The Knife and Fork

One man's opinion on cooking (and drinking)

Wednesday, March 29, 2006

Boneless Chicken Ranch

Greasy, gamy and gross. For many years that’s been my opinion of the dark chicken meat from the leg and thigh area. I remember the day I suddenly realized how I and countless other kids have been tricked into coveting the drumstick, as if it was the prized piece of the bird instead of the gnarly collection of tendons that it is. The chief propaganda piece being the Kentucky Fried Chicken commercials in the 1970’s showing some little twerp clambering for the inferior leg piece as if it were a treat the adults were sacrificing for him. Doubtless they needed to drum up demand for the piece of chicken that no thinking person would want. Fast forward several years to the early 90’s – I’m reading a promotional piece about the special Christmas dinner available at the Stanford Park Hotel restaurant, The Duck Club. They were serving traditional Christmas goose (what tradition?) and they explained how the legs and thighs were separated from the breast and roasted longer because their higher fat content required more cooking. Around the same time I ate dinner of roasted chicken thighs at my parents’ house and amazingly they were good. At this point I’m thinking there might be some hope for the half of the chicken I had written off. I think roasting a whole chicken is a hassle because the part that faces down is slimy and pallid unless you play human rotisserie for an hour. Therefore I got into the habit of butterflying a whole chicken (cutting out the backbone) and roasting it flat on a cookie sheet. It cooked faster and all the skin was crispy with no micromanaging. One time, when I was tending to a roasting chicken with tongs, the breast assembly easily separated from the leg/thigh assemblies. I checked the temperature of the breast and it was 160 degrees and needed to come out so it wasn’t like eating a piece of canvas. I decided to let the legs and thighs go a little longer. About 15 minutes later I pulled them out and the temperature was around 200 degrees. The skin was crispy and the meat was fall apart tender and moist without any characteristic greasiness. Dare I say it was tastier than the breast meat. I followed this Stanford Park Hotel goose cooking principle for a couple years until the other night when I was in the mood to make things more complicated. I remember from my idyllic childhood hearing my dad brag about his ability to bone a chicken and a duck (My dad can execute a few esoteric dishes very well but can’t fry an egg, boil pasta or assemble a normal sandwich). This concept has been flapping around in the back of my mind for years so I decided to give it a try. Boneless meat cooks faster than bone-in meat so my idea was to bone the leg/thigh but not the breast so they would all be done to my satisfaction at the same time. I butterflied the chicken by removing the backbone with kitchen shears, giving easy access to the thigh bone. I probed the boning knife around the thigh bone and scraped, almost like I was whittling the meat off, until the bone let go and came out pretty cleanly. I then cut any tissue and tendons at the base end of the drumstick (leg) bone, much like you would cut the foil around the top of a wine bottle with a knife. I then approached the other end of the leg bone with the boning knife from the underside of the thigh area and used the same whittling technique. I was trying not to disrupt the structural integrity of the chicken and, although it may be technically incorrect, it seemed to work pretty well. With the southern bones gone I salted and peppered the skin side of the chicken and seared it in a hot, oiled sauté pan on the stove. After a few minutes I flipped it to skin side up and put it in a 400 degree oven to finish cooking. I can’t remember how much longer it took until the breast was 160 degrees, probably 20 minutes, but that’s when I pulled it out (cooking time would change with the weight - this was chicken was only three pounds). While the chicken was resting on a plate I made a pan sauce in the sauté pan it roasted in, finishing it at the end with the juices the chicken expelled on the plate. The legs and thighs were not only cooked well but were very easy to eat without those pesky bones.

You could pay $20 in a restaurant per person for this meal that cost me approximately $5 total to prepare.

