Roasting a Whole Chicken

I am the only person in my house who can deal with raw poultry.

The Husband is a mighty hunter, having graced our dinner table with a number of different beasts. He also had a hand, if not solely managed, the preparation and serving of each one. He is known to go elbow deep into the cavity of a deer when necessary. He has no fear of any animal.

But he can’t deal with a chicken breast. Eh, we all have our quirks. You’d want to have me committed if I started listing all of my eccentricities. He has his reasons, though: it’s icky.  Folks, I cannot argue with that.

Alas, I am the chicken preparer. I trim, prep and cook said chicken. I am most familiar with the standard chicken breast, although I’ve also dabbled in thighs and wings. I thought I could handle it all.

Then comes the day I was wandering in the grocery store and saw whole, raw chickens chilling in the meat section. Could I do it? No, I didn’t actually ask myself that question. I’m not one for much forethought on stuff like that. I picked up the bird, plopped it in my cart, and brought it home. I found this recipe from Southern Living and I was set.

Herb-Roasted Chickens
Yield: Makes 8 to 12 servings
Prep time:20 Minutes
Bake:1 Hour, 25 Minutes
Stand:15 Minutes

Ingredients
6 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 cup poultry seasoning
1/4 cup fresh rosemary leaves, finely chopped
1/4 cup fresh thyme leaves, finely chopped
4 teaspoons fresh minced garlic
2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon pepper
2 (3- to 4-lb.) whole chickens


Preparation
1. Stir together oil and next 6 ingredients until well blended.

2. If necessary, remove giblets and neck from chickens, and reserve for another use. Rinse chickens with cold water; pat dry.

3. Loosen and lift skin from chicken breasts with fingers (do not totally detach skin). Rub 2 Tbsp. olive oil mixture evenly underneath skin of each chicken. Carefully replace skin. Rub remaining olive oil mixture over both chickens, coating evenly. Place chickens, side by side, on a lightly greased wire rack in a pan.

4. Bake at 425° for 30 minutes; cover loosely with aluminum foil, and bake 45 to 55 minutes or until a meat thermometer inserted in thickest portion of breast registers 165°. Let stand 15 minutes before slicing.

Note: Dried herbs and seasonings may be substituted for fresh. Substitute 1/2 tsp. garlic powder for minced, but use the same amounts for the other herbs and spices.

Chicken cooking day arrives. I plopped the naked bird in the sink, wrestled with the best way to cut into the wrapping, dodged the stream of chicken juice, et al, that sprayed in my general direction after cutting into said wrapping, and surveyed pre-dinner. I was suddenly at a loss as to what in the hell I was to do next. As I began to inspect the bird more closely I determined there were still little feathers stuck into its skin. Whaaa? Did I not pay enough to get the feather-free bird? I mean, they were just little stubs, but still. I plucked out the ones I could get to, rinsed the whole thing, patted it dry and put it on my pan. By the way, I’m doing all of this pretty much single handedly, literally, since I’m holding the chicken in one hand and working the faucet with the other. We don’t want any chicken cross contamination in this house. To quote the husband, that’s icky. Oh, and thank goodness the good people at Tyson decided to take out the neck and giblets for me; that could have potentially been a deal breaker.
 
The rest of the prep work was relatively uneventful from this point forward. I mixed the seasonings and oil together, smeared it all over the bird and tied its little feet together. The bird also had a pop-up timer to tell me when it was done, but I ended up not trusting it. I wasn’t in the mood for undercooked chicken, so I changed up the cooking times slightly: 15 minutes at 425, then an extra 70 minutes at 350, until I was absolutely sure it was cooked all the way through.


When it was done, it smelled fabulous! I tented it with foil for about 10 minutes while our sides finished up and then we cut into it. The herbs had seasoned the meat really well and the skin kept everything very moist. The herbs weren’t overpowering even though I used a lot of them. I also learned a new word – flensing. Defined as removing all of the useable chicken meat from the carcass. Related definition: something that takes an inordinate amount of time, causes back pain from hunching over the counter for up to 45 minutes, and results in maybe a pound of chicken leftovers that you will struggle to find a way to use before you just freeze it and forget about it until the next time you roast a chicken and you think to yourself, "Dang it, I still have all of that other flensed chicken in the freezer from the last time I cooked this blasted thing!" Chicken leftovers are why the Good Lord made chicken noodle soup, chicken salad and chicken sandwiches.

Edit: I must amend my earlier statement that the Husband can’t deal with raw poultry. The mighty hunter bagged a turkey recently, providing enough meat for five meals, and he just tore into that bird to get the meat. Literally. When I brought up his poultry aversion, he said, “Yeah, but I know where this bird has been,” meaning from the field to our kitchen counter, he knows exactly how it was handled and prepped. With the grocery store variety bird, he can’t guarantee that so he’s less sure of it. Makes sense.

DIY Pumpkin Purée

So I had this great idea. It was post-Halloween and I had two pumpkins sitting on the counter. I had intended to carve both of them but with a baby at home, well, it just didn't get done. My next thought was that it was a shame for them to not get used at all, and my thoughts went to creating my own pumpkin puree. Why not? It can't be that hard.



