Pomodori e Vino

I'm back!

Remember, me? I'm the sub. Though, really bench-warmer feels more like it. Everyone is so busy and happy cooking, that no one was looking for my help ... until now.

And honestly, I don't think Cindy really needed my help, I think she just felt sorry for me but I don't mind, cause I got to cook and tell you all about it.

First off, I have to say, I'm still unclear what the term "Fricasseed" means...so of course I looked it up in Webster's "a dish of cut-up pieces of meat (as chicken) or vegetables stewed in stock and served in a white sauce" so I'm thinking, similar to a braise - right? Well, except this was done on the stove, and I pretty much cooked the liquid away, so maybe not a braise, we'll just stick with fricassee.

Enough contemplation - on to the recipe.

First off, it calls for a 3 - 4 pound chicken, cut into 8 pieces. I bought mine already cut up (actually, I had one left over from Rosh Hashanah that I used). Now normally, being the fat conscious person that I am, I would have skinned those pieces, but I didn't. Though, I will the next time I make this dish (and yes, skip the foreshadowing, I definitely liked this dish enough to make it again).

Second, luckily, I had some of Marcella's homemade meat broth in the freezer from my only other time subbing, when I made the Pasta e Fagioli soup a few months ago, so although Marcella says you could use bouillon dissolved in a cup of water, I had her stock on hand and used it. Though, I did wonder if it would be acceptable to use a canned stock instead of the bouillon.

So I threw my onions into the pan with the butter and when they were a nice golden color, I added my chicken.

Then, I waited. See you have to brown the chicken and I can be impatient, so I forced me to putz around a bit, emptied the garbage, peeled some acorn squash, then I turned the chicken. It looked pretty brown to me. Oh, and while I'm here, you may notice that there are only 6 pieces of chicken as opposed to 8. I didn't put the wings in the pan because I was afraid it would be too overcrowded.

Now Marcella has you take the chicken breasts out and and cook the remaining pieces for 40 minutes and then return the breasts for the last 10 minutes (or how ever long it takes for you to finish cooking the meat and cook off the liquid - it took me about 15 minutes). That concerned me - I didn't realize that the chicken breast cooks that much quicker than the thigh but it does; it was fine with less time.

Now here's where I may have messed up. Marcella says there should be no "liquid" left in the pan. She has you turn up the heat in the end to get rid of the "watery juices" in the pan, if any remained. Now there was liquid left in my pan, but it didn't seem to be juices, as much as melting fat from the skin that was falling off the chicken pieces (plus the chicken had started to stick to the pan). So I went ahead and added the egg and lemon mixture at the end, which I now think may have gotten "watered" down a bit. If you look at the red arrows, you can see where the lemon-egg mixture formed a pretty glaze and I wonder if that should have been all over the chicken?

Either way though, it was really good. The chicken was flavorful and tender and this was easy to prepare. I may actually enjoy it better than roast chicken and I will be making it again. Here's the finished product (which by the way, I served with a bit of acorn squash roasted with a little hazelnut oil, salt, pepper, and a bit of maple syrup - yum).

And a close-up.

Oh, and so far no signs of salmonella poisoning from the egg. Personally, I think it does cook, at least as much as it does when you make a custard for ice cream. But I'll let you know if I do end up sick. ;D

===

Me again, back the next morning to report no one got sick - so no worries on those eggs now!

I thought Chris liked squab. I thought I liked squab. I definitely thought, at the very least, we'd eaten squab before, so when Deborah was looking to escape cooking and eating it realized she'd be too busy to cook and eat it, I volunteered.

I may be wrong though. We may never have eaten squab before. That might have been some other small, plump, bird.

I say that because Chris didn't like the squab, and I thought it okay. The squab, not the recipe, mind you. And honestly, I'm not sure, having no real basis comparison, that we had "good" squab. Though we did buy the squab from D'Artagnan Gourmet Foods and I do trust their products. I found the squab gamier than I expected (this did not "taste like chicken"). Chris described the flavor as almost liver-like and I think I may have to agree with him there. Of course, that liver flavor could have been imparted by the liver stuffed into the cavity of the squab (along with sage and pancetta). Now I'm a fan of the familial chopped liver, so again, a liver-flavored bird didn't bother me, but it bothered him.

All that said, the recipe was easy peasy and if you like squab, I would definitely give it a go.

So let's talk about the recipe for a moment.

The hardest part, and it wasn't too hard, was finding the squab. As I said, I ordered it from D'Artangan, and gave them the date I needed it to arrive, and it arrived right on time, fresh and packed with 1/2 dozen reusable ice packs. It also came with livers, so I didn't need to purchase any extra chicken livers as Marcella suggests (phew). I only ordered two though because I didn't think four would fit in my pan (Marcella tells you to fit them in a pan without overlapping), though they were much smaller than expected, so I definitely think three would have fit fine.

Squab versus tape measure (with a lime too to grasp the size)

We had plenty of fresh sage from the garden, and pancetta in the freezer, so other than the squab, I had everything I needed right on hand.

From start to finish, the process took maybe 90 minutes, 30 minutes of prep and browning (if that), and 60 minutes for stove top roasting. I liked the process, and may try it again but next time with a different small, plump bird.

