This is one of the easiest & fastest ways to prepare chicken in the winter, and it has the added virtue of being really adaptable. It’s not a recipe, but a technique, so you can use whatever cuts of chicken your family likes best, whatever fresh or dried herbs you prefer, and add a few root vegetables, or not. It’s also virtually fool proof-the technique makes it pretty much impossible to dry out the chicken. You can serve it with rice, made in your rice cooker, or baked potatoes, or just some good fresh bread, and a side salad, or if you’re feeling ambitious, a simple sautee of greens or steamed broccoli. For a busy family, this dinner is a godsend.
The Ingredients:
Olive oil
Bone-in chicken parts: legs, thighs, breasts, or a combination–enough to feed your family
2-3 springs fresh thyme, rosemary, oregano, or a combination, or a teaspoon or so dried
1/2 cup white wine or chicken broth
Optional: whole, unpeeled garlic cloves; carrots, sliced in half lengthwise; whole baby leeks or green onions; quartered onions; 2-3 canned plum tomatoes….be imaginative, use what you have…
Equipment: heavy bottomed, oven proof sauce or saute pan w/lid
The Technique:
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
On the stove, brown the chicken in a couple of tablespoons of olive oil. The parts won’t be cooked through–you just want them to acquire a nice, rich color.
Deglaze the pan with the white wine or broth, scraping up all the bits that cling to the bottom. Simmer until most, but not all of the liquid is evaporated. You’ll want about 1/4 cup of liquid to remain in the pan.
Add your herbs and any vegetables (or not) you are choosing to add.
COVER the pan and set it in the oven to finish cooking. Depending on the size of your parts, this will take about 20-25 minutes. The chicken cooks pretty quickly, so make sure any vegetables are chopped small enough to finish cooking in that time. The roast should produce a lovely, rich sauce, which you can spoon over the chicken and/or rice.
potato-print Valentines (a project supervised by my arty husband)
There was a time when Valentine’s Day had me making heart-shaped chocolate sandwich cookies, or even, just a few weeks before Ben was born, brownie ice cream sandwiches (I’ll never forget the lady who saw me standing in the ice cream aisle — I was looking for flavor inspiration — and commented, “It’s a bit too late to be counting calories, don’t you think?” I guess she’d never seen anyone who was pregnant before). But this year, as I’m entering the second week of an energy-sapping, mind-numbing head cold, I couldn’t imagine baking anything special to celebrate the day. So, uncharacteristically, I cooked dinner.
I can’t remember where I first discovered this recipe, but it’s a staple of our winter suppers, as it’s delicious, quick, and beautiful. You can pull it together in the time it takes to boil water and cook pasta, or you can make the beet topping ahead of time and let it sit until you’re ready to cook your pasta.
1 tbsp butter
2 tbsp olive oil
2 garlic cloves, minced
3 cups (packed) peeled and coarsely grated uncooked beets (about 3 large beets)
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper (more or less to taste)
2 tbsp fresh lemon juice
12 oz tagliatelle, fettucine, or other long pasta
8 oz sour cream (yogurt or goat cheese work nicely, too)
6 tbsp chopped fresh Italian parsley, divided
1/2 cup toasted walnuts, coarsely chopped
Melt butter with oil in large nonstick skillet over medium heat. Add garlic; saute until pale golden, about 1 minute. Add the shredded beets and cayenne; reduce heat to medium-low and saute until beets are just tender, about 8 minutes. Stir in lemon juice. (At this point, you can set the beets aside till you’re ready to boil pasta for dinner)
Cook your pasta in large pot of boiling, salted water, stirring occasionally, until done.
Drain pasta, saving a little bit of the cooking water, and return to cooking pot. Stir in sour cream and 4 tbsp of parsley, then the beet mixture. Add a little bit of the pasta-cooking water if the mixture seems too dry. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Transfer pasta to bowls, garnishing with remaining parsley and chopped walnuts.
It seems amazing to me that three and a half years ago, I began a blog post, “Ben’s not a picky eater…” What happened?! One day he was eating toasts spread with goat cheese and eggplant caviar and then, one by one, foods started to leave his diet. I wonder sometimes about the impact of Tony’s and my vegetarian diet on him — after all, we were the ones who, by eliminating an entire category of foods from our diets, introduced the notion of pickiness in the first place. But I don’t care enough for meat, nor know well enough how to cook it, to make that change now, and I doubt he’d eat it anyway (his brother is another story, for another day).
Ben still eats a greater variety of foods than some children I know, for which I am very grateful (and for which I extend their very patient parents my understanding and sympathy); he loves just about any vegetable, including the typically unpopular cooked greens, he likes funny things like pickled ginger and burdock root, he eats all kinds of fruits. But I get sad that his strong feelings about beans and cheese keep him from joining the rest of us for Mexican food, that he doesn’t like soups or stews or any meal, really, involving several foods cooked together.
