Categories
Poultry The Book

125. Chicken with Cornmeal Dumplings p.373


The recipe

I had The Book for a while before I started The Project, and this was one of the recipes I used regularly before The Book and I got serious. Making it again emphasized how much The Project has changed my cooking style. The biggest difference is that I actually read the recipe this time around, and it came out much better.

You start by breaking a chicken down into serving sized pieces, browning them, and then simmering them with white wine and shallots ’till the pieces are cooked through. Meanwhile you put together a dumpling dough with flour, cornmeal, baking powder, baking soda, salt, pepper, butter, chives, parsley, and buttermilk. The chicken is moved to the oven, and the juices left in the skillet are fortified with stock, cream, salt, and pepper. Once this gravy is simmering the dumplings are gently dropped in and allowed to cook for about 15 minutes, then it’s time to eat.

This time around the cooking went well, there wasn’t anything too tricky about it. In previous attempts I’ve managed to really mess things up. The biggest lesson I learned is that the cooking vessel the recipe calls for really is important. In the recipe all of this happens in a deep 12 inch heavy skillet, I don’t have one of those (but if Santa got my letter…), so I used to make it in a 5 quart pot. It seemed like a pretty decent substitution at the time, but I was wrong. Getting the dumplings right depends on the depth of liquid they’re simmered in, too deep and they disintegrate, or raft together into one super-dumpling. This time I used a 10 quart oval dutch oven, which has a similar surface area to a 12 inch skillet, and things worked out. The other lesson I’ve learned is the difference between a simmer and boil. Previously I had my gravy boiling away, and the bubbles tore my dumplings to shreds, a gentle simmer with just the occasional bubble reaching the surface is the way to go. I’m kind of amazed that I made this recipe about five times trying to get it right, and I didn’t pick up on what I was doing wrong.

My previous attempts also fell prey to my undiagnosed culinary dyslexia.I constantly mix up shallots and scallions, I have the hardest time keeping them straight. They’re very different, but it’s a coin toss as to which vegetable I’ll imaging when I hear one of those words. I’m embarrassed to say that I have the same problem with elevators and escalators, weird eh? Long simmered scallions turn kind of yellow and gross, I wouldn’t recommend the substitution. Some practice with The Book has made me sensitive to my neurological condition, so now I double check that my shopping list corresponds to the ingredient list.

My standards for what constitutes a successful recipe have also changed over the course of The Project. In the pre-Project days this came out reasonably well a couple of times, and I was quite impressed by it. I still love the dumplings, and I’d be happy to make them again and again, but the chicken is lacking, and the whole dish is bland. I’ve ranted about chicken skin and wet cooking methods several times, and it was just as unappealing here as in every other dish. The chicken is poached in white wine and shallots, which is fine, but the addition of another herb would be nice, maybe thyme, rosemary, or tarragon. The chicken gives up flavour and interest for the sake of the dumplings, and it’s almost a fair trade. The dumplings have an excellent texture and flavour, they pull in loads of chicken flavour, and have a wonderful buttermilk tang. They’re absolutely the highlight of the dish. I’d rather skip the whole chicken making part of this dish, and just make the dumplings in a stock based gravy. The chicken would be better served by being simply grilled, then served along with the dumplings. Doing something about the beige on beige colour pallet would be nice too.

Maybe I’m being a bit unfair. This dish is a Southern classic, but I have no clue what it’s supposed to taste like. I don’t have any reference point, so I’m probably trying to turn this dish into something it was never meant to be. Using a chicken like this allows a little bit of meat to be stretched into a hearty meal, so there are perfectly good reasons for recipes like this to have developed. And, Its blandly fatty simplicity is what comfort food is all about, but it’s not really my thing these days.

Pre-Project me liked this dish because the dumplings are awesome, but also because it’s essentially a one pot dish, it’s quite inexpensive, not too hard, and it makes good leftovers. Present day me doesn’t mind working a little harder, spending a little more, or using a few more dishes (much to my dining companion’s chagrin) for a better dish. I agree with my former self about the dumplings though.

