Homemade Porchetta Sandwiches with Salsa Verde: Crack(ling) for Foodies

Porchetta Panini with Salsa Verde: highly addictive, but legal.

I wrote this post over a month ago - life is so busy I didn't get to finish it and publish it till May, but I am retroactively publishing it :)

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I'm struggling a little bit, as I usually do at this time of year, with the fact that it snowed again a few days ago.  In April.  And it's not easy to face the fact that it will probably keep doing that sporadically until mid May.  High desert.  Yep - sometimes I think you seriously do need to be high to put up with this shite with a smile on your face!  Freaking Denver.  Good thing I had these pictures and my porchetta adventure in the archives ready for a post that warms.

Not cool, Nature.  Not cool.

I'm not sure where the idea came from exactly but at a certain point in 2013 I became completely obsessed with making porchetta.  I suppose it might have been my subconscious harkening back to the market in Rome's Campo dei Fiori and the porchetta stand we'd passed by on our trip in 2010.  The regret of not buying a sandwich that day clung tightly to my capricious culinary heart.  I'd tried porchetta before - I'm not sure where - and the taste of it, crunchy-salty-deliciousness, lingered, like an unattainable sensory high, in my memory.  It could also be that since then I've been victim to what seems to be nothing short of a porchetta-centric-campaign of cooking shows aimed at me only, pedaling that legalized and quite addictive substance and how to make it yourself, featuring food trucks and restaurants alike showcasing kick-ass porchetta.  I was truly convinced I'd become the unwitting victim of a universal conspiracy to entice me to death with crackling, herbs and lemon juice.  Something had to be done. 

Porchetta in Campo dei Fiori; be still my beating heart!

 

A couple of months ago I happened to land on an episode of Guy Fieri's "Diners, Drive-ins and Dives" (a show and celebrity chef I love to hate but can't stop watching) and was sucked into an episode on a sandwich joint that made what can only be described as the most tasty thing I'd ever seen (again): their own homemade porchetta sandwiches.  The place was called Meat and Bread in Vancouver, BC, and their purposely-simple approach to sandwiches (meat and bread, literally) drew me in.  Well, and I simply couldn't take it anymore.  I had to get out and finally commence that delicious hunt for the ingredients that would ensure that the most delicious of roasted pork belly sandwiches would be mine at last.

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THE HUNT

Crackling Heaven.

Porchetta is traditionally from Lazio, the region in Italy where Rome is located.  As if that is not already appealing enough to me, It's also considered something of a celebratory food in the sense that it's usually sold out of food stands, trucks or markets during festivals, and most people consider it a picnic or holiday food in Italy.  It was, not surprisingly, introduced to the US by Italian immigrants and has been adopted and adapted around the country.  It is wonderful served as a main dish (like a pork roast) but truly shines, in my humble opinion, when served as part of a "panino" or sandwich, along with Italian salsa verde - a divinely acidic and earthy sauce that perfectly cuts the fat of the pork belly.

And what is this salsa verde of which I speak?  It has nothing to do with tomatillos and onions.  Nothing new-world about it, really.  It's a sauce rumored to have been brought back from the near east by Roman soldiers to Italy where it was then exported to France and Germany and theoretically also the new world - which is where we get things like Argentina's Chimichurri.  Admittedly, there is some question in my mind as to whether salsa verde is always traditionally served with porchetta in Italy as most of the recipes for porchetta with salsa verde I've encountered tend to be found in modern American publications, but, frankly, at this point, I truly do not care about authenticity.  Salsa Verde is one of the few foods that makes me salivate on command.  At this very moment I have visions of fresh herbs, garlic, peperoncino, lemon juice, olive oil and anchovies dancing through my head.  Those six things may very well be my favorite ingredients of all time.  Ok, plus salt.  I can't imagine anything savory they wouldn't make taste better.  No, really. :)

I figured it would be pretty easy to find what I needed to make the porchetta.  Who doesn't like pork belly?!  Well, apparently nobody in Denver likes it enough to demand it be sold at their local grocery store.  I went to at least 5 different grocery stores.  I tried the regular suspects in addition to my two favorite ethnic Mexican grocery stores, but it wasn't until I entered the meat section at Pacific Ocean Int'l Market (my go-to Asian market here in Denver) that I found what I was looking for.  Amidst the smells of fermented bean curd, dried shrimp and science-experiment-looking tapioca puddings, I found a large selection of pork bellies, none of which had the loin still attached as is generally used in Italy - but no matter.  The vast availability of pork loins - the least flavorful part of the pig - is a testament to the boring culinary lives most of us lead.  I picked one up at King Soopers - and I swear I left my judgments at the meat cooler - and moved on with my life and recipe.

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THE FEAST

Delishness from above.

I read an article recently in Food & Wine written by a woman who grew up in Soviet Russia, living through food shortages and her mother's creative ways of making the government issued rations of nast palatable (see "Russian Food: A Love Story").  Apart from contemplating the oft-discussed reality that when there is none around, everything becomes about food, she also recalled her mother as having (maybe because of the food shortage, maybe in spite of it) "compulsive hospitality syndrome" - the compulsive love of sharing food with those you care about.  She would prepare dinner parties from tinned meat and half-rotting potatoes.  She coveted the neighbor's black-market bananas.  There was also a kettle ready to brew tea for a passing friend or neighbor.  I suppose this is akin to being called a "feeder," which is what my sister calls me.  I can't stand not feeding people, and, most of the time, if I am excited about making a recipe, it's at least in part because I can't wait to share it with someone I love. 

