Dinner for Champions: Roasted Chicken, Roasted Potatoes and an Onion Magnolia

Dear food-loving friends,

I want to take this moment to thank dear Ferran Adrià for making the most inspiring cookbook I have ever owned. I am now the proud, very fortunate owner of The Family Meal: Home Cooking with Ferran Adrià. If you are not familiar with this title, you really should get acquainted. It is the collection of recipes that the staff at El Bulli shared before every shift at that amazing restaurant. The book really showcases the mantra that in order to make great food you must eat well too. El Bulli set the bar, so of course they were no exception.

My first endeavor into this book was to start creating stocks and sauces. The wonderful thing about the construction of this book is the attention to kitchen waste, and how it should be minimal. That is really one of my goals as a financially and environmentally conscious cook. I want to make good food and get the most out of the ingredients that I am fortunate enough to buy. Thus, I was able to roast a chicken, make a sauce from the drippings, and use the leftover "nasty bits" (great book by Anthony Bourdain as well), to make a delicious chicken stock. I was so excited I was beaming with joy.

If you are entertaining, a roasted chicken is quite possibly the simplest and most gratifying meal you could prepare. It is beautiful, it makes the house smell like you're a professional chef, the leftovers are great, and you can make chicken stock with it later! YES! I chose to pair it with roasted onion and potatoes, but it would be just as lovely with a salad or a risotto on the side.

In my humble opinion, this is the first meal that any cook worth their salt should know how to make.

Roasted Chicken

(adapted from The Family Meal)

and 

Roasted Potatoes and an Onion Magnolia

1 Whole chicken

Olive oil

1 Lemon

2 Cloves garlic, crushed skin-on

2 Bay leaves

Rosemary

Thyme

Black Pepper
Chili powder

Salt

4 Yukon gold potatoes, cubed

1 Large red onion

Olive oil

Salt

Chili powder

Black pepper

This chicken recipe yielded the most succulent and moist chicken of my entire life. The leftovers also saved well and retained their full flavor, making for awesome chicken sandwiches and salad.

Start by washing and drying the chicken inside and out, remove any feathers and cut off the parson's nose. Preheat the oven to 425º and take out a roasting pan.

Season the bird inside and out with salt (not too heavy, just seasoned) and rub with olive oil. This will help the skin crisp up and really let out its flavor. Then zest the entire lemon and rub the zest all over the outside of the chicken. Cut up the lemon and push it inside the cavity with the garlic. 

With a mortar and pestle or a spice mill blend up a combination of rosemary, thyme, and black pepper, and salt if you are using the mortar because it aids in pulverizing the spices. You can also add the bay leaf, as suggested by Adrià, but I just put the bay leaf in the cavity and the result was perfect to me. Take the spices and rub them all over the outside of the bird, bottom and top. 

Place the chicken in the roasting pan breast facing down and roast for 25 minutes. After that time, flip the chicken breast facing up and roast for the remaining 35 minutes. Remove the chicken and allow to rest. You can make a sauce out of the drippings with white wine and water, scraping up the cooked on bits and reducing them. Alternatively, you can baste the potatoes and onions in the pan drippings.

Roasted Potatoes and an Onion Magnolia

Roasted potatoes are a piece of cake, but this onion magnolia really stole the show. It's funny because it was inspired by my former employment at a certain steakhouse that serves a fried onion flower, which packs a whole 2,500 calories if you eat the whole thing by yourself (not including the sauce). It is a beautiful presentation and lovely to share, but my approach is not actually going to kill you in the long run... and I think it's even prettier ;)

Simply cube the potatoes in uniform pieces. You can choose to keep the skin on or off, especially if you choose to use red potatoes, which are perfectly acceptable for this dish. Season with salt, pepper, and chili powder and toss in olive oil until everything looks like it's got its fair share.

As for the onion, cut off the bottom just enough for it to stand but not separate its petals. Then cut off the top so you have a flat plane to slice into. Take your knife and score a cross-hatch patter until you are about 1/2"-1" from the bottom of the onion. When the onion bakes in the oven, it will soften and the scoring will allow the "petals" to bloom. The center of the red onion is pretty sturdy, so it stood up, allowing the outside petals to fall away, allowing it to look more like a magnolia than a chrysanthemum to me...hence the name :)

Brush the same olive oil and spice mixture on the onion as the potatoes and get some of the oil inside the onion if you can manage--it will redistribute in the oven. I arranged the potatoes around the onion in the center of a shallow casserole dish. I baked the potatoes and onion on a rack below the roasting chicken. First I put the chicken in, and then after that I prepared the potatoes and onion and put it in the oven until the chicken was completely done. Probably 45 minutes in all.