Categories
Pies, Tarts, and Pastries The Book

124. Berry Tart with Mascarpone Cream p.777


The recipe

I was impressed with this tart, it’s very simple, beautiful, and delicious. I’m not fond of precious pastry bag tricks, or marzipan statuary on my desserts. I prefer the natural good looks of fruit, or decoration that’s an extension of the dessert making process. I tend to bake cakes, dust them with icing sugar, and call it a day. In large part this is because I’m not fond of icing. I’ll often eat the cake out from around the icing if it’s too sweet. I’m OK with whipped cream based icings, and some butter creams, but super-sugared toppings like penuche just aren’t my thing. The beauty of a summer tart is the casual elegance, it’s effortlessly gorgeous, and usually looks and tastes better than a tortuously composed winter-time confection.

The recipe was very simple. It starts with Sweet Pastry Dough, rolled out between sheets of wax paper, and baked with pie weights. It’s filled with a whipped mixture of mascarpone, cream, and sugar. It’s then topped with strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, and blackberries which have been coated with marmalade and berry liqueur. As I mentioned in the write-up for the dough, I had some problems getting it to roll nicely, but it was still quite tasty. The mascarpone cream was excellent, it added body and richness with a very subtle tang, and not too much sweetness. The berries were allowed to carry the dish, they provided the bulk of the sweetness, a nice boozy accent, and all of the visual appeal.

My only complaint with this recipe are the instructions for the berries. They’re put in a bowl, covered with melted marmalade and liqueur, and gently stirred together. I did my absolute best to stir very very gently, but the delicate blackberries and raspberries suffered for it. Next time I’d put the berries on the tart and drizzle them with the glaze. You might not get as thorough a coating as you’d like, but it’s a real shame to damage perfect summer fresh berries. Incidentally, the recipe calls for a dark berry liqueur like blueberry, blackberry, or creme de cassis. I was convinced we had creme de cassis the back of the liquor cabinet somewhere, but it turns out that belonged to an old roommate. I used Grand Marnier instead, and it was delicious. No doubt Grand Marnier is sweet, but it’s got a much more pronounced Cognac edge than many other fruity liqueurs. I welcomed that firey addition to the tart, while a more syrupy liqueur might have pushed it in the wrong direction.

I was extremely happy with this dish, it was simple, delicious, and seasonal. It hinges on amazing fresh berries, I don’t think a winter time replication with frozen fruit would work out. I’m watching giant fluffy snowflakes drifting down outside my window right now, and it’s making me long for the amazing bounty of fruit I got to enjoy in August. This is a quintessential summer tart, a thousand variations are possible, but I could happily stick with this version for the rest of my life too.

Categories
Pies, Tarts, and Pastries The Book

123. Sweet Pastry Dough p.791


The recipe

I should state at the outset that I’m a pastry neophyte. Before I started The Project, I think I’d made two pies in my life. Sure, I baked stuff in pie shells, but I always picked up the Tenderflake pre-made ones, and figured it was good enough. I don’t really have a knack for pastry, but I’m working on it. This is the inaugural entry for the Pies, Tarts, and Pastries chapter of The Book, so hopefully my pastry skills will improve as I work my way through it.

This pie dough is a sweetened and butter based. It gets used in all sorts of other recipes in The Book. I definitely prefer a sweetened dough for dessert pies and tarts. My mother is a rolling pin virtuoso whose pies always turn out perfectly, but she uses the same lard based dough for all her recipes. We have tourtière (a spiced meat pie) every Christmas, which I adore. I particularly like the way the crust is infused with the meaty filling’s flavour. However, when summer comes around and she starts baking up fruit pies using the same dough, I can’t help but imagining the taste of the meat filling along with the crust. Tourtière innards and strawberries aren’t destined to be the next great taste sensation. She recently started adding sugar to her dough for sweet pies, and it made a world of difference. Somehow a little sugar gets rid of the yuletide association, and the pies become pure summer.

The ingredients and method for this dough are pretty standard, combine flour, sugar, and salt, then blend butter in until you’ve got pea sized lumps in a sandy mixture. Then egg yolk and a bit of water are incorporated, until the dough barely holds together. The dough is then divided up, smeared once with your palm, and refrigerated for an hour.

