Spatchcocked Chicken: A Grotesque Step-by-Step

The secret to delicious, perfectly cooked whole chicken is also a really fun word to say: Spatchcock. It either sounds like a sneeze or a foreign swear word. Or both. You do have to get a little down and dirty with your chicken, but look at the reward:

Look at all that delicious browned crispy chicken skin. Look at those roasted whole garlic cloves and red onions. Spy the roasty-toasty carrots hiding in the sides of the pan. You, too, can enjoy a roast chicken on a weeknight, and in about an hour from start to finish.

The secret is cutting out the backbone of the chicken and flattening it. This makes the chicken cook more quickly and more evenly, so you get a juicier breast without having underdone legs. That sounds like the cover of a glamour magazine. ANYWAYS. After you have spatchcocked your bird, the seasonings and accompanying vegetables are really up to you -- really, anything goes (within reason - I don't want any comments saying you tried it with chocolate sauce and marshmallow fluff and it didn't work and I'm a liar).

But if you want to make what I made, here's what you need:

One whole chicken
2 TBS olive oil
One red onion, cut into wedges
2 carrots, cut into sticks
One head of garlic, peeled but in whole cloves
1 lemon (or more if you like) cut in half
1 TBS honey
1 tsp coarse salt
Freshly ground pepper.

Your instructions and gruesome raw chicken photos are after the jump! But also some lovely roasty after shots - don't despair! Click here to keep reading.

Amazing Pita Bread

I had a bit of a problem with this pita bread. The problem wasn't in the kneading or rising or baking -- it was getting it photographed. I even made another batch the very next day and still - the pieces kept disappearing before I could get a decent photo! But really, I should just take that as a sign that this is some mighty fine pita. Once again, The Fresh Loaf comes to the rescue.

I know I keep saying how all my bread recipes that I post on here are soooo easy, but they are. And this one is no exception. If you can make cookies, you can make bread. If you can play with playdough, you can make bread. It's just measuring, mixing, a wee bit of kneading, some patience, and a hot oven.

You need:

3 cups of flour
1 1/2 teaspoons of salt
1 Tablespoon of sugar or honey
2 teaspoons of yeast
1 1/4 to 1 1/2 cups water, roughly at room temperature
2 tablespoons of olive oil, vegetable oil, butter, or shortening. I used olive oil because it is delicious.

1. Mix the sugar in 1 1/4 c of the water and sprinkle the yeast on top. Let it sit for a few minutes until the yeast gets foamy.

2. Mix the flour and salt in a bowl together. When the yeast is ready, add the water-yeast-sugar mixture and the olive oil and mix. I used my KitchenAid so this was really easy.  If the dough seems really dry, add the rest of the water.

3. When the dough is more or less cohesive and/or your wooden spoon revolts, start kneading. Knead for about 10 minutes then put the dough in a greased bowl and cover with plastic wrap or a clean dish towel and let it sit and rise for about 90 minutes.

4. After it has risen divide the dough into 8 even pieces and shape into balls. Let these rest another 20 minutes, again covered with something. At this point, turn on your oven to 400º and make sure your baking stone is in there, or if you don't have a baking stone, a baking pan flipped upside-down. My baking stone BROKE during a tragic Tarte-Tatin accident and I have yet to replace it.

5. After 20 minutes, lightly flour your work surface and roll out the dough into flat circles about 1/4 inch thick or a little thinner.

6. Bake them two at a time for about 3 minutes. They will get nice and puffy, making lovely pockets for you to stuff with delicious things later on.

These are great for stuffed pita sandwiches or you could try serving them with a delicious white bean dip!

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Salmon Tikka with Cucumber Yoghurt

If you are looking for a way to become friends with fish, this might be a good recipe for you. If you are already a fish enthusiast, then you're in luck too. The Indian spices, though not terribly hot, are so delicious - I'm sure there is a way to do this completely from scratch but I followed directions and bought a jar of Patak's Tandoori paste - if I hadn't made my own naan bread, this would have been a very quick, less than 30 minute meal. This recipe serves two.

You need:
- 1.5 c plain yoghurt
- 1/4 c minced red onion
- 1/2 c chopped cucumber
- 1/2 tsp cumin
- 2 salmon fillets
- 3 TBS Patak's Tandoori paste
- 1 TBS oil
- 2 pieces of naan bread
- 1/4 c chopped fresh cilantro

First, prepare your yoghurt. This is a really nice, cool side that complements the spices on the fish really well. If you add some hot peppers to it, you will also get some bit. We are wimps though and don't abide by such things. Anyways, seed a half a cucumber, or a third if you have one of those giant long ones, and dice it finely. I left the skin on because I like it that way. Finely mince a about a quarter cup of red onion. Stir these, along with about a 1/2 tsp of ground cumin, into 1.5 cups of plain yoghurt. I used fat-free organic, but thick Greek style would be great too. Set this aside in the fridge.