I took the chicken out to rest and the potatoes we allowed to cook for another 10 minutes to crisp up. At that point I took some of the drippings from the chicken and poured it over the potatoes and onion. What a good idea!

One of the most naturally beautiful things I have ever eaten.

We ate this family style, so we just got our forks in there and went to town. I served a sauce with the potatoes and onion. It was my basic aïoli sauce mixed with a dash of chili sauce, chili powder, salt and pepper

Bon appétit!

Up next? How to make chicken stock for the rest of winter! Also...following up on my New Year's goal of making more Japanese food :)

Fresh Memories: Mountain and Sea Flavors

As of now, I am back on domestic soil, soaking in all of the glory of Louisville to assuage my worries. I am happy to be home, to taste the familiar flavors, to smell that sweet humidity, and to see so much beautiful green again. My friends and family welcomed me with open arms and a table full of goodies, and I did pretty well fighting off a 16-hour trip to enjoy it! Now it is back to the grind, searching for a big girl job (career?!?!?!), keeping up with the Handsome Spaniard, and checking out what I've missed for the past year in L'ville.

I've managed to sit down and gather my thoughts for this post, a reflection on the fruits of the Mediterranean region: delights from the mountains and the Mediterranean Sea. Today we'll be preparing a Wild Mushroom Risotto and Whitefish a la Plancha (seared fish).

When you are working with dried mushrooms, which I was, make sure that you rinse them off to remove any dirt and grit, then give them a quick soak for good measure (5 minutes). Drain that water and rinse the mushrooms again. Heat a pot of water to boiling and remove from heat, add the mushrooms, and in 30 minutes they should be re-hydrated enough to cook. Reserve the mushroom soaking water for the recipe, and if you have any leftover you can put it in vegetable stocks and stir-fries--just don't throw it out!!!

Wild Mushroom Risotto

1 C Dried mushrooms

1 Onion, chopped

4 Cloves garlic, minced

1/2 C White wine (pick one you would actually drink)

2 C Short-grain white rice, rinsed well!

1 C Beef stock

1 C Mushroom stock

2 T Butter

2 T Olive oil

Salt

Black pepper

Thyme

1/4 C Parmesan cheese

After you have re-hydrated your mushrooms, set them aside and prep the rest of your vegetables. Also prep your broth by boiling a pot of the beef stock and mushroom stock together. When it reaches a boil, take it off the heat. 

Once the onions and garlic are chopped sauté them in a pan with the already heated butter and olive oil. When you combine the butter and olive oil it protects the butter from browning and burning, which is a nice security measure for your entire dish. Sauté the onion and garlic together on medium heat until translucent but not browned. Increase the heat to medium-high and add the rice. Cook the rice until it turns white and a few of them start to get a little toasty. When that happens, throw in that beautiful white wine and and mushrooms and stir up the bottom of the pan (the deglazing is very important for the flavor).

The next step is the star technique of the risotto, and that is stirring in the broth one ladle at a time. Have your pan on the back burner and the pot on the burner in front of it with a ladle at the ready. When the white wine has reduced and soaked into the rice, it is time to start adding the beef/mushroom broth. The idea is: Ladle of broth, stir until soaked in, ladle of broth, stir until soaked in, etc. When you're about finished, and you have about 2 ladles left, add in your seasonings to taste and then finish up your risotto. It will be creamy and beautiful. When all the broth has been added, stir in the cheese and you have a glorious dish waiting for you. It is earthy and comforting, and a surprisingly good accompaniment to Whitefish a la Plancha!

One of the last things I did in Barcelona was visit the incredible Ferran Adrià exhibit about his career and work at El Bulli. I actually went back and took notes on the museum--it was so well done. I especially loved the part where they had a table set with two chairs and a projector over top that would show you the different dishes, announce them, and they would demonstrate how they ate them. I was enamored, seriously enamored. Anyways, in my notes was to mix the mountain flavors with the sea--and the balance of comforting and warm with fresh and light are just astonishingly beautiful. I highly recommend trying it with any other similar combination...just think, mountains meet sea! On to the Whitefish a la Plancha!

Whitefish a la Plancha

2 Fresh whitefish fillets (have your fishmonger clean it up, but leave one side skin-on)

Garlic

Olive oil

Chili flakes (we used Turkish chili flakes)

Salt

Black Pepper

If you already had your fishmonger prepare your fillets, the hardest part is over. Clean up the fillets, pat them dry and set them on a plate. Oil and garlic both sides of the fish. Season both sides with a mixture of salt, pepper, and chili flakes, and let them sit for about 10 minutes to gather that delicious flavor. Heat up a pan on medium-high heat. Sauté first skin side down for about 4 minutes, then flip over until cooked through. That's seriously all you need to do!

Enjoy my friends! From the mountains and from the sea, bring those flavors back to me!