First, the pumpkin. Wait. Why does my pumpkin look like it is wearing a luchador mask? Well, because my original intent was to carve and paint this pumpkin like I did for a contest a few years ago.



I lost the contest, unfortunately. Not that I harbor any feelings of retribution or anything like that, because that would be silly. That was a dang good pumpkin.



Yes, maybe this is a bit dramatic. But hey, it's Halloween. Moving on.




I sliced up the pumpkins, removed the guts...




And cut them into neat sections so they would all fit on my baking sheet.

You can add some oil to the pumpkins before they go into the oven, but I opted to have the naked pumpkin in all its glory. I baked them at 350 for about 45 minutes until a fork easily went into the skin. I let them cool and peeled off the skin. I don't have a large capacity food processor, so I planned to do the puree in my blender. My poor blender, which I received as a wedding gift ten (10!) years ago and is not nearly as spunky as it once was. This is all to say that the blender didn't work out. So I had to use my mini three cup food processor. It took a little while, but everything was pureed and put in a bowl like so.

At this stage, you can probably see in the bowl where there is an excess of liquid.  I stretched some cheesecloth around the mouth of another bowl, secured it with a rubber band and dumped the pumpkin puree into the cheesecloth to let it drain for about 30 minutes.  It released a lot of liquid and left me with a more firm puree, though still a little less firm than what you find in a can.

Here's where the math comes in.  Consider yourselves warned.

My yield was about six cups of pumpkin puree, which I bagged and froze in two cup servings.  So that's roughly 48 ounces. 

The going price at CVS this week for a 15 oz can of Libby's pumpkin is an unreal $0.88.  I'm beyond positive that is the lowest price out there for pumpkin right now and I'm shocked that the news headlines haven't included stories on riots with frantic bakers raiding the shelves.  I need about 3.2 cans of Libby's pumpkin to equal 48 oz at a cost of $2.82.  Divided by 48 oz, that's roughly $0.06 per ounce.

On the other hand, I used two whole pumpkins for this project which were purchased for a total of $8.00.  Divided by 48 ounces again, that gives us roughly $0.17 per ounce.  However, when you include the time it took to prep, bake, puree, drain and package my pumpkin, the unit cost actually skyrockets to about $35.18 per ounce.  No, actually that's not 100% accurate, but it sure feels correct. 

In closing, it's more economically sound and sanity preserving to get in the car, go to the store, and pick your canned pumpkin off the shelf.  I'm glad I tried this method, but I'm pretty sure I won't be replicating it.

Tom Kha Gai

I’ve tried for so long to find a good recipe for Tom Kha Gai, or Thai Chicken Coconut Soup. There’s a great restaurant in our area that serves it and the Husband gets it almost every time we go there. It’s creamy and silky and it has an explosion of Thai flavors that are very specific to the cuisine – if you’ve had Thai food before, you know those flavors. Tart, sweet, spice, heat, all rolled into one dish typically. It’s so amazing. I was looking at doing a cooking class at our local Viking Cooking School and I found this recipe and decided to give it a shot. Bullseye!

Tom Kha Gai

16 ounces chicken stock
4 to 5 kaffir lime leaves*, bruised in a mortar and pestle
2 stalks lemongrass*, white and pale green tips only, trimmed, bruised in a mortar and pestle
1 (2-inch) piece galangal* (or ginger root), thinly sliced
1 (8-ounce) can straw mushrooms, drained and rinsed
1 (13-1/2-ounce) can coconut milk, thick cream removed and reserved from top of can
1 whole dried red chile pepper*, or to taste, slightly crushed in a mortar and pestle
1 (6-ounce) chicken breast, cut into bite-size pieces
2 tablespoons fish sauce, or to taste
3 tablespoons freshly squeezed lime juice, or to taste (juice of about 2 medium limes)
6 green onions, green tops only, cut into 1/16-inch thick slices
1/4 cup whole fresh cilantro leaves, packed
Steamed jasmine rice, for an accompaniment (recipe below)

Directions:

In a medium sauce pan, combine the chicken stock, kaffir lime leaves, lemongrass, galangal, and straw mushrooms over medium-high heat. Bring mixture to a boil, then add the thin coconut milk, Thai chile, and chicken pieces. Immediately reduce the heat to medium and simmer gently, uncovered, until the chicken is just cooked through, about 2 minutes.

Just before serving, stir in the fish sauce, lime juice, green onions, and cilantro. Taste and adjust the seasoning with fish sauce, lime juice, and chiles as needed. (Hint: The key to this dish is executing the final seasoning; for a saltier, more complex dish, add more fish sauce, one teaspoon at a time, up to 4 tablespoons. For a brighter, livelier soup, add more lime juice. For a fiery finish, stir in another chile.) Just before serving, top each bowl with a dollop of coconut cream; serve immediately with jasmine rice.

