Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Mid week Dinner

Well, I was invited to contribute a while ago and am finally getting around to adding something. Holidays are rather hectic for me and this has been a time of running here and there and being less than organized. Last night was a simple low effort meal that was rather good and leaves a nice carcass for stock. I got no pictures, sorry. And, unlike my compatriot, I am not always so good with amounts in translation.

Roast chicken with Rosemary, Garlic and Lemon:
The chicken is important here, well always, but especially in a roast. That adage ‘it tastes like chicken’ to describe a generic meat is so wrong an shows what P*rdue and T*son have done to chickens, First, they are not yellow (unless being fed a diet yellow feed stuffs) and second, a good chicken has flavor. So spend more and buy from a small producer.

1 Chicken – 3 1/2 lb
5 sprigs rosemary
4 med cloves garlic
lg. Lemon
salt
pepper
olive oil
butter

Strip 4 sprigs of rosemary of leaves, mince with garlic and zest from 3/4 of lemon, (the rest is for the pasta) add a small amount of olive oil to make a paste and add salt and pepper to taste. Now you need to separate the skin from the flesh in as much of the breast and leg area as you can, be gentle and don’t rip it. Take the Rosemary/garlic/lemon mix and spread under the skin everywhere you can reach. Stick any leftover rosemary springs in chest cavity. Tie legs together.

I stuck it in a 9x9 pyrex dish with about a Tablespoon olive oil and 1-2 teaspoons butter. Bake at 350 until done, baste often once there is enough liquid to baste.

Pasta with sun-dried tomatoes and lemon
1/2 lb pasta - Pipe-Rigate
lemon zest from above
5-6 sun-dried tomatoes
4-5 T aged robusto cheese, grated
1 T butter

Chop tomatoes coarsely and mince lemon zest. Cook pasta, drain. Toss lemon, tomato and butter until well mixed, do this all while hot, add cheese and mix.

Eggplant
1 med firm eggplant
bread crumbs
Milk
Egg
Oil for frying

Peel eggplant and slice into rounds. Mix milk and egg. Process goes milk/egg/bread crumbs/fry. Cook until med brown, flip repeat add salt as desired. What you are looking for here is crisp on the outside and creamy center. Drain. Warning, these thing stay really hot in the center for quite a while.

1 comment:

  1. I think the chicken would be really good done on the Egg, also. If I smoked it I'd use a really mild wood so it wouldn't cover the rosemary.

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