I had some trouble with rolling this dough out. I’ve made it twice, the photo above is the most recent attempt. You can see the scraps to the left, which were probably 40% of the pie dough. I had a really tough time getting it to roll out evenly, and small cracks at the edges developed into big fissures as I was rolling. It was actually fairly easy to work with, and I think my problems were a matter of technique rather than the recipe. The first time I made it was much more of a fiasco though. I made it in late August, on a day with 95% humidity, and it didn’t go so well. Here’s a photo of the crust after baking. 123_sweet_pastry_dough_p791_bad_attempt.jpgYou can see that I had to do a lot of patching before I even got the dough into the oven, and small cracks I’d missed developed into chasms once baked.

The flavour of the dough is excellent, but the texture isn’t ideal. Butter doughs are usually tender, but not flaky. Using a mixture of lard or shortening with butter should give a flavourful dough with great texture. The Book’s Basic Pastry Dough takes this approach (without sugar), and I’m looking forward to trying it. This dough was perfectly fine, it tasted good, and the texture was totally acceptable, but I don’t think it’s the definitive sweet pastry dough. Perhaps as I make and remake it for all the recipes that call for it I’ll get the technique down. For now it’s very serviceable, and I’m content to keep using it.

Categories
Hors D'Oeuvres & First Courses The Book

122. Smoked Salmon Mousse with Salmon Roe and Crudités p.19


The recipe

I was really looking forward to this recipe, but I didn’t expect to like it at all. I’ve never had a salmon mousse before, and it has a certain reputation. Pop culture uses it to indicate that a character is out of touch, horribly backwards, or disturbingly gross. I suspect many people can’t think of THE SALMON MOUSSE without imagining the grim reaper from Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life. It turns out that salmon mousse became popular enough to earn this iconic status because it’s delicious. Maybe its reputation got dragged down along with the casserole-generation’s jellied hot dog and marshmallow salads.

The mousse is made by folding whipped cream into a purée of smoked and canned salmon, sour cream, and tabasco, with scallions and bloomed gelatin stirred in. The mixture is poured into an oiled mold, whose bottom has been lined with cilantro leaves. The mousse is refrigerated, unmolded, and the base is surrounded with salmon roe.

I was surprised at how much I liked this spread over a cracker. The airy mousse had a great consistency. I was worried it would end up gummy and jellied, but the gelatin just barely set it, leaving it soft and smooth. The smoked salmon was the backbone of flavour in this dish, The canned salmon kind of disappeared. The salmons flavour was intense enough that it could stand being diluted in the whipped cream. In a happy accident I quadrupled the tabasco (1 tsp instead of 1/4 tsp), which added some needed punch, and helped to counter the richness. The cilantro leaves were pretty, but I didn’t really think they added anything. If you’re going to top the mousse with cilantro, then it should have some cilantro flavour. Next time I’d chop some up and stir it in. The salmon roe had mixed reactions from the crowd I served this to. It was incredibly intense, and added a burst of salmon essence to the mousse, but some people felt it was a bit much. I enjoyed the roe, and would use it again.

This kind of dish has been out of fashion for a long time, but it’s definitely ready for a comeback. The molecular gastronomy (or whatever you want to call it) set are making savoury gels of everything they can get their hands on, and the food fashion conscious are eating it up. Maybe you can reintroduce the salmon mousse by claiming that your salmon are organic, and telling people you set it with agar agar. Sure it’s whipped fish Jello, but it tastes great, and it’s weirdly elegant. I love that this dish could fit in at a regency banquet, at an “I Like Ike” booster, or as an experiment in geometry from the people behind Ideas in Food.

Categories
Poultry The Book

121. Duck Breasts with Orange Ancho Chile Sauce p.396


The recipe

This recipe was a show stopper. It’s the only recipe for duck breast in the book, and that’s a real shame. Magret de canard is one of the staples of the Québécois culinary scene, a distinctive take on the seared duck breast is de rigueur for any restaurant interested in cuisine de terroir. Fusion may have been the dining buzz-word of the 90’s, but it’s certainly alive and well. It would seem that every third restaurant to open in the city has a _________ inspired menu playing on Québécois classics, most likely in tiny, tapas style portions. This Mexican influenced magret would fit in beautifully.

The duck breast is seasoned with salt and pepper, and simply seared. The skin renders enough fat that oil isn’t necessary. The sauce is made with a purée of Ancho chiles, and garlic which is added to a caramel of orange and lime juices, then finished with butter. The sauce had a lovely balance of sweet, acid, and heat, which complimented the powerful flavour of the duck. Duck does wonderfully with a slightly sweet sauce, and the orange caramel fit the bill, the rounded smoky Ancho flavour tempered the sweetness and played up the depth and body of the duck.

