I asked for some suggestions for dinners. Mom-the-chef says:
How about you make pork tenderloin rubbed with ancho chiles and
cumin, grilled. Serve with rice, fried plantains, orange and red onion
salad, plus whatever veg looks good at the market?Here is our current favorite rice- put 3 carrots through the mandoline
or slice into match sticks. Cook in butter until slightly carmelized
and limp, add shallots, cook a bit, add rice and chicken broth. Cook
and eat. Yum.OR MAKE:
Green beans finished with gorgonzola, chicken halved and flattened
with a (preheated) foil covered brick on the grill with hot pepper
flakes and an antipasto platter of delicious odds and ends…OR:
Your fabulous chicken stuffed under the skin with zucchini, ricotta
and parmesan, salad and bread.
(She’s talking about the stuffed chicken from Richard Olney’s “Simple
French Food” but I don’t have the recipe with me at work and can’t
find it online. I may have it at home.) And I just learned that a
flattened bird is called a “spatchcocked” chicken:
“In Simple French Food, the late Richard Olney wrote about stuffing a
flattened chicken with grated zucchini mixed with ricotta and Parmesan
cheeses. Olney prepared the recipe on his book-promotion tour in the
early 1970s, and for a while it became popular among cooks.
We still see spatchcocked chicken on menus around town, sometimes just
asimple flattened bird with a mixture of herbs tucked underneath the
skin. It always feels new. “
–from http://www.nakedwhiz.com/spatchdef.htm
OR
Good beer, sausages, different mustards, boiled potatoes with parsley
& pepper, green beans and a tomato salad.OR
Potato leek soup with spinach leaves, sausages and homemade bread.”
I think I’m full already…
I’m making the flat herbed chicken tonight, and having a little
cocktail party tomorrow. I’ll be serving Sazerac Cocktails, Sidecars,
and making gumbo, for a cajun themed evening. See http://www.gumbopages.com/food/soups/gumbo-de-savoy.html for a great recipe. In fact, just read that whole site, it’s phenomenal!
http://www.gumbopages.com/food/beverages/sazerac.html for the Sazerac, and
for a sidecar:
2 ounces Brandy or cognac, depending on budget
1 ounce Cointreau
1/2 ounce lemon juice
Shake with ice. Strain into cocktail glass.