Which is why, one snowy weekend in February I invited our good friends and old neighbors over for a porchetta dinner after Matt and Tony went off to watch a Monster Truck Rally with the boys.  It left me ample time to make the salsa verde, make the salt rub for the porchetta with my friend Gaea, a recent convert to meat.  We rubbed the salt and lemon zest spice mix on the slotted pork belly skin.  We filled it with herbs.  We rolled it.  And then we roasted it low and slow in the oven, so that the skin on the pork belly became the crunchiest, saltiest of crackling, breaking off in chips as you sliced the roast, crushed onto the sandwich in an infinitely more sophisticated version of the ham-sandwich-with-Lays-potato-chips.

That night we feasted.  We served the sandwiches on ciabatta slathered in salsa verde, piled high with pork and crackling, and topped with more salsa verde.  A brisk white wine for me and beer for the rest finished it off quite nicely.  I'm certain I was in a salt and meat coma after the first three bites, my former vegetarian friend sitting across from me, smiling, licking her fingers - the best and realest testament to the transformative power of food - and the fact that Porchetta is crack for foodies.

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Porchetta Sandwiches with Salsa Verde

Recipe from Meat & Bread in Vancouver

Serves 8-10

Ingredients

Salsa Verde
1 bunch parsley
1 cup canola oil
2 teaspoons toasted fennel seeds ground
2 teaspoons toasted coriander ground
2 teaspoons chili flakes
small handful of fresh fennel fronds, chopped (optional)
2 anchovy fillets (optional)
salt
2 cloves garlic
zest of 1 lemon
lemon juice from 2 lemons

Salt & Herb Rub
2 tbsp coarse salt
2 tsp toasted fresh rosemary, chopped
2 tsp toasted fennel seed, crushed
2 tsp crushed red pepper flakes
2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
zest of 1 lemon
small handful of fresh fennel fronds, chopped


Other Ingredients
2-3lbs (combined weight) Pork Belly with loin still attached (or buy them separately)

kitchen twine
extra canola oil
ciabatta rolls, sliced lengthwise for sandwiches

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 275F.

2. Make the salsa verde in a blender (or chop by hand if you're feeling it), set aside.

3. Make the salt & herb rub in a small bowl and set aside.

4. Score the pork belly skin in a hatch pattern so it will roast and crisp up nicely (see pic above).  Spread some (about half) salt & herb rub on the inside of the belly and loin.  Roll the pork belly and loin (with the loin in the center) into a cylinder and tie tightlywith kitchen twine.  Rub the rest of the salt & herb rub and a generous amount of oil all over the outside.

5. Place porchetta in a roasting pan (relatively deep as lots of fat will be coming off this baby) and roast in the oven for 3 1/2 to 4 hours.

6. Turn the heat up to 450F and roast for a further 25-30 minutes or until the skin is completely golden and crispy (as in the pictures above).


Serve on ciabatta rolls smeared with the salsa verde, with chopped up meat, sprinkled with the crispy crackling on top and more salsa verde.  Enjoy!

A Salt & Pepper Meal for the New Year.

Excuse me for crassly stretching the limits of the metaphor, but this part of January - the New Year, if you will - is a lot like a roast chicken.  The simplest of things and yet, in some ways, the most complex of foods to perfect.  Done badly, it can ruin your appreciation of the roast bird, making it, like other simple pleasures, a basic and ubiquitous bore.  Done well, it can exemplify and even elevate all that simple things can be to life.  It's a blank canvas - all the possibilities that linger before us.  It's clean, straightforward, unadulterated - as of yet.  It's the New Year dreams ahead, made delicious by a little salt and a little pepper.

Perhaps it's just coincidence, perhaps it's the cold weather and the appeal of a hot roast on a winter's Sunday afternoon, but for the past couple of years Matt always seems to ask me to make him a roast chicken right around this time.  And for the past couple of years, I've always made this particular recipe, my go-to-utter-perfection-simple-roast-chicken (courtesy of Thomas Keller, see last year's homage).  For whatever reason, I tend to fight the idea of having a roast chicken when first presented with it - oh what a bore, don't want to bother, why not some nice salmon, blah blah blah.  But I always end up giving in.  And then, as soon as I enter the kitchen with that simplistic, holistic culinary purpose, I'm whisked away by the excitement of making such a downright easy meal that I know will be both utterly simple and utterly delicious.
 
The reason I love this meal I make is because it tears away all the pretentious over-workedness of many modern recipes.  It's a salt & pepper kind of meal.  All you need is a chicken, an oven, salt & pepper and you're good to go.  Yes, sometimes I embellish the side dishes (for example, this year I added anise seed to the potatoes), but at its core, there's nothing flashy or difficult about this meal in its entirety.  Except for the salad, everything is cooked in cast iron skillets in the same oven.  And it's all ready at the same time, accompanied by a simple white wine (Sauvignon Blanc is my preference).  It makes the day and sets the tone for the rest of January, a month that can either drag on or usher in with joy. 
 

