Thanks for the Idea!

While perusing my blogroll a week or two ago, I checked in on Susan at Sticky, Gooey, Creamy, Chewy. I was very sorry to read that she'd had an accident, but happy to read the recipe she'd posted from her most recent issue of Gourmet magazine. January's issue was all about Italian, and included a recipe for Roast Chicken with Pancetta and Olives from Tony Oltranti. The recipe incorporated oil-cured olives, which I had on hand and needed to use up, and seemed simple, so I marked it down to try. I'm so happy I did! The chicken was wonderfully flavorful and moist, with crisp skin, the garlic became soft and sweet and perfect to spread on bread and sop up the light but intensely flavored juices. I replaced the pancetta that was called for with some of my bacon, and the smokiness added a nice dimension without overpowering any of the other flavors. 

Roast Chicken with Bacon and Olives 

Adapted from Tony Oltranti, Gourmet Magazine Jan 2009 via Susan Filson

6-8 Bone-in skin-on chicken breasts, cut in half width-wise

1/4 C extra-virgin olive oil

1 1/2 Tb fresh thyme, chopped

1 Tb fresh rosemary, chopped

1 Tb fine sea salt

1/2 to 1 tsp red pepper flakes, adjust to your taste

1 tsp freshly ground black pepper

10 garlic cloves, peeled

4 thick slices bacon, cut into 1/2" pieces

24 oil-cured black olives

Preheat oven to 450 degrees F. 

Place chicken pieces on a rimmed baking sheet and toss with the olive oil. Combine thyme, rosemary, salt, red pepper flakes, and black pepper. Rub the spice mixture into the chicken and arrange all of the pieces skin-side up in a single layer. Scatter garlic and bacon around the chicken and roast until the chicken begins to brown, 20 minutes. After 20 minutes, drizzle the wine over the chicken and roast for 8 minutes more. After the 8 minutes, scatter the olives over the chicken and continue roasting until the skin is golden brown and the meat is cooked through, 15-20 minutes more. Rest for 10 minutes before serving.

Get well soon, Susan!

Improvising

I have fun with food. I enjoy reading about it, shopping for it, chopping it, measuring it, baking it, frying it, sauteing it, and stewing it. You better believe I enjoy eating it.

I hear so many people say that they "can't" cook, or that a recipe is "too difficult" or "too intimidating". It makes me a little sad to hear that, because I want everyone to have as much fun as I do. I will try to cook any recipe you put in front of me. Do I always cross my fingers that it will work and be tasty? Yes. But if it doesn't, it's just a learning experience, and next time will be better. I've had many failures and mediocre dishes, but I'm never intimidated, and I'm always having fun. I feel like I've seen people get so stressed about a recipe or a technique, and they don't understand when I tell them, 'No, I didn't have a recipe, I made this up', or that I got my idea from a recipe but then changed it to suit myself. They don't understand how I can do it.

Here's a step-by-step example of how I take a recipe, and tweak it.

The recipe itself was for a Caramelized Onion and Prosciutto Bread Pudding. I will post the original recipe and instructions, and insert my changes and reasons in parentheses, to show the process.

Caramelized Onion and Prosciutto Bread Pudding (Caramelized Onion and Bacon Bread Pudding)

Williams-Sonoma

10 oz day-old country-style bread, cut into 3/4" cubes, with crust (10 oz 3-day old mini baguettes leftover from the neighborly party earlier in the week, cubed.)

2 1/2 C milk (2 1/2 C skim milk, it's what I had)

2 C heavy cream (1 C heavy cream, 1 C half & half, because that's what I had)

3 garlic cloves, crushed with the side of a knife (3 BIG cloves, mmm garlic)

1/2 tsp Cyprus flake salt (Sorry, W & S, I used some grey sea salt. Why? Because...that's what I had! Does anyone see a pattern here?)

Coarsely ground tellicherry pepper, to taste

1 Tbs unsalted butter (unnecessary, due to later pork substitutions and their accompanying fat.)

1 red onion, thinly sliced (This is what I used, but next time, I'll do a coarse dice for ease of eating.)

2 Tbs balsamic vinegar (2 Tbs sherry vinegar, because I'm mildly obsessed with it lately, and it's delicious with bacon.)

8 eggs

2 C grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese (Holy expensive cheese Batman! I subbed in a mix of aged gruyere and some plain Chevre. Mmm, tangy and economical.)

2 oz thinly sliced prosciutto, cut into 2 x 1/4 " strips (4 slices thick cut smoky bacon, plus 2 oz homemade pancetta, because I'm on a mission to clean out my freezer.)

2 Tbs chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley (Picked from our patio garden, supplemented with 1 tsp fresh thyme, because thyme is one of my favorites, and is delicious with pork products.)

Preheat an oven to 350 degrees F. Butter a 2 qt rectangular baking dish. (Nonstick spray, you make life easier.) Have a pot of boiling water ready. (I spent too much time reading blogs that day, and was mildly rushed. I skipped over the boiling water step as I read. More on this later.) Put the bread cubes in a large bowl and set aside.