If you are making your own naan, you want to start that well in advance, as the bread will have to rise etc. But if not, and you have purchased naan from your local Indian restaurant or from your grocery store, then you can move right on to the salmon portion of this dinner.

You need a couple of fillets of salmon - make sure the fish you are buying is sustainably fished in your part of the world. If you can't find salmon, red-fleshed trout works well too. Cut the fish into thirds lengthwise and leave the skin on. Brush the top and sides of each piece with the Tandoori paste - I used about 3 tablespoons total - maybe a little less. Don't put the brush back into the jar because you will get fishy things in your jar of paste and that is unsanitary.

At this point, bake your naan bread if you made your own, or start heating it up if you bought some. Heat up about a tablespoon of oil in a cast-iron pan, or other pan if you don't have a cast-iron one. But cast-iron is really the best. It should be on about medium or medium high depending on how hot your stove gets. Place the salmon pieces in the pan and cook for about 3 minutes on each side, until the salmon turns opaque.

Give each person a warm naan bread, dollop some of the yoghurt on it, top with the salmon, and with some chopped cilantro if you are into cilantro. If not, that is sad but not your fault. You can fold up the sides and munch on it like a taco, or use a sophisticated knife and fork. Either way, enjoy!

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Lazy Saturday

If making that pasta was one of the more involved projects I've undertaken for this wee blog of mine, I think this post marks one of the simplest -- short of the soft-boiled eggs post, of course. Anyways pancakes.

I also wanted an excuse to show off my adorable plate and tea cup collection. My mom's friend Oona has these cups and I always loved them, so every Christmas and/or birthday, my mom scours eBay and antique stores for a piece for the collection and gives whatever she finds to me. I have four lunch (or pancake!) plates, about 8 tea cups and saucers, and few tiny tea plates for fancy sandwiches or cakes.

On a sunny Saturday they called out to be filled with sliced oranges, hot coffee, and steaming pancakes fresh from the pan.

Do you want to know my pancake recipe? I love this recipe because it is the perfect amount for two people. Four little pancakes each.




You need:
1/2 c flour
2 tsp wheat germ or flax (optional but healthy!)
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 egg
1/2 c milk or butter milk
1.5 tsp plain yogurt or oil or apple sauce

You just put all the ingredients into a shaker bottle (mine was $1 from the dollar store!) and shake them up. Then just pour out a bit into a heated and lightly buttered cast-iron pan (my fav!) and you're good to go! You can obviously add whatever you like to your pancakes - blueberries, raspberries, chopped apple - but we like ours plain.

Happy Birthday, Cast-Iron Darling!

That's right, my little blog is already one year old!

To celebrate, I wanted to do something special so I had my friend Jen over and we cooked up a feast! Plus, I tried my hand at something I had never attempted. It had been on my list for a while: make my own pasta. Without a pasta maker. Not because I'm a masochist; just because I don't own one. Although after reading this, it may seem like the former is also true.

I believe I followed Jamie Oliver's directions because he always seems to make things sound straightforward and tells me I don't have to worry. I halved the recipe because we were only two and the pasta was a side, not the main. We served it with a lovely braised pork butt and the carrot-celery ragout in which it cooked, and a delicious beet roesti, thanks to Mark Bittman - those recipes soon.
 

So!
300g flour
3 eggs

and away we go with this deceptively simple recipe! I wasn't so keen on getting my counter all eggy so I put the flour in my Kitchenaid, since Jamie says you can use a food processor and so I decided a Kitchenaid was close enough. Maybe this was my first mistake.

Actually, my first mistake was not using "Tipo 00" flour. I searched; I could not find any and I didn't feel like going all the way up to Little Italy. So I used all-purpose. Things.... did not go ideally. The dough really didn't want to stick together. It was not as straightforward as Jamie had promised! It seemed like the dough was too dry!

Finally I got it to stick together enough to attempt rolling. I hope you've been working out, because this is serious business. My arms were still sore three days later! Maybe I should do this more often... I digress. Jamie says you should roll it out until it's as thin as a CD. I was really tired so mine was more like a CD and a half. Maybe two CDs. It wasn't thin enough, anyways. But I was proud and happy and rolled up the thin dough and sliced it into thin strips and unrolled it onto the counter. Pasta! It looked like Real Pasta! I was happy.

When we cooked it up, it tasted SO GOOD. DELICIOUSLY GOOD. SO GOOD THAT TWO DAYS LATER I WANTED MORE. I still didn't have a pasta maker. I still don't, come to think of it.

This time, I went and bought some Semolina flour from the bulk store, thinking this would be nice -- isn't Semolina what Real Italians use to make pasta? This may be true, but I am not a Real Italian. I am not even a Fake Italian.

