IN THE KITCHEN by Ann Harwood: Another quick and easy dish that can be prepared by a single person, even a beginner cook, after work or for a quick weekend meal.
Way back about two years ago, I started writing about quick and easy dishes that could be prepared by a single person, even a beginner cook, after work or for a quick weekend meal. I promised that I would focus on this need from time to time. But in manner of things, I keep getting sidetracked with other ideas and forget my bachelor/beginner friends in the kitchen, which I mean to try to rectify. I promise.
So here is one of those basic recipes for baked chicken pieces which you can change and vary with different vegetables and seasonings. It is so simple and easier than stove-top cooking because you do not have to continually monitor the cooking when the baking dish is in the oven.
I have taken the inspiration for some of the variations listed below from my mother’s recipe cards. I can still taste her versions and see us all sitting around our old dining room table.
Her chicken dishes were tasty (even if she was one of those cooks who bought her tins of herbs when she was married and never replaced them), but the dishes were rich with fat. All her baked chicken recipes began, "put a stick of butter or margarine in the baking dish." I cannot even imagine cooking that way. So my versions use lots of vegetables, some herbs and wine or chicken broth to keep the chicken moist. In just one variation do I drizzle a little olive oil in the pan before starting.
With all the dishes I suggest a starch and green vegetable or salad that I think would compliment the flavors of the chicken variation, and vice versa.
Although the basic recipe and coq au vin may appeal more in cold weather, the other variations are delicious in spring and early fall. For a slightly more adventurous cook, try the sweetbreads in browned butter. I love sweetbreads in mustard cream sauce, with brown sauce, cream and mushrooms as well as the simpler version here. But in spring, with wonderful asparagus still in the markets, I like the less complicated flavors of the crispy sautéed coating, contrasting with the creamy rich interior of the sweetbreads sauced only with melted butter and lemon.
Sweetbreads are the thymus gland of the calf. They need soaking and blanching to remove any blood, to make the membranes easier to remove and to firm them up for later sautéing, although the ones I bought recently had little membrane and no tubes still joining them. Their flavor is more delicate than liver. The only place locally where I was able to find sweetbreads, by the way, was McCaffrey’s in the Princeton Shopping Center. And they were delicious. These are such good useful recipes, I hope you enjoy them on these mostly brisk evenings as we move through spring into warmer days.
BASIC BAKED CHICKEN WITH ONION AND CARROTS
This is an oven-baked version of my grandmother’s stove-top browned, braised chicken. It has a simple, homey flavor not too complicated. Even children like it. When we were little, we always had Nana’s version when we were "almost better" from any given illness.
6 pieces (1 serving size each) chicken
salt & freshly ground black pepper
1 large onion, or ½ Spanish onion, peeled and sliced
3 large carrots, peeled, trimmed and cut on the diagonal into 2-inch pieces (large pieces also cut in half lengthwise)
½ cup chicken stock or reduced-sodium canned chicken broth
1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Salt and pepper skin side of chicken and place, skin-side-down, in 9×13 baking dish. Scatter onion and carrots over and around chicken. Pour in chicken broth. Bake 30 minutes. Reduce oven temperature to 350 degrees. Using tongs, turn chicken pieces over. Redistribute onion and carrots. Add a little water if it looks as if the bottom is drying out. Bake another 20 minutes.
2. Serve with noodles and baby peas. You can garnish the chicken with some finely minced fresh parsley if you like.
VARIATIONS
1. With mushrooms, rosemary and white wine:
If you will be using dried rosemary, the night before soak 2 level teaspoons dried rosemary in 2/3 cup dry white wine overnight. If you want to use fresh rosemary, use 1 good-sized sprig, torn into smaller pieces, in the dish.
Eliminate carrots from basic recipe. Instead use 1 pint small button mushrooms, or medium mushrooms cut into quarters then measured to make 1 pint, along with the onion. Use the dried rosemary and white wine mixture instead of the chicken broth in the basic recipe, or use plain white wine and tuck pieces of fresh rosemary here and there before baking.
