Category Archives: Meat Market

FAILURE IS NOT AN OPTION: CHICKEN DINNER

In every cook’s repertoire there’s often a single recipe that is the go-to can’t-fail meal they turn to time and again. A signature dish, if you will. For me, that’s chardonnay chicken, a mixture of ingredients culled from favorite memories sprinkled liberally with thyme.

As a child, I’d watch my mother sauté in a mixture of oil and butter in her square electric fry pan, pieces of chicken. Hearing the sizzle and smelling aromas of garlic, onion and chicken fat wafting through the air, just the thought of it, to this day still get my salivary glands going. To that pan she’d add mushrooms and cooking wine. The fricassee’d chicken, was delicious but surprisingly not my favorite. It was her very basic roast chicken I’d award a blue ribbon. Coated in garlic powder, onion powder, salt, pepper and paprika, it always came out-of-the-oven with crispy spiced skin and tender meat.

Years later I came to realize that I was working hard to reproduce those flavor memories with mostly disappointing results until I changed the ingredients I was using. I started buying chickens that were free-range, organic, and farm-raised on natural feed. They taste and have the same texture of the chickens of my youth. Getting the right ingredients together, I came up with a recipe, perfected over the last twenty years that you just can’t mess up. It’s all of the flavors I love — coq au vin, fricassee, and roast inspired — coming from a single enormous dutch oven.

Ingredients: 1 large roasting chicken

1 bottle dry chardonnay

2 large onions

2 large Idaho potatoes

3 large carrots

2 parsnips

2 small turnips

1 small head of garlic

Olive oil

2 teaspoons dried thyme

1 teaspoon dried rosemary

1 teaspoon garlic powder

1 teaspoon salt and 1 teaspoon pepper

1 teaspoon smoked paprika

 

Peel and chop potatoes, carrots, parsnips and turnips into large pieces and cut onions into thick slices. Break apart garlic and remove skin but leave the cloves whole.

In a deep, heavy oven-proof pan such as a Le Creuset, sautee in olive oil the garlic and onion until just barely translucent. Add all of the root vegetables to the pan and sprinkle with salt, pepper, thyme, and rosemary.

Rinse chicken inside and out and pat dry with a paper towel. Place chicken on top of the vegetables and pour ¾ bottle of chardonnay over the chicken and vegetables. Sprinkle liberally with salt, pepper, and paprika. Add water or chicken stock to just barely cover the vegetables and place in a oven heated to 400 degrees for about 1 1/2 hours or until chicken is cooked through. Some of the liquid in the bottom of the pan will cook out so about half way through cooking time check and if necessary add a little more water or wine.

Seasonally I’ll adjust the recipe and use fresh herbs from the garden in the summer. I’ve also added chopped zucchini and mushrooms about halfway through cooking time with excellent results.

 

 

BREEDING HERITAGE PIGS IN NEW JERSEY: JESSICA ISBRECHT AT GREEN DUCHESS FARM

How does a thirty five year old Jersey Girl with a degree in biology become a sustainable farmer? Jessica Isbrecht, a self proclaimed anomaly, is raising heritage pigs, chickens, goats, and a handful of turkeys, rabbits and geese on 30 acres of the 2,740 acre tract of land left to the state of New Jersey by heiress, socialite, and philanthropist, Doris Duke.

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NEW ORLEANS: DELECTABLE BITES OF THE FRENCH QUARTER IN FOUR DAYS

neworleansstreetartandmusicCafe du Monde is as touristy as it gets and a stones throw from the Mississippi River. Gator on a stick is offered at the French Market. The Old Legends Park was the best place to grab a beignet and a cup of coffee while listening to a jazz quartet.

New Orlean’s French Quarter — a walk-able feast for eyes, ears and taste buds — is the real deal. Gritty, sweaty, and as down-to-earth as a city might get.

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ANTIPASTO: THE NEW TV DINNER

No matter how you slice it, everyone looks forward to Friday night. End of the workweek for many, date night for others, game night or just downtime, it is what we crave.

What we want most is the time to relax. A few no hassle, change out of our face-the-world clothes and just let go and breathe. To that end, we have gone a pretty simple, no cook dinner route in our kitchen.

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TO MARKET TO MARKET TO BUY A FAT PIG….AT THE BEACH

You read that title correctly. Those who live by the shore get to shop at the shore and what could be better than to find a weekly farmers market in the parking lot of our local beach? Just off of Ocean Avenue at the top of the Jersey Shore, the town of Sea Bright is in it’s second year of playing host to an open air market. Cool salty sea breezes and glorious sunshine were as appetizing as the culinary offerings.

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