Lots of people think they don’t like duck, and avoid it, or have only ever encountered it in Chinese preparations. A simply seared duck breast might be a revelation for them. My dining companion’s mother told us over dinner about her childhood experiences of eating duck. Apparently her family got it’s duck from local hunters, and they risked a mouthfull of buckshot with every bite. She recalls that it was too gamy and intense to be enjoyable, so she avoided it for the next twenty years, but these days she’s a fan. The duck we get today is raised on farms much like chickens, and the flavour appears to have mellowed. People deplore the fact that pork doesn’t taste like pork anymore, but no one complains that duck has lost its muskiness. I’ve never had duck from a hunter, but I’d like to compare some time.

Looking at that beautifully pink duck breast is making my mouth water. It occurs to me though, that duck is the only poultry you’d ever consider cooking to less than well done. A medium-rare chicken breast brings on gasps of revusion, not delight. Duck really does taste best when pink though.

If you’ve never tried a magret de canard I absolutely encourage you to, and the sauce The Book has paired with this one is a wonderful compliment. I loved that the sauce showed off everything I enjoy about duck breast, without trying to show it up. Duck Breasts with Orange Ancho Chile Sauce you’ve earned your five mushroom rating.

Categories
Fish and Shellfish The Book

120. Scallops Provençale p.319


The recipe from Epicurious is similar to The Book’s version, but only makes half as much.

I made these for my dining companion’s parents, who came for a surprise visit. The last time I cooked for them the pyrex pan I had my gravy in exploded, so I was a bit nervous about this dinner. We decided on a scallop and shrimp first-course, and duck for the main-course.

I had a great time shopping for ingredients with them. My dining companion’s father really enjoyed going to the cheesemonger’s, the butcher’s, the baker’s, the fruit and vegetable stand, and the fishmonger’s shops instead of a one stop mega-mart. It’s one of the things I love about my neighborhood, but sometimes I take it for granted.

The scallops were a very nice way to start our meal, and it was an easy dish to put together. The scallops are simply seasoned with salt and pepper and then seared. Once the scallops are done a two-minute tomato sauce is brought together in the pan with garlic, thyme, and basil. The tiny shrimp in the photo were seared, the pan was deglazed with pernod, and finished with tarragon.

The scallops were magnificent. I got lucky and cooked them just right, with a tastily browned crust on the outside, and a just barely cooked centre. I’ve had difficultly with scallops before, particularly little ones, but these jumbo scallops were wonderfully easy to work with, and had and amazingly fresh and mild maritime flavour. I really dislike the metallic flavour scallops can sometimes have, but there wasn’t a trace of that in this preparation. I was careful to rinse them thoroughly before cooking, which may have helped.

The sauce was nice, but nothing particularly special. My main complaint was that it was too oily. The scallops had a fairly subtle taste, and the tomato and garlic tended to overwhelm it a bit. I very much like shellfish tossed in a tomato based pasta sauce, where the flavours mix and mingle, but in this case I was really enjoying the clean flavour of the scallop all on its own. The thyme and particularly the basil enhanced the scallop’s flavour without covering it up though. I ate most of the sauce with the little anise flavoured shrimp, which was wonderful combination. I think I might add a bit of pernod to my next pasta dish.

I thought this worked really well as a first course, it was a very pretty dish, and it really wasn’t very much trouble to put together. Those gigantic scallops aren’t inexpensive, but since you can get away with one per person as a first course, or two to three each as a main, they’re not out of reach. I’d certainly make this again, but I might tone down the sauce a bit.

Categories
Sandwiches & Pizzas The Book

119. Turkey Wraps with Chipotle Mayonnaise p.189

I can’t find an online version of this recipe, but it was good enough to earn a 5 mushroom ratings so I’ll give it to you here.

