What We Eat When We Eat Alone - Deborah Madison [36]
Chicken soup almost skips the jerk sauce, but not the bird. Joe Simone says that when he’s alone, he browns a whole chicken in oil, adds carrots, onion, celery, fennel, and whole sage leaves along with some mashed garlic and a squeeze of lemon. Then he adds chicken broth, covers the pot, and simmers until done. The chicken gets sliced, then served in a bowl with polenta. “This way you can make a chicken last for a couple of days,” he explains.
Of course, any whole chicken will last a single eater for more than a few days, but with the broth and vegetables, this sounded like a particularly satisfying and unusually well-balanced meal. Once you’ve made it, the vegetables are there, waiting for you.
Grilled Wine-Marinated Tri-Tip
A few men mentioned cooking a tri-tip and having it around for a few days’ worth of sandwiches, so we bought one from a local rancher and cooked it, following Cliff’s lead of marinating it overnight in red wine. Others suggested using a flank steak instead. Either way, you’ll want to slice it very thin, particularly if it’s grass-fed beef, which tends to be extra lean and not as tender as grain-fed.
1 TRI-TIP, WEIGHING 2 TO 3 POUNDS
2 CUPS RED WINE
2 TABLESPOONS OLIVE OIL
2 GARLIC CLOVES, SLICED
SALT AND PEPPER
CHIVE BUTTER
1. The night before you plan to cook it, cover the tri-tip with the wine, olive oil, garlic, and plenty of freshly ground pepper. Put it all in a ziplock bag and refrigerate. When you think of it, squish it around in the bag so that all the meat is exposed to the marinade.
2. When you’re ready to cook it, let the meat come to room temperature. Remove it from the marinade, set it on a few layers of paper towels, and blot with more paper towels, getting it as dry as you can.
3. Heat a cast-iron skillet over a high flame until very hot—you can tell when you place your hand over it; you’ll feel a thick heat. Brush olive oil over the meat, season it well with salt and freshly ground pepper, then drape it into the skillet and sear on both sides just until brown. Reduce the heat to low. Cover the pan and cook until the internal temperature reads 125 degrees F, about 25 minutes for medium-rare. Remove to a plate and let rest for 10 minutes, then slice thinly across the grain. Have some warm for dinner, with chive butter melting over it, then use the rest for sandwiches.
Chive Butter (and other herb butters)
One way to make chive butter is to purée the chives to make a butter that’s green throughout. Another is to snip the chives, then cream them into the butter. Combine methods and you end up with a green butter flecked with chives. This is a very flexible sort of thing. It doesn’t even have to be chives. Any other fresh herbs, really, will be good here too—parsley, marjoram, oregano, dill—alone or in combination.
1 BUNCH CHIVES
1 STICK BUTTER, SOFTENED
GRATED ZEST OF 1 LEMON
A FEW PINCHES SALT, TO TASTE
WHITE OR BLACK PEPPER
1. Thinly slice the chives and throw most of them into a bowl with the butter. Chop the remainder with a knife so that they break down, and add those to the butter as well. Mix the chives, butter, and lemon zest with a wooden spoon or your hands until well blended. Add a few pinches of salt and some freshly ground pepper.
2. Set aside any butter you plan to use right away, then scrape the rest of the butter onto a piece of wax paper and roughly shape it into a log. Wrap it up, then draw the log through your thumb and forefinger to stretch it into a uniform cylinder, and freeze until needed. Take it out and cut off rounds of butter to use at will.
Where to Use Chive Butter
Cliff used his chive butter on steak, but all herb butters are good over fish and chicken, too. When it comes to the plant world, consider stirring a green-flecked round of butter into a potato soup, a bowl of polenta, a pot of rice, or putting it on a baked potato