a whisk and a spoon

Everyday Dorie: Lemon-Fennel Chicken in a Pot

Lemon-Fennel Chicken in a Pot is the third Dutch oven-roasted chicken dish we’ve made. Kind of strange since they were all similar (a whole chicken cooked in a pot with some aromatics and liquid), but this was my least favorite of the three, and it seems like the most of the group also thought so.

I added a couple of carrots and potatoes to the bottom of the pot along with the fennel, lemon and shallots. Once the chicken was set on top of all that I think maybe I just had too much stuff in the pot. My chicken was sitting so high it was touching the lid in spots (and I ripped the skin off those spots when I took the top off the Dutch oven at the end of cooking–oops.). I don’t think it needed to roast for 90 minutes either, which was my bad, as I knew from the pan-sauce vinaigrette version that a small chicken would be done earlier, but I wasn’t paying attention. Anyway, it was fine and we ate it all up, but if I were to make something similar again, I think I’d really just take the pan-sauce version I mentioned above (that sauce was so good!) and add fennel.

For the recipe, see Everyday Dorie by Dorie Greenspan, and head over to Cook the Book Fridays to see how the group liked this one.

Everyday Dorie: Braised Chicken with Tomatoes and Olives

This Braised Chicken with Tomatoes and Olives isn’t the most photogenic dish I’ve made, but I guess not everything needs to wind up on my IG feed. Sometimes it’s nice to not sweat the photo and just enjoy what you’ve made, especially when it’s so tasty.

The “real” version of this dish is made with lamb shanks, but I modified it for my own dietary preferences (aka weirdnesses) by using bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs. I first browned them off and then removed the skin for the braising portion of the cooking, which also included onions, carrots and oil-cured black olives, a head of garlic and a can of tomatoes. I flavored my braise with rosemary like the recipe said, but I can see lots of different herbs, spices or blends working well here, depending on what you have or what cuisine/culture you feel like “visiting.” I only oven-braised the chicken thighs for about 45 minutes, as I didn’t think they needed the full time the lamb shanks would have. Lifting the lid off the braiser, I had moist chicken, soft carrots and a nice stewy mix…a perfect winter dinner. I’m looking forward to giving the leftovers the treatment Dorie suggests– shredding the meat and serving it and the sauce over pasta. Or maybe over polenta?

For the recipe, see Everyday Dorie by Dorie Greenspan, and head over to Cook the Book Fridays to see how the group liked this one.

Everyday Dorie: Christiane’s Dinner-Party Terrine

When I think of a terrine, I think of chunks of pork or duck and pistachios held together in aspic jelly…not my speed. Imagine my delight to discover that Christiane’s Dinner Party Terrine is a veggie and egg situation, more like a crustless quiche than a meat and nut terrazzo floor. Here, an egg custard with bits of scallion, red pepper and herbs gets baked in a loaf pan and sliced terrine-style.

The recipe uses nine eggs and calls for an amount of heavy cream that, for me, is reserved pretty much only for sweet treats like ice cream or eggnog. I decided to cut it back to five eggs (and use a smaller pan) and replace about two-thirds of the cream with milk. The finished custard, baked in a water bath, was still plenty silky, and the smaller loaf took less time in the oven to set.

With no plans to throw a dinner party this week, I enjoyed slices of terrine with the suggested raw tomato and herb sauce and some salad for lunch during the week.

For the recipe, see Everyday Dorie by Dorie Greenspan, and head over to Cook the Book Fridays to see how the group liked this one.

Everyday Dorie: Savory Bread Pudding

‘Tis the season for delicious smushy carbs, so to keep myself from going on an all-out November bread bender, I decided to use this Savory Bread Pudding with loads of caramelized onions and Emmental cheese as a replacement for our normal Thanksgiving stuffing. That was kind of a bold call on my part, as I’ve been told many times that the only good stuffing is Stove Top! In case of a revolt, I scaled the recipe down to make just a loaf pan’s worth (I still got eight portions!), which cut into nice slices when the pudding firmed up. Since this was going with our turkey dinner, I made a couple of seasonal flavor mods…my own “playing around” version, if you will. I used all of Simon & Garfunkel’s favorite herbs and I also added a fat scoop of pumpkin puree in place of some of the dairy in the custard. I had to toss in a little bit more bread, too, as it didn’t look like it would be able to soak up all the liquid.

And the verdict was: yum! It for sure took longer to make than Stove Top, with the caramelized onions and the soaking of the bread, and it required a water bath, but it was totally great with gravy, and I got no complaints.

For the recipe, see Everyday Dorie by Dorie Greenspan, and head over to Cook the Book Fridays to see how the group liked this one.

Everyday Dorie: Herb-Butter Chicken

Herb-Butter Chicken is just what is sounds like– chicken with an herby compound butter that’s smeared underneath the skin to flavor and baste the meat as it roasts in a Dutch oven. I used chopped parsley and tarragon in my butter blend, chives instead of scallions and added some mined garlic along with the lemon zest and s&p. I swapped the bread that Dorie uses as a base under the chicken with some halved baby potatoes, but I kept the sliced onions.

We are a household of just two, so my “big” Dutch oven is only 3.5 quarts. I brought home a small chicken (under 4 lbs) that fit nicely in it, and checked it a bit early. The herbs sort of stayed in pockets under the chicken skin (because I didn’t do a great job of really getting it spread around), but having all that butter melt into the meat made it really moist. And the drippings at the bottom of the pan were delish and flavored the creamy potatoes and silky onions so nicely. This is an easy way to roast a chicken– getting that butter under the skin is kind of an icky task, but after that you really don’t have to do much else to it– and you can customize the butter, flavoring it however you like.