FOR PICKLED ONION
1 red onion (6 ounces), sliced crosswise 1/4 inch thick
1/2 cup cider vinegar
3/4 cup water
1/2 teaspoon salt
FOR CHIPOTLE MAYONNAISE
1 1/2 teaspoons chopped canned chipotle chiles in adobo, including some adobo sauce
1/4 cup mayonnaise
FOR ASSEMBLING WRAPS
4 (8-inch) flour tortillas, preferably whole wheat
1/4 pound sliced or shredded roast turkey or chicken
3/4 cup tender pea shoots or shredded lettuce leaves
salt and freshly ground pepper

MAKE THE PICKLED ONION:
blanch onion in a 1 1/2 quart saucepan of boiling water for 1 minute: drain. Return onion to pan, add vinegar, water, and salt, and bring back to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer, stirring occasionally, for 1 minute. Transfer mixture to a heatproof bowl. Cool, uncovered, then refrigerate until cold, covered, about 2 hours.
MAKE THE CHIPOTLE MAYONNAISE:
blend chipotle and mayonnaise in a blender of food processor until smooth.
MAKE THE WRAPS:
Toast tortillas directly on (gas or electric) burners over moderate heat, turning over and rotating until slightly puffed and browned in spots, 40 to 60 seconds.
Spread 1 tablespoon chipotle mayonnaise on each tortilla. Arrange one quarter of turkey and pea shoots across middle of each tortilla and top with some drained pickled onion. Season with salt and pepper and roll up wraps.

I cooked this a while ago, and by happenstance I’m getting to writing it up just before the Americans have their turkey day. If any of you are planning a big turkey feast for thanksgiving this is a wonderful way to use up some of the leftovers. My post Thanksgiving sandwich is a fairly ritualized affair, it must have a mix of white and dark meat, mayo, cranberry sauce, rice and sausage stuffing, and a bit of lettuce, preferably on fresh sliced multi-grain bread, or baguette. But for a post-post thanksgiving sandwich, I think this wrap is the way to go.

Its components are just a little different, and very versatile. The pickled onions were shockingly good. It didn’t seem like they’d be anything special, just some blanched onions with vinegar and salt, but the onions are transformed. The harsh raw onion flavor is mellowed and replaced with the sweet-tart cider vinegar. They lose that mouth-stinging halitosis-causing raw onion edge, but retain their raw flavour, and even have it enhanced by the salt. These picked onions are beautiful too, the red pigment dissolves in the vinegar and dyes them pink. We loved them on these sandwiches, and then we put them on everything else we could think of ’till we ran out. Just writing this makes me want to go whip up another batch.

The chipotle mayonnaise was also a winner. There’s nothing to it, just chipotles in adobo and mayo, but it’s a super versatile topping for pretty much any sandwich. This mayo is so simple, and so good, that I’ve elevated it to the status of fridge staple.

While these wraps are an ideal way to use up a whole roast turkey, you don’t have to limit them to the day after major feasts. I can find turkey breasts at the grocery store pretty frequently these days, and I love them. They’re lean, inexpensive, and more flavorful than chicken breasts. I seasoned the breast with salt and pepper and then grilled it using the same indirect heat technique I used for the Cornish hens. When cooking a whole turkey the breast tends to dry out by the time the thigh is done, but if you’re just grilling a breast you can take it off as soon as it hits 170 F. I did a much better job on this breast than on the Cornish hens. The skin was golden, crisp, and packed with flavour, and the meat was wonderfully moist.

The elements of this sandwich are really strong, and they compliment each other well when combined. Sandwiches are about as humble as food gets, but when some real though it put into their composition they can be a treat. My only real criticism of this sandwich is the recommendation to grill the tortilla over a gas or electric burner. I was pretty skeptical about this working on my electric stove, and guess what? it didn’t. 119_turkey_wraps_with_chipotle_mayonnaise_p189_burned_tortilla.jpgI wonder if they tested this on a gas stove and figured it would work out for electric too? or perhaps I’m missing something. My dining companion just shook her head and sighed while she watched me fill our kitchen with smoke.

This was a very simple wrap, but everything about it was delicious. I saw this recipe coming up in my backlog, and decided I had to have it again. So, last night made a variation with grilled chicken, and I added bacon. I didn’t recreate the wonderful pickled onions and I regret that. This wrap is nothing fancy, but it earned its five mushroom rating.

Categories
Salads The Book

118. Frisée Salad with Lardons and Poached Eggs p.139


The recipe on Epicurious helpfully notes that frisée is curly French endive, The Book does not. I really don’t know much about salad greens and this one stumped me. I thought it was the curly lettuce I picked up, but I was wrong. My dining companion is a salad impresario, she has an eye for composition, and a knack for combining the elements, and pairing them with the perfect dressing. I usually stick to the lettuce or other greens with balsamic and olive oil formula. It’s not exciting, but it gets the job done.