So I was kind of stunned the other night at dinner when Ben said, “Remember that lasagna you used to make? With chard? I think I would eat that again.” And so I promised to make it for him the very next day. This afternoon after school, Eli and I harvested the chard from our backyard, and then it was quick work to turn it into this fabulous dish from Deborah Madison’s wonderful cookbook, Local Flavors:
1 cup walnuts
2-3 bunches chard, leaves only (save the stems and toss them into a potato gratin or something)
2 tbsp olive oil, plus extra for the dish
3 cloves garlic, minced
1/3 cup white wine
1 cup ricotta
1 cup grated parmesan
8 oz (about 2 cups) fresh mozzarella, coarsely grated (divided)
1 1/4 cup milk
8 oz lasagna noodles
Preheat oven to 400. While it’s warming, put the walnuts in to toast. Give them 7-10 minutes, until they are nice and fragrant, then chop finely and set aside.
Cook chard leaves in a large pot with a couple cups of water till tender, about 5 minutes. Scoop chard into colander, press out most of the water, reserving 1/3 cup of the cooking water. Chop chard finely.
Heat oil in a wide skillet and add 2 cloves of garlic, then chard. Cook over medium-high heat, turning frequently, for several minutes, then add wine and allow to cook down. Turn off heat.
Combine ricotta, parmesan, 6 ounces of the grated mozzarella, and remaining garlic in a bowl. Stir in 1/3 cup of the chard water, then add chard. Mix, and season with salt & pepper.
Lightly oil a 9×13″ baking dish. Drizzle 1/4 cup of milk into the dish (it won’t spread evenly because of the oil but that’s ok). Fit 3 pieces of uncooked (really, it’ll work just fine) lasagna noodles into baking dish. Sprinkle with 1/4 cup of milk, 1/3 of the cheese mixture, and 1/4 cup of walnuts. Repeat twice more with pasta, milk, cheese mix and nuts. When you get to the last layer, add the remaining milk, mozzarella, and walnuts.
Cover with foil and bake for 25 minutes.
Remove foil and bake 10 minutes longer, or till lightly browned.
I used to make fresh pasta a lot. As in once a week. Before kids, or when Ella was very little, it was easy to whip up a batch of fresh pasta for dinner, even for a first course. Fresh, it’s like nothing else in the world, and I even got good at making the right kind of pasta for the right dish. Wide paparadelle for a fresh olive oil emulsion, fettucine for alfredo, lasagna noodles for a casserole with bechamel, spaghetti for ragu, orichetta for broccoli rabe and sausage, raviolis and tortellini, even bite-sized, whisper thin sheets that encased a single spray of tarragon, or a tiny basil leaf, etc. With practice, it became a very easy thing to do and I had a nice wooden kitchen table at which to work.
Then, I had a new baby, and then a new home with a really terrible tile counter on which it was impossible to roll pasta. Our new kitchen table was similarly unsuitable. A few years passed, and while we got a new countertop pretty quickly, aside from a few batches of pumpkin ravioli, it took a while to work the past back in to any regular rotation. But back it is, and I can say now, that I am really sorry it ever went away, even briefly.
It can take a little time to master, and more time to master efficiently, so you’re not spewing flour everywhere and making for an unpleasant and lengthy clean-up, but if you stick with it, you get better fast, and it’s not hard and not messy.
It’s also one of the most fun things–hands down–you can do with a kid in the kitchen. In fact, it can make a great play date if you’re game.
I like the old fashioned method of mixing the pasta and eggs: I dump the flour on the counter, make a well, and break the eggs right into it. With a fork, the eggs get beaten, and the flour is slowly incorporated into the egg, a little at a time. The kids love this bit because it looks so, well, risky. No bowl! What a mess! The thing is, it’s not messy, and the dough only takes up as much flour as it needs. Certainly, you can dump the flour and eggs into your Cuisinart/food processor and mix it up until it rides the blade. But sometimes this produces an overly dry dough (say, on rainy days). It’s not fool proof. The counter method is.
The ratio, straight out of Marcella Hazan’s Classic Italian Cooking which is no longer in print:
1 egg to every 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
For 3-4 people, use 2 eggs + 1 1/2 cups flour
For 5-6 people use 3 eggs 2 1/4 cups flour
For 7-8 people, use 4 eggs, 3 cups flour
You can be brave and roll your dough by hand, or once it’s mixed, finish the kneading by passing it through your pasta machine until it’s very smooth, then keep passing it through until it’s the right thickness. Then, you cut as needed. A good machines will cost you about $70 at William Sonoma. I bought mine for $50 the minute we got back from our honeymoon in Italy ten years ago, and it was money very well spent.
The kids adore the machine.