For the recipe, see Everyday Dorie by Dorie Greenspan (it’s also here), and head over to Cook the Book Fridays to see how the group liked this one.

Everyday Dorie: Sole Meunière with Onion-Walnut Relish and Giverny Tomatoes

In the book, this is a Flounder Meunière with Onion-Walnut Relish, but it’s easier for me to find local sole, which Dorie says is traditional anyway, so I just used that. Fish is something I mostly save for eating out, since I usually mangle it, but this meunière preparation couldn’t be easier to cook. Just lightly dredge your fish fillets in four and quickly pan fry them in butter. Dorie goes a step further than the basic lemon and parsley finish by adding a flavorful relish of anchovies, onions, walnuts and toasted bread cubes. This made a pretty nice Sunday dinner, and it’s one I’ll make again.

There are a handful of recipes in the book I’ve skipped– mostly red meat ones that I just won’t eat, and also some that I do want to try but was too lazy to make when posting time came around. Now that we only have a few months of cooking left to go, I’ve been wondering how I can squeeze in some of these. I had two nice tomatoes from the greenmarket on the counter and while I’d passed on the slow-roasted Giverny Tomatoes last month, I figured they’d make a good side dish for the fish, with some modifications. Rather than flavoring them with lime, I used lemon to match the fish (and I left out the extract, just using lemon juice and zest). I also used much less sugar (maybe about 1/2 tsp total) than the recipe called for and added some dried thyme. Finally, I skipped blanching and peeling the tomatoes….they cooked for so long, their skins just slipped right off in the end. They were delicious, as was the olive oily tomato juice in the dish.

For the recipes, see Everyday Dorie by Dorie Greenspan, and head over to Cook the Book Fridays to see how the group liked the fish.

Everyday Dorie: Roast Chicken with Pan-Sauce Vinaigrette

Roast Chicken with Pan-Sauce Vinaigrette is another “chicken in a pot” dish where the chicken gets roasted in a covered Dutch oven, along with some aromatics and liquid (here, white wine). Cooking it this way makes a moist, but pale-skinned bird. No matter– you can brown the skin under the broiler a bit more at the end of cooking, like I did. The mellow garlic that was roasted along with the chicken and the flavorful pan juices are incorporated into a mustardy vinaigrette that makes an absolutely delicious sauce to serve with the chicken (although full disclosure: I used more drippings and less water than Dorie said and made my vin to taste, because I refuse to measure for things like that).

We are a family of just two, so my “big” Dutch oven is only 3.5 quarts. I brought home a small chicken to fit nicely in it, and I adjusted down the recipe’s roast time a bit to not cook the heck out of it. I could not bear to throw out the schmaltzy carrot slices that were roasted in the pot with the chicken, so I plated them, and some roasted broccolini, with the meat and vinaigrette. I don’t roast a whole chicken that often, but when I do, I’m always happy to have leftovers for a couple of days and bones for a small batch of homemade stock.

For the recipe, see Everyday Dorie by Dorie Greenspan, and head over to Cook the Book Fridays to see how the group liked this one.

Everyday Dorie: Spatchcocked Chicken

It’s been a while since I’ve cooked a whole bird, but this Spatchcocked Chicken was a good excuse to haul out the roasting pan. Spatchcocking is a technique that involves cutting out the chicken’s backbone and flattening down the breastbone a bit so it roasts more evenly and quickly. I’m not the most nimble butcher, but it’s not really too gruesome a task (I used heavy kitchen shears to get the job done), and you can save that backbone to add to your future stockpot. Dorie had us rub up the chicken with butter and Middle Eastern spices (although you can take the flavorings whichever way you choose) and add some veggies to the pan before it all went in the oven. It came out pretty seductively bronzed and moist, and was a good reminder to make a roast chicken dinner more often.

For the recipe, see Everyday Dorie by Dorie Greenspan, and head over to Cook the Book Fridays to see how the group liked this one.

Everyday Dorie: Chicken and Winter Squash Tagine

When the weather turns chilly, it’s nice to have a fragrant, braised meat and veg dish simmering away on the stove. This Chicken and Winter Squash Tagine is just that. Spiced with ras el hanout, this tagine is Dorie’s pantry version of a North African stew. Not that I have made so many tagines in my life, but I usually think of them as one-pot meals, so I turned her recipe into one. Rather than cooking down onions and browning off chicken in separate pots, I browned the chicken in my Dutch oven first. Then I removed it to cook down the onions…once they were melty-soft and spiced up, I added the chicken back into the pot along with slices of acorn squash to simmer until completely tender.

I had some homemade preserved lemon, so I swapped that in for the fresh zest and juice in the recipe. Because I love them in a tagine, some green olives went into mine as well, and next time, in order to thicken the sauce up a bit (which Dorie does warn us will be thin), I’ll probably add some chickpeas and a few spoonfuls of their starchy liquid near the end of cooking. All in all though, this was warming and tasty, and while Dorie says it’s best freshly made, I thought it was even more flavorful the next day.

For the recipe, see Everyday Dorie by Dorie Greenspan, and head over to Cook the Book Fridays to see how the group liked this one.