Oh Chicken, my Chicken. I like to think that I've grown as a cook and as a consumer of chicken. Back in the day in when I lived alone for the first time in a Mabbett Ave. lower flat, I lived on chicken breasts. Boneless, skinless, oxydol white chicken breast. Mostly I'd put salt and pepper on them and pop it in the oven, and mostly I got rubbery white chicken, but DARN IT, it was mine, and I made it!
It wasn't until many years later that I discovered that chicken could have flavor. It could be a delicious juicy piece of meat if you'd just leave the skin-on and the bone-in. Bone in. Bone. No. You see, one of my least favorite things about chicken, and really meat in general, is the sound and the feel of a knife hitting a bone. It sends shivers up my spine. You'd think that I'd have that one figured out since I was a grown ass woman living on her own. My lovely husband has chuckled at me when I return from the grocery store with a rotisserie chicken and I slide it over to him, not speaking a word, and he has to break it apart for me so I don't have to touch a bone. Perhaps in his effort to protect me, he was just enabling my disfunction. I'll blame him for this for a while longer.
But! I've made some progress! I did cook my Little Bird a few weeks ago and had to clip it's wings off. I was able to skillfully cut the breast meat off to serve it. I cut the legs off...who am I kidding. Those legs feel off on their own due to the well-brined goodness of that recipe. I have some work to do.
This recipe calls for a whole chicken, broken down into parts. Well dang, now what do I do? Grow as a person? Break down my own chicken? Ask my husband to help and let him continue to feed into my wackiness? I took my dirty little chicken secret with me to the local grocer and had the Handsome Butcher (ask Cindy about him) sell me a whole chicken that he expertly dismantled and reassembled under plastic. No one needs to know that I can't do it. I can pretend that it's perfectly fine to pay a guy every once in a while.
In my own kitchen, I took this lovely bird and closely followed the directions. It was really easy. Season it, dredge it in flour, give it a little fry, and then pull it out of the pan and let it hang out so you can caramelize a whole lot of onions. Add in the wine, vinegar, and tarragon and eventually the chicken goes back in to finish cooking. The voluptuous breasts of this fresh chicken took a lot longer to cook than I expected, so I and my chicken parts had to hang out a lot longer, let's say an almost full bottle of wine longer (Is that a measure of time now? A full bottle long? Two beers long?). Eventually the temp was correct, then meat was done, and I was able to finish making the sauce which was BY FAR well worth the wait! I had some pasta left over from weekend chili, so my chicken parts and yummy sauce were served late night and devoured rather fast. The vinegar was present but not overpowering. I really could roll around in that sauce. I have to double batch that next time.
My suggestions to you are this: when you get your chicken from the butcher, ask them to chop the breasts in half... you need B cups for this one, not DD cups. Don't skimp on the onions and the cream. That sauce is fabulous. It's only 3/4 of a cup of wine, so if you're going to crack open the bottle, make sure you use a wine you like to drink since you'll have lots of time to drink it.
I do feel like I grew a little with this round. In the package of my chicken parts was the horribly frightening backbone. Thanks, Handsome Butcher, for that spiny surprise. I threw that bad boy backbone into my Instant Pot and whipped up some tasty stock. I'll show you, Bone-In.
My biggest challenge lies ahead of me. I am getting a fresh turkey and am planning on cooking it using Samin's buttermilk brine recipe that was just in the NY Times. I have to (gulp) spatchcock it. Please send thoughts and prayers...or just send the Handsome Butcher.
https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1021523-buttermilk-brined-roast-turkey
Sincerely,
Patty
Next up! Cindy is planning a French Onion Tart and then a Pumpkin Pie Extravaganza. More to come.
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