*These aromatics (kaffir lime leaves, lemongrass, galangal, and whole dried chiles) are for flavoring the liquid only; they are not to be consumed. If you prefer, you may place these aromatics in the center of a dampened, 6-inch square piece of cheesecloth folded double. Draw up the sides to form a pouch and tie with kitchen twine. Continue with the recipe as directed above, then discard the sachet before serving.

To make it light: Substitute light coconut milk; omit the coconut cream.

I’ve made this soup before, using a different recipe, and the results were nothing to write home about. It was watery and the heat was overpowering. But this version is incredible. There’s such a great balance of all of the flavors and they come together really well. I used light coconut soup in the recipe and there was no difference in taste, plus we saved a few calories.





Some of the items may seem very unfamiliar, for instance, fish sauce.





This is some pungent stuff! Just a tip – don’t stick your nose into the opening of the bottle trying to decide if I’m right about this. It will turn you inside out and you may very well try to make the soup without the fish sauce because you cannot agree to put something this foul smelling into your food. You actually don’t get the overpowering fish taste in the soup – trust me. It’s just enough to where it’s a necessary amount, but again, please don’t do a sniff test for yourself. And don’t turn to Google to read about how they make fish sauce. You don’t want to know.





Some other unfamiliar items are kaffir lime leaves, galangal, and lemongrass. The lemongrass is something you can find in the spice aisle of the grocery store. It looks like lightly colored, rolled up cinnamon sticks. Some recipes may call for it to be rehydrated and diced, but here you just use it as flavoring. The galangal looks like ginger root and is of the same family, but the taste isn’t exactly the same. The recipe notes you can use ginger in its place, and that’s what I did. The kaffir lime leaves are really interesting, though. I was able to get these leaves from the international food market in town, the same place I purchased the zatar for the Grilled Middle Eastern Meatballs. They came in a little plastic bag, about 8-10 leaves total, and they smelled like the freshest bunch of limes you can imagine. As with the galangal and lemongrass, these are just used for seasoning. But the flavors resulting from these items are definitely one of a kind.




What I also discovered after the soup was finished cooking is that it really doesn’t make very much. At all. Like, I could have eaten the whole pot by myself. So I steamed some jasmine rice, added a little of the remaining coconut milk that I had reserved for just this use, nuked a thing of Asian vegetables and tossed in some sautéed shrimp I had in the freezer. Ta da! Instant dinner. And a really delicious one at that.

Dinner Party!

This past Saturday the 13th, the Husband and I hosted another dinner party! This was our third one to date and again, it was a total blast (if I do say so myself). Both of us took off Friday to prep for it, which I highly recommend.  I don't think we did that for the last two dinners, and I don't quite know how we got everything done to be honest. Either way, after two days of cooking and prepping and cleaning, everything finally came together beautifully. 

The theme for this party was French and here's our menu:

• Spinach and Strawberry Salad with Sliced Almonds and Balsamic Vinaigrette
• Boeuf Bourguignon (From Julia Child, natch)
• Whipped Potatoes with Boursin (my own recipe, which basically consisted of eyeballing everything and adding in Garlic and Herb Boursin, heavy whipping cream, kosher salt and pepper until I thought it tasted good)
• Artichoke and Haricots Verts Casserole (Source: Penzey's Spice Store, but I can't seem to find it online)
• Brioche Rolls (Source: Cooking Light magazine)
• Mousse Chocolat (Source: Betty Crocker)

I even designed the invitations myself with some Eiffel Tower images and stamped the outside of the envelope with a silver fleur-de-lis.  Just because I'm fancy like that.

Despite having to throw a few small things together at the last minute and a temporary loss of party momentum when we couldn't find a bottle opener to save our lives, the end result was a beautifully set table using the good wedding china and a table full of old friends enjoying everyone's company.  We told stories that none of us had thought of since college and ate until we were stuffed.  Since our last party a year ago, we have one new baby and two new pregnancies in our group and we're looking forward to seeing all of the kiddos grow up together.  Awww.

What's that?  You want to see pictures?  Well, see, the thing is... yeah, I didn't have time to even consider taking pictures of the feast.  I do wish I had a picture of the table when it was so beautifully set because it was truly a work of art, but alas, it was not meant to be.  And the thing with using the good wedding china is that it ALL has to be hand washed.  Thank goodness we found out the flatware is dishwasher safe.  This is so embarrassing, but it is SIX DAYS post dinner party and I still have stemware and china sitting on the dining room table that hasn't been washed yet.  I'm totally hanging my head in shame here, you have to trust me.  And I have my reasons: the Husband has been gone on business this week, leaving me with solo mommy duty to our nine-month-old, so it's difficult to get a whole lot done in the evenings.  I've managed to wash a few things here and there but it's not yet done.  Obviously, that is my goal for tonight.  Promise.  This is so embarrassing.

Rising like a Phoenix through the ashes

The blog lives! And it now lives as a completely new brand - The Bake Bake Blog. The original idea behind this blog has long passed and I felt it needed a rebirth. So here we are! And this now gives me new reasons to start blogging again. Let's go.