Rock Cornish Hens with Gremolata Butter

This one's a keeper for sure. Simple, basic, fresh ingredients. Butter, one of the essentials of life. I made the butter the night before. I was so excited to get to use my marble mortar & pestle that I had to have & have used exactly 3 times. Grind up peppercorns, add lemon zest, grated garlic & mash into a paste. Mix with softened butter, lemon juice, & parsley. I was only making 4 hens instead of 6, so I took Tom's advice & put a dollop of the butter on our steaks that night. Sinfully good. He also suggests variations for seafood & vegetables. Note to self to stock up on butter.

Rinsed & dried the hens & smushed the butter under the skins. Carefully following the instructions & pictures in the book, I trussed up those little chickadees. Not very well, but got the job done. I would not be good at B & D...well, not the B part anyway. Note to self: invent poultry legcuffs for the twine impaired. Result: yummy. Our friend Paula came for dinner. We feasted on the hens, baby golden potatoes in the skins, Romaine salad with oranges, red onion, avocado, & orange muscat wine vinaigrette dressing. Devil's food cupcakes & orange sherbet for dessert. SAG awards & Kung Fu Panda for entertainment. Life is good.

Adjusting My Sights

When I began this project, I planned to follow every recipe and every direction to the letter. No improvising. No substitutions. But with only 2 recipes under my belt after several weeks, it is time to adjust my sights. After all, I am a cook. Cooks improvise. They adapt. When it's the only way to reach the goal, we punt. Wow...a sports metaphor! How did that get in here? I hope that means what I think it means.

The book is written for home cooks...with homes that are not in Gastonia, NC. I have always found shopping here to be a challenge. I went out the other day for Cornish hens, avocados, orange sherbet, and kitchen twine. It took over an hour and three stores to complete my list. The manager at Food Lion had the meat guy give me the twine, since they don't sell it. Oh, Publix, how I do miss you! Some of the produce, the types of olives, and oils are just not available. I'm hanging my hopes on Charlotte with its Earth Fares, Whole Foods, and Trader Joe's. And there is a Publix a mere 40 miles away. Sounds less ridiculous all the time. Some recipes will have to wait until I hunt and gather the proper ingredients. But for others, I will improvise and make do with "close enough". I'm actually taking a list of stuff with me to NY at the end of February in hopes of finding some things there.

The equipment is another issue. I have more gadgets, appliances, special pans, etc. than anyone else I know. But a 10" x 6.5" x 3" pan for the Pave' Potatoes, no. Nor does anyone else judging by my internet search. On the brink of making the search for this pan my personal Holy Grail, I took a deep breath and talked myself off the edge. First of all, the full recipe would make more potatoes than George and I could eat in a month; and the recipe is too much last minute work for me to make for a crowd. Second of all, aren't I really after learning techniques? Won't the technique be the same for half the recipe? Finally, do the squares have to be exactly 3" x 3". I think my regular loaf pan will do just fine.

I guess there really will be life lessons along the way on this project. If I keep waiting for the perfect olive or just the right pan, I will miss the bliss of enjoying the feast. So, damn the pan...I'm feasting, baby!

Buttermilk Fried Chicken

For my first adventure, I chose the Buttermilk Fried Chicken. Invited our book club friends for last Friday night. Good thing I read the whole recipe a few days ahead of time. I sort of knew that I had to brine the chicken. Did not know that I had to brine it for 12 hours or that the brine is not just salt & water, but a whole recipe of its own. H-m-m-m. A little more complicated than I thought, but ok. I agreed to follow all instructions exactly when I signed on for this project. Just added another day to my timetable.

Day 1: Put my brine with lemons, garlic, fresh herbs, & kosher salt on to boil. Smelled heavenly. Tom, I think it's ok if I call him Tom, says "whenever possible, buy the chickens whole & cut them up yourself." The instructions are pretty clear & are illustrated, so in spite of my ugly previous experience with cutting up chickens, I decided to do it. When I was through, my kitchen still looked like a CSI episode, but in only about an hour as opposed to an entire afternoon like last time; & some of the pieces were identifiable. Progress of a sort. Had to let the brine cool & then chill it. Just before bed at 11:00 pm, we got the chickens all settled in the brine in the refrigerator for a 12 hour nap.

Day 2: Rinsed, dried, & refrigerated the chicken at the 12 hour mark. Tom said not to go more than 12 hours or the chicken would be too salty. I was rushing like a lunatic to get the chicken out at exactly 12 hours. It's chicken, not Cinderella. In my mind, 12 hours & one minute would turn the chicken into a salt lick. I need to relax. I was mixing the seasonings & flour & setting up the "dipping station" when our friend Richard arrived early. Word to the wise: don't arrive early for a party at my house, because you will be put to work. I immediately dubbed him sous chef & assigned him to dredging station #2. I had dredging station #1 & the buttermilk dipping station. The frying took longer than I expected, & we had some trouble keeping the oil at the right temperature.

We finally managed to get all 8 of us & the food together in the same location & had a great dinner. I made potatoes au gratin & biscuits & peas. Paula made roasted vegetables. Deb & Addie brought some nice wine. For dessert we had Millie's lemon drops, Paula's cookies, & my mini cheesecakes. Everything was delicious. The chicken coating was crispy & spicy. The meat itself was infused with the herbs & lemons of the brine.

I'll definitely make this chicken again. Things I'd change: Tom does say "whenever possible" regarding cutting up the chickens. I will move that step into the Not Possible column & buy the chickens cut up. I might invest in a deep fryer. Keeping the oil temperature consistent was a major issue on my flat top electric stove. Things I wouldn't: On Sunday we went for a drive. We ended up in a Williams-Sonoma store. There by a deep fryer (the $400 one) was a display of Ad Hoc Buttermilk Fried Chicken Tenders kits. It's a fabric bag with everything you need to make the buttermilk coating. Easier, maybe. Then I thought about the heavenly smell of the brine...the lemons, the fresh herbs, the garlic. Mixing the spices with the flour. The cold, fresh buttermilk. Examined the bag. Nope, none of that is in there. In some other form maybe, but not the real thing. So, no, thanks. I didn't see the time, the effort, the music, or the love on the label, either.

And so it begins...

Since seeing "Julie & Julia", I've been looking for a cooking project. One that would allow me to shamelessly steal the concept & also make me seem more interesting than I am. My project arrived on Christmas morning. Ricky & Lisa gave me Thomas Keller's Ad Hoc Cooking for the Home Cook. If that means nothing to you, let me explain. We are into food & restaurants & cookbooks & chefs. As Ricky puts it, if they sold chef cards with bubble gum, we would collect them. In our collection, Thomas Keller would be like having a Babe Ruth rookie card. A cookbook written by him for home cooks is like having the Babe be your batting coach. The book itself is a thing of beauty. It's a good read...with recipes in it. Best of all, this is the food I cook, ramped up. This isn't hork down food. This is food to be enjoyed with friends, family, good conversation, laughter, & wine. I love that he considers music an essential ingredient in cooking...& love. Don't forget the love.