Browned Bird

Oh, and Marcella, yes, yet again we had acorn squash with the squab. I know, not traditional but I got a bunch of squash from my CSA, and need to use it up. This time though, I tossed in some of the left over pancetta, in a small dice, and it was fabulous!

Finished product (with squash)

Wow!

Okay, I had a feeling about this one. I mean, come on, veal, ham, pork, parmegiano reggiano cheeese, bread, wine - seriously - what's not to like?

Chris sat at the table, took one look and said, "I think this will be a make again." Make again - that's the best rating at our house, because I try so many different recipes, they have to say, "Make again" in order to ever have a chance of seeing it again.

Chris took a bite and said, "Oh, yeah, definitely make again. Like tomorrow." Well, not tomorrow, but soon and Marcella, don't read this, but I may even try these with turkey (shhh).

So now that we got the result out of the way, let's back up for a moment. Originally, I wanted to make the veal roast garlic, rosemary, and white wine, another dish for which I'm subbing. But when I went to the meat counter out Whole Foods, they didn't have any veal shoulder - they'd been ordering it for a week, but none had shown up. They did have the "veal scaloppine" though so I bought a pound's worth remembering I also had this dish to do.

I was a little nervous about not slicing my own scaloppine, following Marcella's directions, but I think these worked great. They still seemed a bit thick to me, so I "pounded" them, using her directions for really pressing and stretching (who knew you weren't supposed to pound? not me.).

I also grabbed my food processor to chop up the bread (actually the hollowed out center of a Portuguese roll because the Italian bakery was out of bread by the time I got there), and then I used it again to finely chop the ham. I did not use it however to "grate" my parmegiano, instead doing that by hand with my box grater. I don't know about you all, but I don't like to use my food processor for "grating" parmegiano. I find whenever I did use it, the cheese never melted properly, attaining a very funny consistency.

Veal rolls with a dollop of stuffing on top

Once the scaloppine were pounded and the stuffing mixed, I spread it on each, and rolled, not too tightly though. The first one I rolled tightly but I found the stuffing squeezed out the sides, so the other three, I did loosely. I pushed toothpicks through two rolls, but the other two were larger, so I got out wood skewers (the kind you barbecue with), and used those to fasten the rolls, then I snipped their ends so they would fit in the pan.

Dredge, brown, and simmer and that's it.

Oh, my sauce was a little thin at the end, so I boiled it down as Marcella suggested (probably could have gone another minute or so - probably did three or so).

It was all delicious and actually not too taxing for a weeknight meal. I started as Chris left to take Sammi to swim practice and dinner was ready about five minutes after he returned. And as Chris said, we'll definitely be making this one again.

It's me, the sub again. This time I'm filling in for Beth. Personally, I think Beth took one look at all the steps involved in this recipe and ran for the hills (only kidding Beth ;D).

Today, I'm making the Seafood Salad. I'm a big fan of seafood, but unfortunately, on a cold, rainy day in the northeast, I was in the mood more for a chowder then a room temperature salad, but oh well.

First, I started off with a call to Whole Foods, to make sure they had all the necessary ingredients before I made the 25 minute trek in the rain (I was really most concerned that they had whole calamari aka squid). I chose to use Whole Food's seafood section over our local fish store because since Mat, the previous owner, sold it several years ago, I just haven't found the quality of the seafood up to snuff.

So off I went to Whole Foods to gather my ingredients, whole squid (which luckily came already cleaned), shrimp, clams, mussels and scallops. The recipe also called for octopus but we were in no danger of getting that today or really any day (I'm just not a big fan) and since Marcella gave me the option to skip it, I did.

Once home, everything went into the fridge. By the way, when you by mussels and clams, you should be aware that they're still alive so you never want to put them in the fridge in a sealed container - they need to breathe.

About 5ish we started to work (I forced Chris to help - he cleaned the clams and mussels - I'm never very good at that). It's not a complicated recipe but it's a long recipe - why? Because you need to cook the squid in a pot (by the way, I overcooked them - they cook really quick and if you go even a minute too long, well, they're tough). You have to cook the shrimp in a pot. You have to cook the scallops in another pot. You have to cook the clams and mussels in a broad pan (I did them together but the mussels cooked quicker, fyi). So that's 3 pots and another pan of some sort and if you had the octopus, well that would be 5 pots/pans total! That's a lot of cleanup.

Then, what's that all done, you skin a pepper (not sure why), smash some garlic and mix it all together (after the mussels and clams have rested). Then you douse it all with some olive oil and lemon juice (don't be stingy) as well as salt and some grounds of pepper. Then it sits on the counter for 30 minutes to let the flavors meld.

I think we finally ate around 7:15 - 7:30 or so.

Here's what I thought - I'm not sure I'd make it again unless I get a better fish monger with the absolute freshest seafood ingredients. Even then it's a lot of work for something I can't prep ahead of time and refrigerate and serve later (Marcella is adamant about making sure this salad doesn't see the inside of a fridge. I can understand that - chilled would probably dull the natural flavors). Though, perhaps some variation might show up this summer, sans calamari, and with some crushed red pepper thrown in somewhere.