Half-way through making it, I began to think that I should not have approached the Semolina, and I really should not have tried to make pasta A SECOND TIME with only my non-buff arms to roll out the dough. Clearly home-made pasta is good, because nothing else would be able to drive me to these lengths to get it.

This time:

1 c. Semolina
1 c. all-purpose flour
pinch of salt
1 Tbs olive oil
3 eggs (I ended up using 4)

Making this pasta made me want to cry. It would not stay in a well-behaved ball. It crumbled if you even looked at it. It looked like a mound of cheese curds when at rest.

 Proof: Cheese curds, or pasta dough? Impossible to tell.

I left it alone for 30 minutes and let it think about its bad behaviour. When I returned, it had repented. I squooged it into a ball and it stayed. It even allowed itself to be rolled out, with reluctance. My sister called. She was coming for dinner. She wanted to bring a friend. I eyed the take-out numbers on the fridge, made the sign of the cross, and agreed.

It looks impossible at this point that the dough will allow itself to be rolled as thin as a CD.

I don't think my wrists will ever be the same again. However difficult rolling out pasta made from regular flour was, Semolina is beyond the pale. I swore. I made promises I couldn't keep. I vowed vengeance on the pasta.

My poor, red, puffy hands.

It still took 40 minutes to roll out and cut all the pasta, and even then it was not to Jamie's requisite CD-thinness.

Two CDs are better than one, right?

I felt so proud though. The pain made me blind to beauty, as a new mother, fresh from labour, is to her mediocre newborn. My pasta was so beautiful. Perfect. Golden. Nothing could surpass it.

To accompany my beautiful pasta, I made a light sauce of toasted walnuts, minced garlic, and chopped beet greens. 

About 3/4 c chopped walnuts, toasted in a dry pan over medium heat until fragrant. Move those to another dish, and heat 2-3 tbs olive oil and saute the garlic with a pinch or so of coarse salt. Add the beet stems, about a cup or more, and saute as well. At the end, throw in the chopped leaves, about 2 cups, and saute until wilted. Toss with the pasta and more olive oil and some pepper to taste.

It was very well received. The pasta was al dente in a way I had never tasted before. I guess that's the difference of having it fresh. The all-purpose flour pasta I had made the first time tasted more like the spaetzle I sometimes make; the Semolina tasted like Real Italian Pasta.

You know what, this pain-in-my-butt Semolina pasta was worth the agony. It was worth the trouble and the sore wrists and the red palms and the cursing. I would make it again in a second.

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Look up...

Look waaaaaay up!* I've got a new banner! It has a little cast-iron skillet! And my name! And it's pink!

I thought it was time for a more personal look for my little corner of the internet, so my friend Megan Wolf, a graphic designer, kindly offered to design one for me!

So let's all say it together now, THANK YOU MEGAN! :D


*10 points to anyone who knows the reference.


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Peanut Butter-Chocolate Lava Pots

Since that last post wasn't really a recipe so much as pretty pictures and links to techniques, here is a bonus recipe for you. It actually goes really well with the steak just posted. Actually it goes well with anything, because it is chocolate and peanut butter and it's melty and warm.

This recipe is adapted from Citrus and Candy, a site with lovely pictures and delicious recipes. The recipe there makes 10 and we are only two, so I halved it and fiddled a bit with the amounts. Note that any "leftovers" keep uncooked in the fridge at least for a couple of days and are just as nice as the ones cooked right away.

You need:
A kitchen scale (seriously - they are $12 and make you look like you mean serious buisiness)
150g chopped dark/milk chocolate. I used a combo.
80g peanut butter. I had smooth natural on hand. Don't know how it would work with the sweet kind.
10g chopped butter
3 eggs separated, yolks beaten.
100g icing sugar
50g flour

In a double boiler (so a metal bowl set atop simmering water in a pan on low) melt the chocolate with the butter and peanut butter. You could probably do this in the microwave too, but I always burn chocolate that way because it's so tricksy.

Cool the mixture and then stir in your beaten eggs. It needs to be cooled a bit because otherwise you will scramble your eggs and that is not very appetizing. If you are imptatient, you could turn your egg whites into soft peaks while you're waiting for it to cool, because you are going to have to do that anyways in the next step.

Beat your egg whites into soft peaks, and then whisk in the sugar.

GRADUALLY fold the whites into the chocolate mixture along with the flour. Pour into 4 greased ramekins and rest in the fridge for one hour.

Preheat your oven to as close to 338ºF as you can - 170ºC if you can do that. The recipe is in metric - sorry. Pop those ramekins into the oven for about 15 minutes. I had to watch mine and guess. They should look cooked on the outside but you still want them lava-like on the inside. When they start to cool, the middle should sink a bit. That's how you know they're ready to eat.

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