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The house smells like heaven.  You find yourself enthralled in the easy but purposeful sprinkling of coarse salt & pepper over the newly dried chicken skin.  No oil, no butter, just heat, salt & pepper and a chicken.  And 60 minutes later your beautiful chicken is transformed.  You can baste at the end.  You can add the Thyme for a little spice.  But you don't have to - it would be the best chicken you ever had straight out of the oven.

the cook's prize

You've roasted potatoes with lemon slices, you've made a simple salad with lemon juice and oil as dressing and copious amounts of grape tomatoes marinated in fresh garlic and basil.  You've basted the chicken and greedily tried to share the cook's prize with your husband.  The wine is chilled, the table set, and you sit down.  You eat.  You feel full and happy, picking at bits of crunchy skin after already eating your fill.  Everyone is rosy-cheeked and happy - even the three year-old - with more light than dark left in the day (and the chicken).  

And that's when you know: this is what a meal should do.  In all its uncomplicated glory it should unite.  It should spark mutual appreciation and enthusiasm for life among the young and old, sitting together, sharing such a meal, in animated conversation, toasting bravely to life's inevitable joys and travails - the salt and the pepper of our existence.

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Recipes
To serve a family of 4

Preheat oven to 450F / 232C

The Chicken (4-5lbs)
Rinse and Dry thoroughly.
Salt & Pepper copiously (inside).
Truss tightly.
Dry again.
Salt & Pepper copiously (outside).
Bake in cast iron skillet (no oil or butter) for 55-65 minutes.
Baste with own juice, sprinkle thyme lightly and baste again.
DONE.

The Gravy
Whisk flour slurry into pan juices. Add wine.  Reduce. Skim fat. Salt & Pepper.  Serve.

The Potatoes (4 large)
Peel and chop.
Slice lemon thinly.
Mix potatoes, salt & pepper, lemon, oregano (anise seeds too?) and generous amount of canola oil. 
Bake in separate cast iron skillet next to chicken for 45 minutes, mixing occasionally.
Salt & Pepper.
DONE (at the same time as chicken).




The Salad
Chop grape tomatoes.
Chop garlic (3 cloves).
Chop basil.
Mix with lemon juice and olive oil.
Salt & Pepper.
Add mixed greens and serve.
DONE.

Spring & Easter 2012: Bone Marrow Tacos

Easter Flowers and Marrow Tacos

So I've been MIA.  No big excuse, just life going along with a million things to do.  Roman turns 3 in just a few days!  We've got his party coming up and my mom and stepdad arrive tonight for a week-long visit.  Add to that the impending move to Denver, random scattered family birthdays / my watercoloring and my new addiction to Prison Break and there is precious little time left to blog.  No big deal, though, as the lull in activity has left me with more than enough food for sharing, albeit a little late.

So, Easter (yes, I am that behind). We got to host a few family members at our house for Easter this year, which was really exciting as it's really the first time we've gotten to do that, well, ever.  I decided to plan a full-on Greek Easter Menu and had lots of fun doing it.  I used my Greek cookbook go-to The Foods of Greece by Aglaia Kremezi as well as her Greek menu posted on Epicurious.com from several years ago.  Then I got so into her food that I also ordered her other book The Foods of the Greek Islands.  The menu came out to be perfect for a group of 5 adults and one child.  It also really took me back to my Grecian adventures throughout the years, and I always appreciate revisiting those if only in nostalgic flash-backs.  In the making of said Greek foods I also made some delicious marrow tacos.  I know, most of you non-marrow-eating-freaks probably think I'm a freak for eating it.  Too bad.  Your loss. :)

Here's the menu in list form.

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Brenda's Nearly-Ideal Greek-Inspired Easter Menu

because Easter just feels Greek to me 

Starter

Magiritsa: Greek Easter Soup

This soup is not for the faint-hearted.  I love offal and this is particular soup has an "offal" lot of it (boom-boom-crash!). :)  The swirling in of the egg-lemon (avgo-lemono) sauce at the end makes the broth so fresh and delicious, as do the fresh herbs.  Oh and I definitely recommend adding the rice.  Such a great starter.

Main

Leg of Lamb Stuffed with Feta & Dandelion Greens

I've made this stuffed leg of lamb for Easter two or three times now and it has converted several non-lamb-eaters.  It is so freaking good and so fail-safe.  Even Matt's Gramma, who was concerned about her salt and fat intake was so happy with it because of the inclusion of dandelion greens.  Very little prep work to do with it and it's quite impressive looking.

Side

Roasted Potatoes with Garlic, Lemon & Oregano

Actually, I used Cat Cora's recipe and modified with Oregano instead of Thyme (Church-Style Roasted Potatoes), but this recipe is equally good.  I also steamed some green beans and tossed those in with the potatoes at the last minute in a cast-iron skillet.

I used baby russets and peeled them for that extra finesse.  Delicious.

Bread

Easter Bread

This was so much fun to make!  The sweet-dough recipe from Bon Appetit is amazing and can be applied and used in so many ways.  Plus, the bread is a real eye-catcher with the whole eggs in it.  Mine were all very bright color which made it a great centerpiece as well.