In this salad slab bacon is cut into lardons, which are cooked up in a pan then put to the side. Shallots are then softened in the bacon drippings, and red wine vinegar is added to the pan (I’ll remember to use a splatter screen the next time I follow that step), this hot dressing is then poured over the frisée to slightly wilt it. The salad is then topped with the lardons and a poached egg.

The recipe must have an error in it because it never actually mentions that you’re supposed to top the final salad with lardons, but given that the lardons are in the title it would be pretty silly not to include them. Besides, lardons are one of the greatest culinary achievements of mankind. If I could only have one form of cured pork for the rest of my life, I’d choose bacon strips, but lardons are magnificent. They have the advantage of being French and fancy sounding, which makes it easier not to think about the cardiovascular consequences of eating them. The thicker cut also preserves their meaty porcine nature, which bacon can sometimes lose in favour of crispness.

I’ve been working on my egg poaching technique, and things are coming along to the point that I’m almost satisfied. I didn’t add enough water to the pan for these eggs, so they stayed yellow on top, but I find that kind of attractive. I’d love to be able to produce the perfectly spherical poached eggs you get in restaurants, but for now I’m happy with the fact that the whites set, the yolks run, and the come out of the pan in one piece.

This salad was exceedingly good. I broke my egg and let the yolk run all over the greens. where it combined with the already rich bacon dripping based dressing. This is the kind of decadence I can’t help but smile and make incoherent consonant sounds in response to. The vinegar and shallots were nice contrasting flavours. Eggs and bacon for breakfast have to to pair well with coffee and orange juice, so red wine vinegar doesn’t play a big role on brunch menus, but it worked quite well here.

My uninformed choice of salad greens took away from the recipe a bit. Actual frisée is much crunchier than the soft lettuce I chose. The hot dressing wilted my salad in a less than appealing way, but with a sturdier green it would have worked very nicely indeed. Frisée is also more bitter and flavourful than curly lettuce, and might have stood up to the robust dressing a bit better. Oh well, it was delicious. I’ll get it right next time.

Some of my favourite childhood memories are of my Mom coming home late, and deciding that we should have breakfast for dinner. She’d fry up some eggs and bacon and have three kids fed in under twenty minutes. It was always such a treat, and this recipe captured that special out-of-the-blue feeling.

Categories
Puddings, Custards, Mousses, and Souffles The Book

117. Lemon Parfaits p.839

Unfortunately there’s no recipe for this available online.

This is the inaugural post for the Puddings, Custards, Mousses, and Soufflés chapter of the book. Part of my plan for this summer was to get around to working on this chapter, as well as the Frozen Desserts section. This recipe is the sum total of those efforts. It was very good, but there are still 75 recipes to go in those chapters, and I’ll have to do more than one per year if I’m ever going to finish this project.

The recipe starts by cooking lemon zest and juice together with egg yolks and sugar. Once the sugar is melted and the yolks tempered the mixture is taken off the heat and allowed to cool. The whites from the eggs are then beaten to stiff glossy peaks with cream of tartar and sugar. The meringue and cream, which has been stiffly beaten with confectioners sugar, are folded into the custard. The resulting mixture is then divided among parfait glasses. If you’re like me and don’t have parfait glasses, wine glasses make a perfectly elegant alternative. The glasses then go into the freezer for a couple of hours. Just before serving they’re topped with a bit of lemon zest.

I was very happy with this dish. I don’t eat a lot of frozen desserts, or desserts in general, but once in a while it’s a nice treat. We had a friend over for a summer barbecue, and it seemed like a nice occasion for a cooling dessert. The flavour was all clean clear lemon, it was bright and assertive with just enough sweetness to balance the acidity. I’m quite sensitive to over-sweet lemon dishes, and this one kept on the right side of the balance. The texture was the absolute highlight of this dessert though. Beating the egg whites and cream to very stiff peaks, and careful folding, allowed the dish to stay light and fluffy, but frozen. My dining companion described it as lemon scented air. It looked nice and substantial on the spoon, but melted quickly on the tongue, and practically disappeared before you swallowed. I loved that it left me with the a sense of cooling lemon freshness, without overwhelming me.

