What We Eat When We Eat Alone - Deborah Madison [40]
3. To serve, spoon warm polenta into a wide, shallow pasta plate or soup bowl. If you cooked a whole chicken, carve off whatever parts you wish to eat and lay them around the polenta along with some of the vegetables. Spoon broth around all, drizzle olive oil over the top, and add a sprinkling of herbs and plenty of freshly ground pepper.
Three or Four Ways to Eat Chicken Soup Almost
Because the vegetables will soften and become less appealing once they’re reheated, enjoy them the first one or two times you eat the dish. After that, serve the chicken over rice and flavor the broth with a pinch of cumin, minced jalapeño, and cilantro. Finally, use the moist meat for sandwiches or a chicken salad, and use any extra broth to enhance a soup or risotto.
Jerked Chicken
We were long in coming to jerk sauce, but having made it, we fully appreciate why some of our solo eaters described what sounded like enormous mounds of jerked chicken for their eat-alone foods. It’s that good. Still, it’s a lot of food. But because grilled, jerked meats are good party food—you want to share the whole hot, sticky experience with others—we suspect these men are entertaining.
There are a million jarred jerk sauces—just look on the Internet. But we suggest making your own, because it’s an amazing thing to work with all the pungent spices and searing chiles.
Serve with the steamed kale with sesame oil and rice wine vinegar, brown or white rice, and black-eyed peas. The wine jelly makes a much-needed cooling dessert.
1 SMALL ONION, ROUGHLY CHOPPED
4 SCALLIONS, CHOPPED
3 GARLIC CLOVES, PEELED
2 HABANERO PEPPERS, QUARTERED
1 TABLESPOON BROWN SUGAR
1 TEASPOON GROUND ALLSPICE
1 TEASPOON GROUND BLACK PEPPER
1⁄2 TEASPOON GROUND NUTMEG
1⁄4 TEASPOON GROUND CINNAMON
2 TEASPOONS SALT
3 TABLESPOONS FRESH LIME JUICE
1-1⁄2 TABLESPOONS SOY SAUCE
3 TABLESPOONS OLIVE OR CANOLA OIL
3 POUNDS CHICKEN, CUT UP
1. Put all the ingredients except the chicken in a blender or food processor and purée until smooth. Pour it over the chicken pieces, put them in a ziplock plastic bag, and squish it around so that everything is in contact with the marinade. Refrigerate overnight or over the course of a day, occasionally turning the meat.
2. When ready to cook, let the chicken come to room temperature for an hour.
3. If grilling, which is ideal, make a wood fire or charcoal fire and wait until the coals are ash-covered and the heat is no longer super hot. Or heat a gas grill. Brush your clean grill with oil because the sauce tends to stick, then grill the chicken, skin side down first so that it gets a nice crust. Turn to brown on both sides. (You might want to subdue flare-ups with a mist of water.) Once browned, move the chicken to a cooler part of the grill, cover, and cook until done, about 30 minutes or more, if the coals have started to cool off. (Large legs might take longer, if you’ve included them; wings less.)
4. To bake the chicken, which is also very good but minus the wood smoke, heat the oven to 400 degrees F. Lay the chicken pieces in one or two shallow dishes in a single layer, and bake, turning once, until crusty and browned, about 45 minutes.
How to Eat Alone
While it’s still light out
set the table for one:
a red-linen table cloth,
one white plate, a bowl
for the salad
and the proper silverware.
Take out a three-pound leg of lamb,
rub it with salt, pepper and cumin,
then push in two cloves
of garlic splinters.
Place it in a 325-degree oven
and set the timer for an hour.
Put freshly cut vegetables
into a pot with some herbs
and the crudest olive oil
you can find.
Heat on a low flame.
Clean the salad.
Be sure the dressing is made
with fresh dill, mustard
and the juice of hard lemons.
Open a bottle of good three-year-old zinfandel
and let it breathe on the table.
Pour yourself a glass
of cold California chardonnay
and go to your study and read.
As the story unfolds
you will smell the lamb
and the vegetables.