My next recipe to try with this dough is this amazing Cherry-Almond Focaccia! I'll have to wait until fresh-cherries are in season.

Dessert

Fresh Cheese & Honey Tart from Santorini served with macerated strawberries and basil

This is a light version of a cheesecake with a really interesting crust made with beer, oil and flour.  Very nice spring-time dessert and it paired perfectly with the basil strawberries. :)

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Also in preparation for Easter, Roman and I kept busy making special Easter treats for

everyone.  In the spirit of Mexican confetti eggs, I cut a hole in and blew out a dozen eggs,

little hands filling
little eggs 

dyed them and then filled them with goodies (with Roman's help).  We used nuts, dried

fruits, small chocolates and some jelly beans so that the eggs had a slightly more adult feel.  I then served them as a little after-dinner-but-before-dessert treat.  They were so much fun to crush open - like little mini pinatas. :)

Overall, it was a wonderful celebration, full of good food, laughter and a fair-share of sugar-meltdowns thanks to the Easter Bunny.  We took a walk on the beach at the Eastern Promenade after eating and then came home for dessert - Gramma brought her Italian Ricotta cheesecake, which is one of my favorite desserts so I was very happy.  I was left with a certainty that I'd made the right choice in creating a Greek-inspired menu as it was very different (and yet semi-familiar) for Matt's Italian family, and also provided everyone with a talking point.  Here's my freaky little recipe for you to share in some of the Easter goodness.

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Marrow Tacos

Serves 3-4

One of the things on the menu that took a little more work than anticipated was the Magiritsa - a Greek Easter Soup traditionally served on the Saturday night before Easter.  It is a light stock flavored with the offal of the lamb and Avgo-Lemono Sauce, one of my all-time favorite Greek things.  The original recipe called for Lamb neck, liver, tripe & even head.  Wouldn't you know it, after calling 3 different butchers I was basically laughed at for thinking that anybody would have / keep or even want those pieces of meat.  Whole Foods was able to supply me with lamb leg bones and a lamb neck.  I got beef liver, and couldn't find tripe, so that had to do. 

One of the beauty of leg bones is the wonderful marrow they have inside.  Growing up it was one of my favorite parts of eating soups and stews like Mole de Olla - having a marrow taco.  You quickly toast a corn tortillas, squirt and spread lime juice all over one side, spread the little delicious nugget of marrow on it and then sprinkle with salt and devour.  So delicious, so simple and so nutritious (although, marrow is a little fatty).  Mmmmmm.  Such a commonly wasted delicacy!

So as I made the stock for the Magiritsa, I took the marrow out to include in the soup itself, but saved a couple of choice bits for myself for some pre-Easter marrow tacos.  So delicious.  Try them out. :)

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Ingredients

4 large Lamb or Beef Marrow Bones

6-8 corn tortillas

1 lime, halved

salt & pepper to taste

Method

1. You can roast the marrow but I usually just boil it to get a stock out of the deal at the same time.  Then you can make soup AND tacos :)  Boil until the marrow looks opaque.  Then lift the bones with tongs and using a chopstick or the back side of a fork, pull the marrow out, attempting to keep it in large chunks.

2. Toast your corn tortillas on a comal or directly on the flame of a gas stove.  Don't leave them so long that they turn into tostadas, but I like some charred bits on mine.

3. Take a lime half, squeeze over the tortilla as you cup it in your hand, and spread using the lime.  Add some marrow and spread.  Salt and pepper as needed.  Eat while still hot!

Make-Your-Own-Rilletes: An Adventure in & Rant on Preserving Meat

my homemade pork rilletes

 Valentine's Day this year was fantastic.  Matt treated me to dinner and drinks at a couple of local Portland establishments that we'd never been to.  The first was an amazing restaurant called Grace where we had an aperitif in what is a converted decommissioned Methodist church from the 1850s.  We didn't have any food there but I can highly recommend their bar as having very interesting and delicious cocktails as well as fabulous and out-of-the-norm ambiance.  After a drink we headed to our final destination: a tiny restaurant called Figa that I'd been eyeing for months, on Congress Street, toward's the Mujoy Hill end of the city. 

Matt and I are happy and dedicated consumers of preserved meats (especially Matt).  As such, we were very excited to see a fantasmagoric charcuterie plate available as a starter at Figa.  Matt always gets the charcuterie plate or the antipasto plate (if we're doing Italian).  It's his thing.  And I always sit there and pretend I prefer my appetizers (in this case roasted bone marrow with an oxtail ragu and caper berry gremolata served with crazy delicious bread).  But I inevitably break down and beg for a couple of bites of this and that.  This and that, in this case, was cured pork jowl, duck pastrami, chicken neck & rabbit terrine (among several others), served with homemade pickles and melba toasts.  It was a reminder of just how much I enjoy cured meats and preserved meats in general and how much it annoys me when people act like they are "gross" or "unnatural."  Yes, people do that.

