Kiwi Creuset!

There she is! Isn't she gorgeous? Isn't she lovely? I couldn't resist this picture with all the complimentary greenery.

Didn't have time straight away for cassoulet or osso buco, but a couple pounds of mussels with fennel, leeks, thyme, oregano, feta and parsley will do just fine. She's just so BIG! 6.75 quarts makes two pounds of mussels look like a mini meal.

I tried homemade frites, too, but those damn things never come out right. I soaked for an hour then rinsed and patted very dry, to no avail. All soft 'n sticky. Help?

Poppa Provides: The 22.5LB Wild Striped Bass

Yo. This is massive. So massive that Josiah actually won discounted fishing trips for the rest of his life. Also so massive that we have enough fish to feed us for about a month. We literally made 22 1/3-pound bass fillets from this mother!

Here's dinner number one...

This erases my carbon footprint from those stupid tomatoes I bought earlier this week: A completely sustainable and local meal of wild, line-caught striped bass and peas, potatoes, baby fennel, green garlic and herbs all bought from the farmer's market. 

This was really simple, involving just boiling the fingerlings until they were tender, then sauteeing them up with green garlic and little bits of baby fennel with snap peas thrown in at the last moment to keep them crisp and fresh. Then we chopped up a bunch of dill, cilantro, parsley and fennel fronds while the fish were seared, two minutes a side, in a pan with butter before being finished in the oven for another two minutes. Butter, lemon and herbs were mixed together, then slathered over the fresh, tender, slightly sweet and very mild fish.

Ridiculously delicious.

Knife Skills Put to Use: Hacking up a Chicken

A couple of weeks ago, I took a Knife Skills class at The Brooklyn Kitchen. It was fantastic. I learned how to make plateaux, juliennes, and something else I can't remember the French word for where you make teeny tiny little cubes. I also learned how to hack up a whole chicken into individual pieces so I don't have to waste so much money buying those damn chicken breasts! I also hate chicken breasts: so lifeless and tasteless and dull dull dull.

So last night, I thought it would be brilliant to use my new skills and make chicken--not a whole roast chicken, which takes much too long, but some sort of pan-fried chicken. I had to use those mushrooms up, and I had a tiny bit of citrus on hand. Having been gone for a while, refrigerator replenishment was necessary, but I got some good stuff and used it all up...

2/24/10

The Creation:

Citrus-glazed chicken with hazelnuts, mushrooms and roasted fennel

What's in the fridge?
mushrooms
1 slice guanciale
small hunk of Stilton
1/2 white onion
1/3 red onion
1/2 lemon
1/2 lime
chicken stock
rabbit stock

frozen peas

Key ingredients consumed:

mushrooms

guanciale

onion

lemon

Ingredients purchased:

1 whole chicken from The Meat Hook  

hazlenuts

fennel

blood orange

red-skin potatoes

The creative process:

To be perfectly honest, this was about drinking a bottle of 2003 Jadot Meursault Genevrieres that was past its prime. I wanted something to go with this, and the combination of fruit and nuttiness in the wine seemed to beg for a creation like the following...

I hadn't the time or patience for a recipe, so after hacking up the chicken (it turned out beautifully! Thanks, Knife Skills class!) I chucked some olive oil into a frying pan, salt-and-peppered the chicken pieces, and dumped them into the pan over high heat so the skin got all yummy brown. Then I threw in the mushrooms and hazlenuts and squeezed a whole bunch of blood orange over it. Cook cook cook for maybe 20-25 minutes, until I thought it was done, then took out the chicken and let it rest while I deglazed the pan with a splash of wine and some more citrus juice (lemon this time). Reduced a bit, then served over the chicken with a side of mashed potes and roasted fennel. Josiah takes all the credit for the fennel, which I could have eaten on its own for days on end, it was so amazing.

The verdict:

Quite remarkable! The pairing was spot-on, even if the wine was a little dead (lacking acid and fruit expression, mostly just flattish slightly oxidized nut notes). The complexity of the dish was delightful, and there's enough leftover for TWO more meals. I even ate the damn chicken breasts, and they were succulent and flavorful and fantastic--totally unlike the crappy skinless/boneless/tasteless variety you find Saran-wrapped in the grocery store. Plus I made stock out of the carcass and discarded fennel stalks! Like.