What We Eat When We Eat Alone - Deborah Madison [66]
2. Put the chicken in a pan or baking dish large enough to hold it, the breast facing up. (If you’re not sure which is the breast and which is the back, look at the legs and try to visualize a chicken standing. The breast will be the plump, meaty side that faces forward.) If you have some string, tie the legs together.
3. Roast in the center of the oven until done, which will take about 1-1⁄2 hours for a 4-pound bird. Pierce the area between the leg and body with a knife: if the juices run clear, your chicken should be done. The top will be beautifully browned and it will smell wonderful.
4. Lift the chicken from its juices onto a cutting board or a platter. Slice off whatever you wish to eat—breast meat, a leg, a thigh—and enjoy while hot and juicy. Save the rest, wrapped well and refrigerated. When you’re done with the meat, use the carcass to make a stock.
Variations
There are hundreds of ways to roast a chicken, as cookbooks will tell you, but here are three very straightforward things you can do to enhance this simply prepared bird.
Slip aromatic herbs under the skin before roasting, such as sprigs of oregano or marjoram, rosemary or sage, or an assortment of herbs.
Mince rosemary, garlic, parsley, and black pepper together, then mash in butter or olive oil to make a moist paste. Rub this between the skin and the meat, especially over the breast but also over the legs, wherever you can manage to gently separate the skin from the flesh with your fingers.
Fill the cavity with halved lemons, garlic cloves, sprigs of rosemary, and chunks of onions.
Chicken Stock to Use at Will
Sure, you can buy a box of stock, but you can make your own, too, from the chicken you’ve roasted. Some recipes for chicken stock will ask you to use an entire chicken with all its flesh intact. This is not that kind of stock. Our chicken has already been cooked and mostly eaten, so it’s not going to make a rich “chicken soup” kind of broth—nor will there be a great deal of it. But it will make something that will nicely enhance a soup or a risotto.
1. Once you’re finished taking off all the meat you plan to eat, put the carcass in a pot and cover it generously with cold water. Bring it to a boil and skim off the foam that collects on the surface, then reduce the heat to very low. Add a peeled, chopped onion, a carrot cut into large chunks, a stalk of celery similarly chopped, a bay leaf, and a sprig of thyme if you have one. Leave it for several hours—I leave it overnight—with the liquid barely moving. It will slowly reduce and you’ll end up with about 4 cups of stock.
2. Strain the stock and refrigerate it. As it cools, the fat will congeal. You can scrape it off and use or discard it. If you don’t plan to use the stock that week, pour it into one or two containers, label them, and freeze.
Mashed Potatoes
While russets make light fluffy potatoes because of their floury flesh, really you can mash any potato, including sweet potatoes. And since leftovers are useful, you might as well cook at least two big potatoes.
Mashed potatoes is one of those dishes you can make entirely by eye and by taste, enriching them with tons of butter, as is done in restaurants, or a more modest amount.
2 LARGE RUSSET POTATOES, ABOUT A POUND
SALT
BUTTER, SOUR CREAM, OLIVE OIL, OR BUTTERMILK (FOR ENRICHMENTS)
CHOPPED PARSLEY
1. Peel the potatoes unless they’re organic and you like the good flavor of the skin and its flecks in the mash. In that case, scrub them. Cut into chunks more or less equal in size, put them in a pan, cover with cold water, and add a teaspoon of salt. Bring the water to a boil, then turn down the heat and simmer the potatoes until they’re tender when pierced with a knife and easy to crush.
2. Scoop the potatoes out of the pot into a bowl, add a little of the cooking liquid—about 1⁄4 cup or more—and mash with a fork or a potato masher. Enrich the potatoes by stirring in butter, sour cream, olive oil, or buttermilk, to taste. Chopped parsley is good, too, and it flecks