In fact, just last week I got into a semi-heated-conversation with a rather opinionated and ill-informed lady over whether aged meat was "gross" or not.  She was howling about how disgusting it is that in Japan Kobe beef is "just hung out to dry" in the open and how it is unsanitary and revolting.  This is a huge pet peeve of mine - when people a) are overly vocal about personal opinions to a large group (except on blogs, of course :)) and b) when they are actually kind of wrong about said-vocal-opinions.  This woman truly believed with all her heart that there was an inherent difference between dry-aging beef and aging things like cheese or salami.  And that the former was also, by virtue of being aged, a disgusting and "wrong" thing to eat.  I can understand that argument if it's based on not liking the flavor of aged beef, but to brazenly proclaim that something is just "gross" without having eaten it or knowing how it's made is beyond my tolerance level.  Argh.

I bought this fantastic postcard for Roman this Christmas
at the Fort Worth Science & History Museum

I got roped in.  When I pointed out to this woman that she eats mold all the time if she likes aged cheeses or salami she got flustered and annoyed and proclaimed that "well, salami is not the same thing - there's a PROCESS to it."  As if people in Japan just randomly hung cow carcasses out in the open for 28 days and then ate them!  There is a process to all of it, lady.  And most of those processes are well-established and closely regulated (thanks to our sometimes overzealous but necessary USDA and thousands of years of collective meat-curing experience!).  Go read up before you start proclaiming (at least in front of me). 

And so, having simmered down slightly, I valiantly ask the following as rhetorical pieces of intellectual stimulation:

What is it about preserving food that freaks modern-day-eaters out?  (I clearly recall the shreaks of horror that came from the chefs on Chopped when they were given whole-chicken-in-a-can as one of the secret ingredients; does look kind of gross but once one of the chefs explained how and why his grandmother used to can whole chickens on their farm, it no longer seemed wrong.) 

Why is it that people so hate (and demonize) canned foods?  (It has become a line of demarcation for those horrible food snobs out there.  I think I'll scream if I hear one more person say how gross canned food is.  I even had a guy who worked at an Italian deli tell me he thought preserving tuna in olive oil was "unnatural.") 

What is SO disgusting about dry-aged beef?!  Granted, it's not my favorite either but...just sayin'.

ALL that aging, curing and preserving means is that the meats were preserved, aged, sealed and saved -  so that in a time when refrigeration wasn't as prolific people could still have meat all year round.  Is that wrong or gross somehow?  We are very lucky to live in a time of 24/7 refrigeration and utter convenience, but that doesn't mean that there's no value in understanding the art of food preservation.  Apart from being practical it is a different, tasty and vastly interesting way to prepare foods that also allows for a completely different level of availability, economy, and nose-to-tail eating.

* * * 

Anyway, now that my horrifically-long introduction-rant is over with, let's get to the whole point behind it: I mentioned briefly back in November that I was making Pork Rilletes as one of the appetizers I was serving at Thanksgiving dinner with the in-laws.  It was my foray into the world of homemade preserved and cured meats and it was a smashing success.  Not only were the rilletes amazingly delicious but they opened my eyes to a whole world of lesser-cuts-made-magical.  And best of all, through all of my research for the best rilletes recipe available, I came across some awesome websites and books on the subject that I feel compelled to share.

My Top 5 Books / Websites on Preserved & Cured Meats

yes, I do know this is a hate-me or love-me post :)

Thyme & bay pork rilletes

5. The Paupered Chef: Pork Rilletes Recipe

I used this as a visual guide for my adventure in pork rilletes.  I am still in awe that the Paupered Chef actually made pork rilletes for his entire wedding (!).  I found this the most pragmatic visual guide to homemade rilletes online.

4. Charcutepalooza & Michael Ruhlman
This is a giant, year-long blog challenge.  Every month there's a new charcuterie-challenge - everything from duck prosciutto to homemade salami using Michael Ruhlman's book (link above).  Very cool.

3. Cured Meats

This blog is a focused study on home-curing.  Highly informative, simple, and delicious-looking.2. 

2. Hunter Angler Gardener Cook

I am kind of overwhelmed by this website but I utterly love it.  I totally aspire to that holistic approach to food - eaten, appreciated, grown and prepared with appreciation from every angle.

1. Pork & Sons

The original recipe I followed was an overly simplistic one written by Stéphane Reynaud of Pork & Sons in an article promoting his book for an Australian magazine.  And it had been sitting in my recipe book for close to 3 years before I managed to fish it out again.  It was an inspiration more than a guide, but it truly made this burgeoning pork devotee want to buy this "definitive guide to pork."

Thomas Keller & The Perfect Roast Chicken

Thomas Keller's Favorite Simple Roast Chicken
and my awesome new Fig tablecloth

A couple of days ago I went on a food-literature binge.  I was about 4 issues behind on my Food & Wine and Bon Appetit subscriptions because of the holidays, and my cookbook collection (a small but varied selection of choice pieces of food lit) had been sorely neglected for months.  Besides the magazines, I pulled out two books on French cooking that I hadn't used in ages: Barefoot in Paris by Ina Garten and Bouchon by Thomas Keller.  As far as French cookery goes, the two are almost diametrically opposed to each other with Ina Garten, of Food Network fame, favoring French recipes simplified for the home cook often with a New England twist and Thomas Keller espousing the authentic and sophisticated French and French-bistro foods he is so well known for at Bouchon, Ad Hoc, Per Se, and The French Laundry.

