aixcentric

Chicken for caring in cooped up crazy times?   

Preparing poulet properly or perhaps poussin or pintade?

Too chicken to go out? You should be, writes Susan Gish. It’s fowl out there! No clucking about it please!

We’re on for at least 2 more weeks of lockdown, but don’t count your chickens before they hatch. I started thinking about comfort foods in this difficult time. Foods that make you feel better.

For me:

-Roasted whole chicken, see recipe below. Ooh, that smell of chicken roasting in the oven! 

-Chicken soup. Using the leftover chicken and carcass to make my own stock. Yes, I make my own stock! Just love smelling the stock simmering for hours while skimming the fat. Meditative.

-Hand smashed potatoes with the skin and butter and cream.

-Sam’s very slow cooked buttery scrambled eggs.

-My own version of macaroni and cheese with fresh garlic, olive oil and hot red pepper flakes. Stir in monterey jack with hot pepper cheese (I have yet to find a good substitute here in France).

-Hot chocolate. A pitcher of melted chocolate and a pitcher of milk to mix together.

-Maine lobster and Maryland blue crabs. Sitting and picking them and looking at the sea.

 For Sam:

-Bucatini bolognese or spaghetti with clams for a vongole.

-FRITES (he wanted that capitalized!) Not necessarily homemade or double fried. He’s happy with Sodexo or similar and likes them with mayonnaise. 

-Hamburger cooked ‘aller retour’ on brioche with cheddar. 

-Toast with butter and bitter orange marmalade

-Lasagne

-Beef bourguignon or daube

-Paella

For both of us:

-Rice and peas and parmesan. Just that.

There’s a wonderful couple at Place Richelme in the marché that I (used to) buy from all the time. Nathalie et Roland. I buy their chicken, duck, eggs, turkey, though they also have rabbit. I got a whole chicken BL (before lockdown). She prepared it for me by cutting off the head, feet, cleaning out the inside and saving the liver for us, as she knows Sam likes to cook the liver (with fava beans and chianti). 

It’s basically a one pot dish, very easy and extremely comforting.

 Ingredients 

One chicken – farm-raised is best for taste

Butter

Herbes de Provence

3 or 4 carrots

2 or 3 smallish potatoes

2 peeled medium onions

1 smallish eggplant/aubergine

4 tablespoons sliced fennel – white and green parts

Pre heat oven to 200ºC/400ºF

Melt butter – 2 tablespoons – in a heavy bottomed casserole 

Salt and pepper the chicken generously all over and inside. Put a lump of butter in the cavity.

Brown the chicken on all sides. 

Put the browned chicken on a plate.

Place 3 or 4 carrots, 2 halved and peeled onions, a couple of small potatoes cut in half, and some chopped fennel in the casserole, then put the chicken on top of the vegetables.

Cut a smallish eggplant/aubergine in half, make some slits in the flesh, and rub in some minced garlic. Drizzle with olive oil and place either side of the chicken. Sprinkle herbes de Provence over the chicken and eggplant. 

Cover the casserole and put in the oven for 40 minutes. Use an instant read thermometer to check the temperature of the chicken at the thickest part of the leg – it should be 74ºC/165ºF. 

If not return the pan, uncovered to the oven for another 10 minutes.

Take the chicken out and let it rest for 10 minutes, then carve and serve with the roasted vegetables.

Chef Sam and Susan Gish