin, with its November hues and warmth-inducing richness. Today's chicken— as I now realize— must be a spring chicken. Subtle and light, and fragrant with fresh herbs. It is to be a fulfilled wish: we lift the lid to find brightness and light. The promise of spring.
(To be continued...)
*** A Pornographic Interlude****
It's surely a sign of spring, too, when everyone starts shopping again. This photograph arrives courtesy of Mikey B., who enclosed it in an email this evening. The picture depicts a slab of pancetta, as well as the knife that will shortly render it comestible. The photo, he writes, was (I quote):...taken shortly before it was cubed & fried up for a linguine/pancetta/asparagus/parmesean thing. delicious.
this is a northern italian kind of pancetta--it's smoky, a cousin of speck. it's awesome, of course, because it's bacon!
Thank you, Mikey B., for this little bit of food porn. It has enlivened the evening, and made me hungry to visit the Italian market.
*** Chicken in a Pot, Part II***
It's now 11 pm on the same Saturday night. There was a bat in our bedroom earlier this evening-- another sign of spring? Or perhaps merely a symptom of our own lunacy. We (or, more accurately, H., since I'm terrified of bats) opened the windows. Now the room is cool and fresh.
As I write this, the bat seems to have disappeared into the night sky, and the kitchen is full of dirty dishes. We did indeed make chicken in a pot, and it was perfectly amusing. I followed Bittman's recipe-- for a dish called, quite simply, "chicken in a pot"-- which is characterized by a combination of fresh thyme, leeks, and allspice berries.
The dinner's timing was thrown off somewhat by A.'s continued (albeit waning) nocturnal perambulations, as well as by the uninvited bat. As a result the vegetables were soggier than I would have liked. But the chicken itself remained, as anticipated, fragrant and subtle.
The best part of this dish is is bipartite nature: for the first course, you can serve the broth with oniony butter dumplings that have been steamed in the soup for ten minutes. For the second course, you serve the chicken and vegetables, which have been kept warm in a low oven. Chopped parsley ties the two courses together: folded into the dumplings and sprinkled over the chicken, it brightens both dishes with its powerful herbal presence.
Did the meal communicate the advent of spring? Certainly, the dumplings were fun. But I'll admit that by the time we got around to the chicken, the springlike air of freshness and buoyancy had abandoned us. I'll chalk this up to the lateness of the hour and the events that preceded dinner.
But I'd also like to tinker with this dish. I'd have preferred a lighter-colored, thicker broth-- or at least a lightly-thickened gravy for the chicken course. The leeks and carrots provided a nice flavor, but fewer onions would have rendered the flavor subtler. Perhaps some white wine might have been added. Or even some pancetta.
Amusingly, we did in fact buy some pancetta this evening, which will become part of tomorrow's salad. Did Mikey B. somehow know this, prompting him to send the pornographic image of the pancetta he'd bought? Or is this perhaps the true sign of spring, when everyone runs out for cured pork bellies? Maybe it's not about chicken, after all.
4 comments:
I need some help. You mention leeks. I've been cooking a number of different stews with leeks recently (yesterday: split peas, ham, leeks, parsnips, carrots, a touch of nutmeg and ground clove, a squeeze of pureed chili sauce, lots of pepper, in a store-bought organic chicken broth) They add a sweet oniony flavourg8ik8zx nxzv gb c ΩΩΩΩΩ (thanks, little man, for contributing to Gianni's blog!) Anyhoo, I'm looking for basic advice on leek preparation: how high up into green portion do you use, and how do you clean them so that as you chop them, you're not discovering dirt in them? Can one chop them as one chops spring onions, or do they need to be peeled and cleaned and then sliced longways? Any help would be welcome, because I think I'm wasting a lot of leek.
Aha! An excellent question, dear SW. And hello Neko!
There are likely to be other ways to do it, but, in short, my method is this: I try to be wasteful but then make use of the waste.
Dirt resides in the leeks where the leaves start pulling away from the stalk, so I tend to sacrifice much of the green part. (There are things you can do with this, however-- more below).
As for the stalk, yes, I find that it's a good idea to slice it lengthwise, which means that you can more easily rinse out any dirt that's still in there. Then you can either slice the halved stalk, or else braise the pieces lengthwise, or whatever.
As for the "wasted" green bits, there are a number of possibilities. 1) compost. 2) think about using it for something, and then compost. 3) wash thoroughly, shred, wash again, and then use for stock. When I make pot-au-feu, this is how it goes. Basically, if you know you're going to EAT the white part of the leeks, you can use the green part for stock flavoring.
If you're making a leek omelet, though, you may have to discard the dark green parts. Or make an impromptu stock and then freeze it.
Any other thoughts?
By the way, the split pea soup sounds marvelous. I'm intrigued by the chili sauce.
Ah, thank you! Yes. Composting. I wonder whether it is possible in the Big City? I've often thought about bringing my compostable waste to the Big Park in the Middle, but have a feeling that I would be arrested for dumping. The stock idea is excellent, too. I've made my own stock once (chicken), but now that I have a giant Calphalon stock/soup pot, I can start making my own. Excellent!
The split pea soup was . . . okay. Not great. Sort of a Jimmy Carter stew: wholesome but soggy. The peas were underdone and so didn't quite dissolve, but if I kept on cooking, the rest of the vegetables (the leeks, parsnips, carrots, onions) were going to disintegrate entirely, and, as it was, were already very limp and mushy. My timing was off with the veggies. I also should have added the ham later, because it did not so much flavour the broth as lose some of its own salty sweet kick. Now, that having been said, it was a Jimmy Carter-like stew -- and therefore a lot better than a description of it might indicate. It was really quite good, even if one was chewing the peas while the sour parsnips melted on your tongue.
As for the chilli sauce: I use a chilli pepper puree, rather like the tomato purees one can buy and squeeze like toothpaste. In addition to a few globs of this, I usually throw in a palmful of dried pepper flakes. However, G. has said that they make the stews too spicy for Neko, who otherwise loves them, so I held off on the dried pepper flakes - but I still gave one little squeeze of my chilli pepper puree: just to give it a faint, faint background of heat, rather like the stew was sinning in its heart, if not in the flesh.
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