I was flipping through the books because I'd been craving - positively craving - a good roast chicken for weeks.  I kept seeing ridiculously appetizing pictures of them all over Pinterest and decided to narrow down my top selections and then make the one I deemed most roast-worthy.  After I'd chosen my favorite among the pictures and recipes online - something labelled "Thomas Keller's Favorite Simple Roast Chicken" - I went to look through my French cookbooks to see if I could find anything better.

Open the book and there it was.  The first recipe in Thomas Keller's Bouchon: his favorite simple roast chicken. Seriously?!

Up until that point I had no idea who Thomas Keller even was, much less that he'd written that giant French cookbook my mother had given me 5 years ago or that he was the same chef referenced in the online chicken recipe I'd found.  But there you have it.  It was a match made in heaven, destined for completion on a cold January Sunday in Portland, Maine.  And here I am, like many other bloggers and amateur foodies post-Sunday dinner sharing my pictures of what could possibly be the perfect roast chicken.

The things that elevate this simple roast chicken to the realms of perfection are: the simplicity of the seasoning (salt and pepper only), the scant use of fat (no butter or oil on the chicken itself, though I did throw some in the skillet for the sake of an awesome pan-sauce), and the lack of basting until post-roasting (you throw some thyme into the pan juices and baste a couple of times only AFTER taking the bird out of the oven).  It's so simple I am amazed it tastes as good as it does, and yet, as we always seem to conclude, the best things in life do tend to be the simplest ones.  

Some might complain that it's overly simple.  Some might say that chicken is not sophisticated enough for the carefully cultivated palates of real gourmets.  To them I say: try this chicken.  It is a shocking combination of juicy meat and utterly crispy skin, and the unadulterated chicken flavor really hits you.  In short, roast-chicken-wise, it's about as close to perfect as I've ever tasted.  Why not be bold in our statements?

* * *

For the sake of voyeurism, here are my original top five roast chicken picks, mostly from my pins on Pinterest, in list form (click links to check out the mouthwatering pictures):

Top Five Roast-worthy Roast Chicken Recipes

good anytime but best on a cozy winter day

 

5. Lemon-Garlic Roast Chicken (no recipe) from http://whatkatieate.blogspot.com

This looks to-die-for but, alas, it's just a picture.  I would have had to whip up this one from my own imagination and that's a no-go on a lazy Sunday.  What's with that Katie?!

4. Cardamom & Yoghurt Roast Chicken from tastefoodblog.com

Matt doesn't like Cardamom, but I love it.  This gets points for including spatchcockage and skillet roasting.

3. Spanish Roast Chicken with Citrus & Chorizo from http://pickyin.blogspot.com

If only we had good Chorizo in Maine!  Needless to say, this is right up my alley.

2. Lazy Sunday Roast Chicken from bagandbaguette.com

I'm not huge on rosemary but I love it paired with chicken and citrus.  The skin doesn't look crispy enough for me but those potatoes might make up for that.

1. Thomas Keller's Favorite Simple Roast Chicken from almostbourdain.blogspot.com

What would you eat at your last meal?  I have no clue off the top of my head but Thomas Keller unequivocally said this chicken. Well, that's a recommendation :)  Get the recipe and story behind it at the link above - a great little blog too.

Sunday Dinner: Thomas Keller's Simple Roast Chicken and Grilled Brussel Sprouts

Kickin' in 2012: New Boots & New Zion Missionary Baptist Church BBQ

New Zion Missionary Baptist Church BBQ; interior

And we're back.

The yearly holiday pilgrimages have been made.   We hit Connecticut.  We hit Texas.  It was wonderful and exhausting and bountiful, good food was had in both locations.  There are so many culinary adventures, in fact, I am absolutely spoiled for choice in writing this blog.  I almost feel like I'm cheating on someone by choosing just one to focus on! Alas, the infidelity will be rampant, my friends.

* * * 

Real Men Wear Boots.

Good ol' Cavender's

Going to Texas is always a mix of nostalgia and excitement for me.  Despite its warm familiarity I always find that there are facets of Texan culture that are utterly foreign to me.  This year, Matt decided to dive head-first into one of the ones I'd always avoided like the plague: cowboy boots.  

I suppose that nowadays maybe boots have come back into fashion for non-cowboy / western / boot-wearing people in today's pop culture, but growing up in Texas, people who wore boots were considered a subculture of their own, akin to "preps" or "nerds" or "bangers."  They were country people - "kickers," as we liked to call them - something that angsty teenagers such as I tended to avoid, fashion-wise anyway.  Well, as my luck would have it, somewhere along the way - between my mom and James getting a couple of pairs and Matt's business trip down to Denver where he caroused with all-sorts of cowboy types who wore boots with suits - Matt decided he needed to own a pair of cowboy boots.  

Initiation night for Matt's new boots.

He insisted that the afternoon we arrived into Texas we should go (almost directly) to Cavender's to get fitted.  He walked out of that place feeling (and admittedly, looking) like a million bucks in a beautiful new pair of Lucchese - boots.  They sure are mighty fine.  

My sister looked over at me and smiled and, encapsulating the great, wonderful irony of my life, said, "I don't know how you did it Brenda, but you found a cowboy."