In a saucepan over medium heat, combine milk, cream, garlic, salt, and pepper and heat until bubbles form around the edges of the pan. (Combine the hodgepodge of dairy that was already in your fridge with garlic, salt and pepper.) Remove from heat and let stand for 30 minutes. (Think to yourself: Hmm, I'm steeping garlic in milk, like tea. I'm making a garlic-milk tea. Ha. Ew. Garlic-milk-tea.) Meanwhile, in a saute pan over medium heat, melt the butter. (Instead, place the bacon into a medium saute pan and cook until browned and crisp, then remove to paper towels, reserving the fat in the pan. Place finely chopped pancetta in the reserved fat, brown, then remove to paper towels, reserving the fat in the pan. Use this fat in place of butter.) Add the onion and cook, stirring occasionally, until it begins to brown and caramelize, about 10 minutes. (Think about nominating onions-cooking-in-bacon-fat for best smell in the world.) Add the vinegar and cook for 5 minutes more. (Stirring often.) Remove from the heat. Return the milk mixture to medium heat and warm until bubbles form around the edge of the pan. (Or completely miss this step until you re-read the recipe while typing it. The milk was still plenty hot, trust me.) In a bowl, lightly whisk the 8 eggs. Slowly add the hot milk mixture, whisking constantly. Set a fine mesh strainer over the bowl filled with bread cubes, and pour the milk mixture through it, onto the bread. Stir to combine. Let stand for 10 minutes, then fold in the cheese, prosciutto, parsley, and caramelized onion. Transfer to prepared baking dish. (Greet your Hubband, who has come home during this 10 minutes. Feel rushed, because you want to show him the new patio furniture that arrived that day, so mix the parsley, thyme, chopped bacon, pancetta, and onions in with the bread quickly, and transfer to the dish. Go outside to ooh and ahh over patio furniture. Come back in and realize you forgot to put in the cheese. Use your clean fingers to push cheese chunks in at random spots and depths around the baking dish.) Set the baking dish in a roasting pan. Add the boiling water to fill the roasting pan halfway up the sides of the baking dish. (Ask your Hubband to put the baking dish in the oven because your hands are now covered in eggy-cheesy-parsley bits from your non-traditional method of adding cheese. Neglect to remember the whole water-bath thing until you're eating. There was no pot of boiling water to remind you anyway*. *See beginning of recipe.) Bake until the center of the pudding is firm and the top is golden, about 50 minutes. Transfer to a wire baking rack and let cool for at least 20 minutes. Serve warm or at room temperature.

This is what we ended up with:

It was SO good. Even with all of my substitutions and technique mistakes, dinner was delicious. Crusty on top and soft in the middle, savory and delicate in flavor, the bread pudding was so satisfying with a green salad. This wouldn't be out of place on a holiday table, in my opinion.

A note: This was a particularly egregious example of me not reading the instructions very closely. When I'm baking, I do read more closely because of the precision needed for proper results, but savory cooking is a little more forgiving. As far as playing with the ingredients, there was nothing wrong with the recipe as written, but everything I substituted with was already in my fridge, freezer, pantry, or patio garden, and thus I saved myself a trip to the store.

Popeye Would Be Proud

Recently I was debating on what to make for dinner when I randomly remembered a restaurant of my youth: The Ground Round. Why anyone might want to name a restaurant that is beyond me, (the restaurant itself was actually quite nice) but when I was young we loved to go there, and I often ordered the spinach salad, before it was cruelly removed from the menu. It was a wonderful salad, with hard-boiled eggs, bits of bacon, and a warm dressing, and it was often amusing to see the face of the server when a child ordered raw spinach with no prompting. They were much less surprised when my sister and I wanted to order cinnamon dippers, bits of deep-fried dough rolled in cinnamon-sugar and served with fudge and strawberry dipping sauces, for dessert. 

In the spirit of The Ground Round, I made this salad with warm dressing, using my homemade pancetta.

Incidentally, the pancetta turned out fabulously. I know it's rude to toot one's own horn when it comes to achievements, but...toot toot! I'm very proud of it and I will absolutely be making more when I run out. It has way more flavor than anything I've found in a store. Hooray! 

Warm Spinach Salad

This salad was great as a dinner, with two eggs per plate and some rotisserie chicken. It would also be a wonderful side dish with no chicken and less egg, just divided into more servings. I'm leaving the amount of spinach open, after all, only you know how much salad you want, and you can always save any extra dressing. Use regular bacon if you don't have pancetta.

Baby spinach leaves, washed and dried 

Hard-boiled eggs

Shredded cooked chicken (optional)

2 oz thick pancetta, cut into small cubes

1 C red onion, thinly sliced

1/3 C balsamic vinegar

1 1/2 Tb grainy dijon mustard

3 Tb olive oil

Freshly ground black pepper

Fill plates with your desired amounts of spinach, egg, and chicken (if using). 

Place cubed pancetta in a cold saute pan and turn the heat to medium. Cook, stirring as needed, until the fat renders out and the pancetta is browned. Using a slotted spoon, remove pancetta to a paper towel and set aside. Reserve the fat in the pan, and add the red onion. Saute until the onions are softened and lightly browned. Turn off the heat. Add vinegar and mustard and whisk to combine. Let reduce for a minute or two in the residual heat of the pan, then add olive oil and some black pepper. Taste dressing and adjust seasonings to taste (extra vinegar to add zing, extra oil to mellow). Spoon dressing over spinach, egg, and chicken, and top with reserved pancetta.

Makin' Bacon, Part 2

Those of you familiar with this blog know that I made my own bacon a few weeks ago for the first time. You may also remember that one of the mini-slabs that I cured was destined to become pancetta, the unsmoked Italian form of bacon. After being steeped in a flavorful cure of salt, sugar, garlic, thyme, juniper berries, bay leaves, black pepper and nutmeg for a week, then rinsed and dried, I rolled the slab into as tight a cylinder as I could muster, and tied it with cotton twine. I hung it up in an old beverage fridge that maintains a constant 58 degrees, no matter what, for 2 weeks, and Voila! 

My very own pancetta! Hanging it up for the two weeks dried and firmed it a little, and will supposedly deepen the flavor. I haven't had an opportunity to use it yet, but I couldn't wait to share with you.