Sunday, March 12, 2006

India Pale Ale

The story goes that when the philanthropic Brits occupying India pined for ale from the motherland they had a heavily hopped version created to withstand the rigors and duration of the sea voyage, hence the name “India Pale Ale” or IPA. I’ve become so wary of any story like this because every time you hear one of these and retell it some wise acre always has a refutation up their sleeve. Therefore, I offer up this bit of history with no claim that it’s actually accurate, but it sounds good. What is accurate is that India Pale Ale is tasty stuff – God Save The Queen! The strong, bitter flavor isn’t for everyone but it is for me and anyone else who likes a hearty yet musty tonic.. I have two current favorites – White Hawk IPA made by the Mendocino Brewing Company of Red Tail Ale fame and Anderson Valley Brewing Company’s Hop Ottin’ IPA, pictured here relaxing in bed. The Hop Ottin’ hits you like a ton of pine cones. I don’t know how else to describe it. The White Hawk is equally as potent (they’re both around 7% alcohol) but it’s more malty and less piney. They’re separate but equally delicious. I’ve tried others but so far nothing can match these two. Mactarnahan’s is a lightweight, Full Sail is decent but not worth saving a dollar a six-pack, Pyramid is good but not quite their equal and that is about all I can remember right now. I’ll do some research and report back. Full Sail IPA relaxing with a book in its favorite chair. Good bitterness but weak in the body and only 16 cents less a bottle than the far superior Hop Ottin' and White Hawk IPAs

Morceau à Braiser (Pot Roast)

Well-marbled meat is a temptress in plastic wrap. That sounds odd so let me explain. I was getting a few staples at the local chain grocery store when I passed through the meat case and surveyed what they had to offer. I didn’t necessarily need anything but I always like to know what they’ve got because you never know when you might find something special. In the chuck/pot roast section, a piece of meat caught my eye. It was a three pound piece of chuck striped so beautifully with veins of alabaster fat that it looked illustrated rather than real. I couldn’t not buy it. A few days went by until I had a free night to make it, causing it to turn a little brown on the surface but after a quick whiff I knew this was purely cosmetic and no need for concern. I figured I’d make a pot roast rather than cut it up for a stew, beef bourguignon or chili colorado. I also decided to give it a different approach than the typical pot roast with carrots and potatoes cooked down to near liquid form. I trimmed the ribbons of exterior fat, sprinkled it with salt and pepper and browned it thoroughly in a little corn oil in my pressure cooker (no need to waste extra-virgin olive oil on browning). After pulling it out I sautéed diced carrots, celery and onion in the same pan, deglazing the precious brown bits with the liquid released from the aromatic vegetables. The pressure cooker loses virtually zero liquid so I needed very little to cook the roast. I had about a half cup of Cabernet so I used it along with an equal amount of chicken broth. I squeezed in a quarter of a delicious orange I bought at the farmer’s market along with some pieces of the peel, threw in two bay leaves, a teaspoon of freshly ground coffee, a dozen peppercorns, salt, a tablespoon of double concentrate tomato paste and a couple smashed garlic cloves. I pressure cooked it on the first red ring for an hour while doing yard work and let it cool naturally. Three hours in a 325 degree oven in a conventional pot would be about the same. I pulled the meat out, confirming it could be plied apart easily with a fork, and strained the liquid through a double mesh strainer. I put the liquid in the refrigerator to cause the fat to congeal on the top for easy removal later. I occupied myself with other tasks, such as moving the flailing avocado tree from one part of the yard to the other, before returning to the fridge where the fat had formed a nice, solid crust on top of the liquid. I lifted it out with a fork directly into the trash can, leaving me with a flavorful sauce that wouldn’t make me feel like Orson Welles after eating it.

Don't let the Corning cornflower casserole dish and compost-like visual fool you - a restaurant would charge you through the nose for this meal.
My plan with the sauce was to make it flavorful and refined without that overcooked vegetable flavor that some braised dishes have. I had stripped it of any solids but I wanted the sauce to have some texture when I served it. I pursued the intensely developed flavor route and roasted a bunch of shallots in olive oil, salt and pepper in the oven at 350 for about 40 minutes. I soaked porcini mushrooms in hot water for 30 minutes, diced them up and used the porcini liquid (strained through a coffee filter to remove grit) for the risotto. I added the roasted shallots and porcini mushrooms to the sauce pan of liquid along with some cornstarch dissolved in milk to thicken it. After bringing to a simmer I poured it into the casserole dish the meat had been resting in and put it in the oven at 400 degrees/convection broil, on the middle rack so it wouldn’t burn.
While it heated through and formed a nice crusty top I finished the risotto and steamed some broccoli. The meat, as I expected was very tender and moist. The sauce was intensely flavored. The porcini mushrooms and coffee gave it an earthy flavor but it was balanced by the tang and sweetness of the tomato paste, wine, shallots and orange. I thought it was great and it had all the trappings of an over-priced restaurant meal (pot roast is cool now if it has things like porcini mushrooms and shallots in it). To answer my monetary-minded friend Tony’s inevitable question, it cost about $3.00 a serving for the entire meal. To me, that was dessert.