* * *

Real Men (also) Eat BBQ While Wearing Boots.

Yes, this is the entrance.  We almost drove right by.

But back to the food (yes, I am a total truffle pig).  In keeping with the southwestern spirit Matthew had invoked, this year we finally made a long-awaited pilgrimage to a place I had only heard of in passing but my brother-in-law and step-dad had been dying to try for years:  New Zion Missionary Baptist Church BBQ.  A mouthful - and in more ways than one.  And wouldn't you know it, just a little over a half an hour ride from my mom's house, so not too inconvenient.  The Church of Holy Smoke.

view into kitchen area from dining table

The place is beyond country.  The one-room white wooden house sits next to its namesake Baptist Church and literally sits atop concrete cinder blocks.  The paint has seen better days and so have the screen doors.  Upon approaching the front door, you are met with several bbq pits and smokers of colossal size.  The inside is no-frills, no-nonsense and old fashioned.  The bathroom can look a little intimidating but it's shockingly clean.  The seats are fold-out chairs and the decor is a charming combination of nostalgia-meets-souther-baptism.  

Good old Annie Mae Ward opened the place up by accident 20 years ago; her husband was painting the church and she was cooking him some lunch.  The smell reportedly had cars stopping off the highway and it all went from there. She has been giving most if not all her profit to the church ever since.

The story's good but the food doesn't disappoint either.  Chicken, Sausage, Brisket and Ribs.  The holy Tetralogy.  Choose your poison - they come in a 1, 2 or 3 meat plate which includes sliced white bread, potato salad, bbq beans and pickles.  If you're still hungry after the monster helping, you can have some homemade pie: pecan or buttermilk when we visited.  Delish.  The ribs and brisket were my favorites - both melt in your mouth and smokey to boot.  And their homemade bbq sauce.  There are no words.

I wouldn't call myself a BBQ connaisseur, but by simple virtue of having lived in Texas for an extended period, I have had the good graces of eating lots of it.  Some good, some bad, and some divine.  New Zion Missionary Baptist Church BBQ falls into the latter category.  

Of course it does.

Flashback: Best Italian Restaurants Ever. Period.

 The stuff Italian Meals are made of.  In a dreamy kind of way.

 Just before we left London this past summer, I went back to one of our favorite eating establishments with Matt - a place I've written of before: The Fat Italian.  In a last-ditch effort to do and eat everything we hadn't done and eaten in the 3 1/2 years we spent in London, we started shamelessly dishing out on posh lunches and London Eye tickets.  Most of the stuff we had was hit and miss and some of it was downright boring and overpriced, and so in the end we decided maybe just revisiting our favorite places was a good way to make our big exit in "good taste" if you'll allow me the lame pun.  What we ate there was a simple but unforgettable lunch - one lacking in pretention and price but weighty on taste and even health.

The Last Lunch
Fat Italian Style

 

Pasta all'Amatriciana accompanied by a simple tomato salad

and soybeans tossed with semi-sun-dried tomatoes and carciofi in olive oil

Prosciutto and Avocado accompanied by a Caprese salad

Sliced Ciabatta and Aqua Gassata
Two Caffe Macchiati with Biscottini di Mandorla

Aesthetically pleasing and delicious.  We also ate at a local family-run Putney haunt worth mentioning called Valentina.  It was literally our last dinner in London, and I'm glad we went with good, simple  Italian for it.

As you read in my last post, and have probably already gathered from this one: I've got Italy on the Brain.  I have been shamelessly blabbing about our upcoming trip to anyone that will listen (despite having planned very little of it yet - yikes.).  And last night I was further plunged into a pool of Italic nostalgia when I decided to go out with some girlfriends for dinner and left Matt a no-need-to-reheat-or-cook dinner that I thought he would enjoy.  The menu went a little something like this:

Matt's Awesome Bachelor-Night Dinner

*small flare of trumpetiness*

Vinegar-cured Greek Kalamata Olives: black and green mix

Buffalo Mozarella Caprese Salad with garlic, basil and balsamic vinaigrette dressing

Prosciutto and Avocado Platter dressed with black pepper, EVOO and lemon juice

Freshly sliced Oregano Ciabatta

A Cherry Danish for dessert

I admitted to my friends once we arrived at the Indian restaurant we chose that I had left home a little envious of his meal.  And despite thoroughly enjoying my dinner at Ushna, this morning I woke up and made myself a platter of prosciutto and avocado for breakfast.   Yes, that is generally how I roll.

Since first encountering prosciutto and avocado - an obvious yet under-used combination - at Frankie's in Putney, I have been a devotee.  It's the easiest and simplest thing in the world to make, provided you have good quality, fresh ingredients (what's new, right?). It is as pleasing to the eye as to the palate and just wreaks of sophistication, which always sits well with me. :) 

Well, anyway, all of this prosciutto-y delirium inspired me to make a quick list of my favorite spots for the best Italian food in all the places I've lived so far.  It's an undertaking, but one that I found immensely satisfying as, in writing it, I re-lived some of my favorite meals to date.