In general I like about three bites of ice cream for dessert, this dish whipped in so much air that those three bites managed to fill a whole glass. It was a lovely approach to dessert, focusing on flavour and texture over richness and substance. What a great kick off to this most vexing of chapters.

Categories
Poultry The Book

116. Grilled Cornish Hens with Basil Butter p.392

The recipe for this one isn’t online, but it was so good I’m going to give it to you here.

3/4 stick (6 tablespoons) unsalted butter, softened
1/4 cup chopped fresh basil
3 garlic cloves minced
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
2 (1 1/4- to 1 1/2- pound) Cornish hens, rinsed and patted dry

Stir together butter, basil, garlic, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and 1/4 teaspoon pepper in a small bowl.
Prepare a charcoal or gas grill: if using a charcoal grill, open vents in bottom of grill and in cover. Spread charcoal evenly on one side of grill (about 60 briquettes) and light. Fire is medium-hot when you can hold your hand 5 inches above rack for just 3-4 seconds. If using a gas grill, preheat on high, covered, for 10 minutes, then reduce heat to moderate.
Meanwhile, flatten hens (see below). With kitchen shears, cut out backbones. Pat hens dry again, then spread flat, skin side up, on a cutting board. Cut a half inch slit in each side of each hen in center triangle of skin between thigh and breast (near drumstick). Then tuck bottom knob of drumstick through slit. Tuck wing tips under breasts. Work your fingers between skin and flesh of breasts and legs and loosen skin without detaching it entirely, being careful not to tear it. Spread butter under and over skin. Sprinkle hens with remaining 1/2 teaspoon salt and 1/4 teaspoon pepper.
Lightly grill rack and grill hens (covered only if using gas), turning once until browned, about 10 minutes. Transfer hens to side of charcoal grill with no coals, or, if using gas, move hens to one side and shut off burner below them. Cover with lid and grill until cooked through 20 – 25 minutes more.

COOK’S NOTE
The hens can be prepared for cooking and rubbed with butter up to 2 hours ahead; refrigerate covered.

The recipe provides a further description of the bird flattening technique, called spatchcocking, in an inset panel, with a few of The Books line drawing illustrations.

This recipe combines a few nifty techniques to great effect. First it uses a compound butter, which is an awesome tool in a cook’s arsenal. They can be made ahead, flavoured with just about anything, and bring a big punch of flavour and buttery goodness to a dish very quickly.

Second, the spatchcocking technique was a great find. I’ve been using it on chickens and it works wonders. The great advantage is that the whole bird ends up being uniformly thick so the breasts cook at the same rate as the legs. It also allows the whole thing to cook much more quickly.

Third, loosening the Cornish hen’s skin and rubbing the butter into the space between skin and flesh adds fat to the bird which keeps it moist. The herbs in the butter are protected from the direct flame by the skin, so they retain some fresh flavours. Separating the skin also helps it brown and crisp up better. My skin ended up a little blacker than I would have liked it, but it was still one of the great highlights of this dish.

Finally, the indirect grilling technique is invaluable. I’ve been using it for anything I grill which is larger than a hamburger. It allows you to put some decorative grill marks on the food, but then allow it to cook more slowly and avoid burning the outside before the inside is done. I used to try to do this over a very low direct flame, but indirect heat from a medium burner works so much better, and more quickly. It ends up being a hybrid grilling-roasting technique, which takes the best of both methods.

I wrote an ode to Cornish hens a couple of weeks ago, so you know I’m a fan of these birds. This preparation was just as good, if not better than the roast Moroccan version. The basil garlic butter was so simple, and a complete triumph. Putting it under the skin gave the basil time to completely perfuse the meat, and garlic has never had difficultly scenting dishes. The meat was rich, moist, and succulent. The added fat really helped this dish out. and getting some salt right into the meat certainly enhanced the flavours. The skin was out of this world good, it turned into crispy cracklings that were intensely flavoured by the butter.

I made a pretense of eating this with a knife and fork, but by the end I was gnawing on bones, smacking my lips, and licking my fingers. I couldn’t bear the thought of throwing out even the tiniest edible morsel. This bird was just delicious, it used some great techniques which generalize, and lead to all sorts of other dishes. Grilled Cornish Hens with Basil Butter, you’ve earned your five mushroom rating.