Bake as in basic recipe. Serve with wild rice, or wild rice/white rice blend, and blanched green beans in brown butter.
2. With tomatoes, mushrooms, scallions and white wine:
After sprinkling chicken pieces with salt and pepper, dip them in flour and then shake off excess flour. Pour a little olive oil in bottom of baking dish before putting in chicken pieces. Bake 20 minutes. Then turn over and top with 2 tomatoes sliced. Scatter over chicken 8 medium-large mushrooms sliced, 2 large scallions sliced thin (including green). Pour over ¼ cup reduced-sodium chicken broth and ¼ cup dry white wine. Bake another 30 minutes. Serve with mashed potatoes and broccoli or broccolini.
3. With lemon, garlic and thyme:
Add to sliced onion, 2 large garlic cloves cut into slivers. Once chicken, onion and garlic are in baking dish, sprinkle ¼ teaspoon dried thyme or 1-2 teaspoons chopped fresh thyme over all. Add chicken broth and bake as in basic recipe.
When you turn chicken pieces after baking the first 30 minutes, pour ¼ cup fresh lemon juice over all and scatter a few very thin slices of lemon over the chicken. Continue baking as in basic recipe. Serve with new potatoes and asparagus.
4. With olives, sweet red pepper and artichokes:
When salting and peppering chicken, also sprinkle with sweet paprika. Add to sliced onion, 1 sweet red bell pepper cut into ½-inch squares, 4 large garlic cloves cut in half lengthwise and ¾ cup mild olives (I love the green Lucques from Bon Appétit in the Princeton Shopping Center). Use ½ cup dry white wine instead of chicken broth. Bake as in basic recipe for 30 minutes.
When you turn chicken pieces, add 1 10-ounce package frozen artichoke hearts, defrosted, to baking dish. Sprinkle maybe 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice over all and continue to bake another 20 minutes.
Serve with rice or couscous and a salad with lettuce, cherry tomatoes and avocado.
5."Coq au Vin"
You can create a kind of coq au vin, by using pearl onions or small white onions about the size of a small walnut instead of the sliced onions and 1 pint mushrooms as in Variation 1 above instead of the carrots. Use a medium, full-bodied red wine, such as a Beaujolais or Côtes du Rhône instead of the chicken broth. Serve with parslied boiled new potatoes and peas.
SWEETBREADS IN BROWNED BUTTER WITH LEMON
(my easy version, adapted from Julia Child, "Mastering French Cooking")
¾ pound calves sweetbreads
cider vinegar
2 tablespoons butter
flour for coating
salt, preferably coarse sea salt
freshly ground pepper
½ medium lemon
1. Soak sweetbreads for 2 hours in cold water, changing water several times. Gently remove as much membrane as you can without tearing the little pieces apart. Cut away joining tube if it is still there. Drain and soak for another hour and a half in cold water with 1 tablespoon vinegar per quart of water, changing water and vinegar halfway through.
2. Place sweetbreads in saucepan covered with 2 inches of cold water, about 2 quarts. Add 2 teaspoons salt and 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice. Bring to simmer and cook, uncovered, at barest simmer just barely moving for 15 minutes. Drain.
3. Using palm of your hand, press sweetbreads between several layers of paper towels until they are about 1-1¼ inches thick. Slice crosswise so that sweetbread pieces are ½-inch thick.
4. Melt butter in large nonstick skillet. Place flour in pie plate and dip each sweetbread piece in flour. Gently shake each piece to eliminate excess flour. When butter bubbles then the bubbles subside, slip pieces into pan.
5. Cook 3-4 minutes on each side, until golden brown. Place on warmed serving plates. Add lemon juice to skillet and swirl around in butter. Then pour over sweetbreads. Serve with minced parsley if you like. Serve with rice and asparagus or peas.