This night, Finn rolled most of the pasta…
and he cut most of the pasta….
and he was very pleased with his work…
The cream sauce is really fettucine alfredo, but if you haven’t had it this way, with fresh pasta you really haven’t had it in its most fundamental, most extraordinary form. This recipe will make you realize why people go nuts for this dish, when all you’ve ever had is, well, a rich, flavorless, goop.
This recipe is fast enough for a weeknight if you’ve frozen your fresh pasta so it’s ready to go, and elegant and delicious enough for a dinner party or first course. You will never, ever tire of it in the cooler months.
Again, right out of Hazan:
Fettucine with Butter and Cream Sauce
1 cup heavy cream
3 T butter
2/3 cups freshly grated parmesan
freshly ground pepper
a very tiny grating fresh nutemg
Fettucine, made w/3 eggs
In a heavy pan, that can later accomodate all the cooked pasta, heat 2/3 cup cream and butter and simmer over medium heat fro less than a minute, until the butter and heat have thickened. Turn off the heat.
Cook the fettucine in a large pot of well-salted boiling water. They will take only a few seconds-1 minute to cook after the water returns to a boil. Drain immediately and thoroughly and transfer to the pan containing the butter and cream.
Turn on the heat under the pan to low, add the remaining 1/3 cup cream, all the grated cheese, 1/2 teaspoon salt, pepper to taste, and nutmeg. Toss briefly until the cream has thickened and the fettucine are well coated. Taste and correct for salt. Serve immediately from the pan, with a bowl of additional grated cheese on the side.
If you do something like this, and serve it from a serving dish, get it to the table and onto plates immediately. Say grace after dinner.
This recipe is an adaptation from my favorite cooking magazine: La Cucina Italiana. Sometimes the recipes are complicated and not friendly for weeknights or busy families, but the articles and pictures are terrific, and the recipes often astonishing.
Our orange tree is reaching its peak, and on a very rainy Saturday afternoon, this dish looked like just the warm, rich dish we needed on a very rainy Saturday night. I could make it with what I had in my pantry (& on my tree). It’s simple enough for a weeknight, elegant and rich enough for a weekend. Think of it as a kind of fancy variation on a Fettucine Alfredo (with an egg), which I’ll write about tomorrow. It’s another example of how seasonal eating can be serendiptious, spontaneous, and fulfilling. If you keep your kitchen stocked with ingredients available in and appropriate to the season, you can almost always whip up something great. (Unlike, say, keeping around a zucchini in Februrary January (apparently I just lost a month…), which is what I saw an unnamed Food Network “star” cook with last night….and I nearly gagged on my cauliflower broiled w/emmenthal and cream….).
Also, in keeping with the gastronomic education of the kids, this is interesting because it pairs the familiar with a new taste. It looks like something they’d love; it looks a little boring, maybe, but the flavors are a sunny surprise and a comfort. More: the kids aren’t used to seeing zest in their pasta, but they loved the flavor so, as we say, they got over it quickly. It’s also more filling, so they chose to eat less of it which was fine for me. (I had a couple of warm lunches.)
This is a rich and filling dish, so adapt your side dishes or first courses accordingly.
Winter Citrus Pasta
1 lb pasta
zest of one orange
1 cup cream
1 T butter
about a tablespoon of fresh chopped sage OR thyme
1 beaten egg
1/2 cup grana; parmesan, or pecorino, or more to taste
salt & pepper
Put orange zest in cream and heat (in microwave if you like) to near boiling. Let steep.
Cook pasta and drain.
In pasta cooking pot, sautee sage or thyme for a minute or so to release fragrance.
Lower heat and add pasta to pot. Toss with cream/zest mixture.
Quickly stir in the egg and the cheese; this will make a thick and creamy sauce.
Serve immediately.
The following was appended on Jan. 12, 2010
And for those of you suitably excited about this, and not afraid of the extra eggs and cream, the recipe as originally published is below. Read it, read my quicker version, and adapt to your kitchen, time frame, your taste and tolerance for cream. Both recipes are satisfying and delicious, as long as you don’t leave out the egg or cream. Or, um, the zest.
zest of 2 oranges
1 1/2 T butter
1 lb spaghetti
1 1/4 cups heavy cream
1/3 cup chervil
1/2 cup parmesan
3 large egg yolks
Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil.
Warm serving plates in a low oven.
Melt butter in a medium skillet until foam subsides. Add zest and a pnich of salt, reduce heat, and cook until zest is soft and golden. Set aside.
Bring cream, chervil, salt to a boil in a small saucepan. Simmer for 4 minutes.
Cook pasta until al dente.
Just before pasta is served, spoon 3 T of cream onto serving plates. Using the back of spoon, spread the cream to cover plates.
Darain pasta and toss with remaining cream, zest and egg yolks until fully incorporated.
