Food Notes: 7/15
Fennel braised chicken, Tuscan beans, gyros, tomatoes, tamales and more!
We were at my parents house when my mother whipped out frozen bone-on chicken for dinner. That’s when I jumped into action to avoid eating some desiccated chunk of meat.
My first thought was leeks. Why? I have no idea, to be honest. It seemed like a good flavor combination. I turned to Google and the first hit was this recipe, for one-skillet chicken with leeks. Usually I’ll consult more than one recipe before merging them into a single dish, but this one was simple enough I just wanted to roll with it.
The recipe calls for thighs, but I was working with the whole chicken including legs and breasts. I cut these into reasonably similar sized pieces, and fried them off. Braising is one way of dealing with the fact that white meat while cook faster than dark meat, without drying out the white meat since its cooking in a saucy liquid.
We had too much chicken for the skillet, so I ended up using a dutch oven. It’s deeper, allowing for everything to cook together, but there is less surface area so the evaporation of the liquid was a bit slower.
I knew this sauce would have a lot of liquid and I wanted something to serve it over. The recipe suggests potatoes or rice. Instead, I went with two total different options: orecchiette and white beans.
The beans I cooked in a way inspired by Tuscan rosemary beans. Just about every restaurant across Tuscany has some version of these white beans. Rosemary bushes grow like shrubs around the region, so its a big part of the flavoring.
Our pantry was out of white Rancho Gordon beans, so I ended up with a bag of Stop and Shop brand Great Northerns. I soaked and cooked them, before adding butter, olive oil, three sprigs of rosemary, and pepper. I added a dash of chicken broth for flavor, but probably would have been fine to leave this out. I finished them off with some finely grated Parmigiana Reggiano, which gave them a creamy consistency.
The orecchiette I tossed with oil but otherwise left them plain for reuse as four-year-old’s camp lunch. Plus it made it easier to repurpose them into a soup the next day.
The beans and pasta wrapped up right on time, but the braising chicken was taking its time. I’m fairly certain it would have cooked up better had I used a skillet rather than the Dutch oven, the chicken would have been ready right on time. I might have wanted a little more color on the lemons, but what can I say: I was hungry.
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