So what does a person do for dinner when they have a Sunday off and free? The first Sunday in around 6 months where they can do and or make whatever they want? The answer came to me immediately as I came across an organic free range chicken while picking up late night snack foods after service last evening. It being fall, and a Sunday there could only be one option: roast chicken!
And then I completely changed my mind. When prompted for some ideas a few family members and friends on Facebook suggested soup from the leftovers of a whole roasted chicken. The soup ideas had such merit, but why stop at using leftovers? So instead I set to work breaking the bird into its myriad parts, cleaning the dark meat from the bones. And now I have plenty of dark meat and bones to put together some chicken sausage for a soup later in the week. It’s a bit of the best of both worlds.
Anyone who knows me understands my obsession with brines when it comes to poultry and pork. It adds succulent flavor and juiciness to a meat that could otherwise be dry and leathery. So a brining I went with my two breasts, which included some Fall flavor with a cinnamon stick.
I do enjoy the Grant Achatz style of cooking. But on a Sunday evening there’s nothing better than classic comfortable foods. I mean, who wants to spend time making mushroom leather and carrot juice caviar when there’s a roast with mashed taters to be devoured? If that means I’m not sophisticated enough in my cooking style I’ll have to live with it. After all I’ll be wallowing in my misery eating horseradish and scallion mashed potatoes, and you might not even be sure of what you’re eating.
Which is why I decided on a soft polenta, an item that is probably easier to put together than boxed mashed potatoes.
Now ladies and gentlemen, the violent tale of a blender gone mad. See, we have a Kitchen-Aid blender (red to match our mixer and the wife’s general kitchen motif). And what I’ve come to realize about this brand of blender is that instead of pureeing items smoothly it instead bounces. As if the blade is jumping around in speed, or even just moving 3 inches up and down. The result is that if you have to open the little top to drizzle anything in, like say oil for an aioli, you get a face full of goop.
An earthy roasted beet aioli sounds like it’d be delicious, right? It turns out that it is. But while blending up the beet, some garlic, blood orange juice and whatnots I got quite fearful of the moment I’d open that top to drizzle in some olive oil. So I braced myself, got a towel to help protect the kitchen, and proceed to make gory mess of everything. Splatters of alien blood flew into my face, hair, the counters, the cupboards…and to my horror, the ceiling. It looked like there was a home invasion and I just went John McClane on the aliens. Luckily I was quick enough in wiping everything down that no staining occurred, but I officially hate our blender.
But the entire meal turned out fantastic, and was enjoyed by all. Plus I’ve found a new candy to replace that crap corporate food empires pass off as a food product in candied fennel. If I could pass a little bag of the stuff out for Halloween, I would. It’s that damn good. I’ve been snacking on it all night now.
Recipes from dinner:
Soft Mushroom Polenta
Roast Chicken Breast
Candied Fennel
Roasted Beet Aioli
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