CHICKEN STEW

LUNCH AND THE ART OF MOTORCYCLE MAINTENANCE


CHICKEN AND RICE… THAT’S NICE!

August
In August it will be so hot
I will become a cooking pot
Cooking stew of course-why not?
Cooking once, cooking twice
Cooking chicken stew with rice

I told you once, I told you twice
All seasons of the year are nice
For eating chicken stew with rice

- extracts from Eating Chicken Soup With Rice by Maurice Sendak

- and I did take the liberty to replace the word “soup” with “stew” to fit my blog post

Ah, the chicken. Ask anyone what their favorite chicken dish is and the choices will be endless. The humble chicken, this silly animal of stick legs and no brain, her simple meat the welcome recipient of an endless array of flavors, the perfect match for any cuisine, the tabula rasa of the cooking world. Chicken is the homiest of meat, settling in comfortably anywhere, in any culture, in any kitchen. Chicken stirs up a multitude of food memories for me: boiled with vegetables and turned into a golden, fragrant, steaming bowl of chicken soup, Jewish penicillin, the backdrop for dense, luscious matzo balls back when I was a girl; last night’s boiled chicken being turned magically by my dad into his famous chicken salad by stirring it into thick, creamy mayonnaise with tiny bits of colorful, crunchy carrots and celery, eaten on soft Jewish rye; simmered slowly in a deep, rich tomato sauce studded with button mushrooms, all dressed up as Cacciatore by a college roommate; dropped onto a paper plate and smothered in Cuban red beans and rice for a mere $5 in that tiny place around the corner from my brother’s apartment in Brooklyn; deep-fried and served with cornbread and collard greens followed by the world’s most amazing sweet potato pie when we had enough money to eat out during our college years in that West Philly joint; my mother-in-law’s pot au feu for Sunday lunch; marinated in a sweet and sour glaze and pan-grilled, cooking with my new husband as I stand, pregnant, in our wonderful first kitchen, window’s flung open into our matchbox garden, in our first house together….

When ideas escape me, I head to the “The Chicken Man” as I call the one who sells beautiful chickens at our local morning market. I know that a whole chicken or simply chicken pieces can be turned into almost anything. All I have to do is then jump from market stall to market stall and purchase whatever is in season, whatever looks good, whatever is calling my name. Or bring the chicken back home and comb through the kitchen pantry or empty out the fridge and voilà I will have found the perfect meal.

For those of you who follow me on Twitter, you know that husband has finally found a “project”. He has been looking for a hobby, something to do on weekends, for about two years, and he has been threatening me with buying a boat, from the tiniest of rowboats or a plate de Loire to something huge like a houseboat. I have no idea where the fascination with boats came from, out of the blue, just like that, but lucky for me he finally, after a year or two of walking along the river’s edge and staring longingly at everything that floated, he decided to buy an old Lambretta scooter, circa 1957 and needing to be completely – and I mean completely – rebuilt. Well, at least he can do that in the garage. And better yet, he has drawn Simon into the project and they are having a blast! They’ve joined a forum on-line, do their research step by step, spend lots of money on new tools, now have the bike in pieces and are bonding over the reconstruction of a scooter. And I get to help choose the color!

This is what it looks like now.

Hoping that it will look like this one day!

So to make a long story short, I am now left on my own Saturday mornings to do the marketing and decide on and prepare lunch. And I am often a complete blank – ask me to bake a cake or throw together a loaf of bread and I have no problem with that, but ask me to make a meal? I feel like a deer caught in the headlights: “What? Me? Meal? Huh?” So off to the market I head with my basket on my arm. I take a turn around the market, and a second, and finally find myself in front of The Chicken Man. Ask for a few legs and thighs and a couple of breasts, yes, Landes chicken with their flavorful, moist yellow meat, and then head home. I decided last weekend to basically clean out the fridge and make a meal of it. Okay, this is usually JP’s specialty for he can take odds and ends and create something fabulous! But me?

Let’s see: one red pepper and one zucchini bought to grill for pizza but never used, a pack of smoked lardons (chunks of bacon) who have been hiding in the vegetable drawer under the cheese, a handful of white mushrooms, an onion and garlic. Normally, I would toss in a can of crushed tomato but, heavens, the cupboard was bare! All I had was a can of white beans in tomato sauce, so I thought “What the heck!” And while the guys are tinkering downstairs and Marty is spread out in the hot sun, I roll up my sleeves, tie on my apron and say “Let’s go!”

CHICKEN STEW and rice, that’s nice!

Chicken for 4 – 6, I buy 2 breast filets and 3 or 4 leg/thigh sections (enough for 2 meals)

Whatever is on hand and in the fridge, whatever you like:

1 onion

A few cloves garlic

1 red pepper

1 zucchini

(I would have used a carrot if I had had one)

A bowlful of white mushrooms

½ - 1 cup cubes of smoked bacon

1 can of white beans in tomato sauce

Fresh thyme and rosemary

Salt and freshly

Olive oil for cooking

Prepare the vegetables:

Clean and dice the onion, the red pepper and the garlic. Clean and quarter the mushrooms. Clean and large dice the zucchini.

Rinse the chicken pieces and pat dry. Cut off any excess skin and fat pockets.

In a large, heavy-bottomed Dutch oven, heat a tiny bit of olive oil. Brown the chicken pieces, a few at a time so they aren’t crowded in the pot, on both sides. Remove to a plate.

Lightly brown the cubes of smoked bacon very quickly and remove them with a slotted spoon to a plate and set aside.

Once all the chicken has been browned, add more olive oil to the pot and add the chopped onions and red pepper and sauté, scraping up the brown bits from the bottom of the pot as you stir, until softened and the onion is beginning to become transparent. Add the chopped garlic, the zucchini and the mushrooms, then give a good grinding of black pepper and some salt and continue cooking for another couple of minutes until the onions are golden and the vegetables are partially cooked.

Add the bacon, a branch each of fresh thyme and rosemary, the can of beans in tomato sauce and stir to heat through. Add the chicken pieces along with any drippings and push them down under the vegetables. If needed, add a bit more water, being careful that the water does not cover the vegetables completely; you will not need this. Keep some water handy just in case it seems too dry during the cooking.

Bring to the simmer, lower the heat and cover the pot. Allow to simmer for 45 minutes to an hour until the chicken is cooked through, stirring occasionally and making sure the chicken is covered by juice and vegetables.

I grilled a couple of merguez for Simon that I added to the pot when I reheated it all.

Serve over rice. Now THAT is nice!

This gets even better the second and third days when reheated!