* * *

Brenda's All-Time Top Italian Restaurants Ever. Period.

all over the world, in fuzzy-memory form

4. London: Osteria dell'Arancio or La Famiglia

One is a swanky super-modern Italian restaurant located on the King's road where traditional food is elevated to the palate of London's foodie elite.  The other is a family-run 35+ year old restaurant in Fulham serving rustic home-style Tuscan fare.
 You can't go wrong with either, though admittedly the latter is far cheaper and less likely to snicker at you when you're tempted to drown the carefully pan-fried sea bass in grated Parmesan cheese, even though I might raise an eyebrow. :)

3. New York: Caffe Taci (or Patsy's?)

They look like mere mortals.  They always do.  Opera singers, I mean.  But they're not.  And if you're an opera fan, you know this very much to be true.  Caffe Taci is the only place I know of that is these three unique things at once: a casual opera house, an Italian culinary force in its own right, and home to the best Lobster Fra Diavolo I've ever had in my life (ok except the one I had at Patsy's on the West Side - please go there!).

World renowned singers from the Met Opera come hang out here, have a few drinks, and serenade the innocent bystanders on a make-shift stage with a live octogenarian Russian pianist accompaniment.  The place was in Greenwich Village when I lived in Manhattan but it has moved more times than I can count and last I heard the Opera nights were being held at some placed called Bistro Papillon (kill me now).  But they did have a documentary made about them (Mad About Opera), which at least guarantees my dearly beloved Toreador will not be forgotten anytime soon.

2. Rome: The Centro (or that place by the Pantheon?)

Sorry, as cool as "The Centro" sounds it falls short of any kind of trendy modern Italian restaurant image you might have based on its name.  In fact, it is pretty much as "uncool" of a place to eat as you can imagine, if you function under standards set by modern society at large, that is.  On the other hand, if you're a Wannabe Latin Scholar, a budding Ancient Roman Archeologist, or even an aspiring and wordy Renaissance Art Historian as I once was, it's the best place in Rome, at least as far as nostalgic cravings go, and as long as you don't mind plastic tablecloths.

But in all seriousness, when I did my one-semester study abroad program at the Intercollegiate Center for Classical Studies (as it were), not only did I get a soul mate out of the deal, I was lucky enough to get amazing food.  The cafeteria catered only to the 36 students and 4 professors, and it was run entirely by old Italian ladies who served only traditional home-style Italian food.  Simple, easy to make, and involved fresh seasonal ingredients.  The bread wasn't always amazing, and it was technically BYOW, but hey - pumpkin risotto, Amatriciana, Caprese Salads - every week?!  Awesome.  And they also made a mean carpaccio, but for a truly amazing one you'd have to go to that place directly in front of the Pantheon.  No, not McDonald's.  And no, I don't remember the name. :)

1. Duino: Al Cavalluccio (or the Mickey Mouse Bar?)

When I sit down with Matt and try to list the all-time top five best meals in my life (which I do surprisingly often), a lunch we had in October of 2007 at Al Cavaluccio is always on that list, no matter how hard it is to come up with the rest.  This is particularly notable because in that same weekend we also stayed, ate and drank at the infamous Hotel Cipriani Venice, an experience that left me, well, mostly just chatting about Al Cavaluccio some more. :)

Al Cavaluccio is situated in the small and scenic port of a tiny Italian village called Duino where I lived and studied for two years at the United World College of the Adriatic (brava, I know).  I once found a seahorse (which I still have) right by the restaurant steps, which I take as a supreme sign from above that it's a chosen place.  It's also one of the most scenic, pleasant little restaurants I've ever eaten at with its al fresco area roofed by grape vines and with a full-ocean view.

Photo credit

Duino is noteworthy not only because of its natural beauty - nestled atop dramatic cliffs along the Adriatic sea - but also because of its intellectual / literary past and present.  Rilke was inspired to write his Duino Elegies (some of my favorite poetry) there and even Dante was rumored to have once visited the Castello di Duino and meditated on a rock ("la scoglia di Dante") there.

Al Cavaluccio is where the then-student-poor foodie in me got her kicks on the wages of an unpaid English tutor (apart from Mickey Mouse where I serially ordered the Insalatona and Patatine con Salsa Rosa).  I would go down of a Friday evening and order their seafood soup as my entire meal.  If I was feeling particularly generous I'd get a glass of wine (which let's face it, I generally was).

Anyway, I graduated the UWCAD in 2000.  When I went back to Al Cavaluccio in October 2007 with Matt, the same waiter served me that had served me in my student days - same wild bushy hair, same unbottoned pirate-esque waiter shirt, same wild bushy chest hair.  And get this - he remembered me!  We ate a whole seabass cooked in rock salt (branzino al sale) and garnished with lemon (brought out whole, still under hot salt, to your table where the waiter de-bones and serves it).  We had simply sauteed spinach and roast potatoes to accompany it.  We also splashed out on a bottle of Prosecco that sparkled almost as much as the Adriatic in front of us.  Best. ITALIAN. Meal. EVER.

The sparkling Adriatic.
Duino, Porto

Hurry up, go buy some prosciutto and avocado.  You'll thank me for my insistance.

This post is brought to you by the Opera Nights at Caffe Taci - an intensely nostalgic, deliciously exhilirating affair to remember.