Very Local Chicken

Which came first, the chicken or the #BigGreenEgg? 

I really do not know, but they came together nicely for two dinners a few weeks ago. Our good friends at Maribett Farm recently offered chickens either whole or cut in the traditional eight pieces, expertly processed and frozen. Given the choice between the two, my immediate answer was "YES," by which I meant one of each.

Something about the restaurant industry makes it nearly impossible to find bone-in mole poblano in restaurants and something about the poultry industry makes it almost as difficult to find a whole chicken cut-up (as opposed to packages of a half dozen or more of the same part). So I used the pieces to make a scrumptious mole, following a combination of the many mole approaches described in this blog over the years.

For the whole chicken, I took an opposite approach: simplicity to bring out the flavor of humanely and sustainably raised poultry. I followed the recipe for chicken with lemon, garlic and rosemary from the Big Green Egg web site, with no variations. Following the temperature and timing guidelines, I did not open the Egg until the time I would expect for the somewhat larger size of the bird we had, and we were very pleased with the result. 

NOTE: Readers in southeast Massachusetts can check the Maribett Farm Facebook page for chicken availability. As of this writing (June 14), the farm is taking orders.

Lagniappe

It is difficult to believe how long it has been since I assisted the Maribett chicken operations by delivering chickens to the farm a couple of times. For a summer delivery of a couple dozen live chickens, the family station wagon was the ideal conveyance of new chickens to the farm.

Chicken Run Selfie: I'm James and I will be your driver today.

Birthday Scallops

Careful readers of this blog will know that on our birthdays, Hayes-Bohs get whatever they want for dinner and dessert. Or pretty close to it. They will also know that throughout the year, our culinary choices are increasingly influenced by the National Day Calendar. Pam's birthday dinner this year was a result of a confluence of these tendencies, though with a fairly flexible application of the calendar.

A couple weeks before the blessed event, Pam noticed that May 16 is National Coquilles Saint Jacques Day. Because it fell on a weekend this year and she noticed it ahead of time, we seriously thought about celebrating this heretofore unknown holiday on its actual date. But the recipe highlighted on the National Day site seemed a bit complicated and more worthy of a birthday celebration.

Bonus: waiting also meant that our visiting son could both be part of the celebration and part of the brain power needed to overcome one challenge we faced: this appetizer (or appetizer-as-meal in our case) is traditionally served on a scallop shell. I hoped our local fishmonger might have them -- as it is located in one of the world's premiere scallop-landing harbors -- but no such luck. Way too late in the planning, I realized that I could get scallop plates online. 

In progress but not in focus -- note
Harvey's skillful potato piping

Here is where our Harvey's creativity came in: the recipe calls for piping mashed potatoes around the edge of the shells, like icing at the edge of a cake. We could therefore use potatoes as the base of this appetizer. We essentially created a seafood version of twice-baked potatoes, following the recipe above to a tee, except that we began by slicing and partly baking potatoes, scooping them out, and then using that for an edge that our artist was able to create using his mad dexterity. He also rightly suggested brushing with olive oil and dusting with paprika before the broiling stage.

Grey-on-gray food made a bit more
photogenic by salad and cool nautical
pepper shaker

While I followed the rest of the recipe carefully in terms of ingredients, I did not do so in terms of sequence. I thought the sauce would take longer than the bouillon and the potatoes longer than either of these, so I did things in an awkward order this really complicated what should have been a very basic white sauce. If I follow this recipe again, I would still start the potatoes early, but I would complete the  bouillon starting the sauce.

Image: Holy Art

On May 16 next year, however, I will be prepared in two ways. First, I will have purchased the correct plates, harvested in the British Isles. Second, curious about the word "coquille" I found out that it means any appetizer of this sort involving a wine and cream sauce. I found several other recipes that do not involve potatoes, and I think they will be easier.  One of those recipes is in Scallops: A New England Coastal Cookbook, which also includes some remarkable information about the natural history of bay scallops. Incidentally, this was my first time cooking with bays -- I had always been intimidated.

DESSERT

We musn't forget dessert! Key lime pie is usually Pam's first choice and I have often managed to make a decent one including, apparently, in May 2017. (For the record, she has been to Key West just once; I have not yet gotten to any of the Florida Keys.)

For this year, however, enter another hero: we won a pair of key lime pies in our church auction, offered by McKayla, a fellow church member, my former student, and (most importantly for this post) a Florida native. Prepared and delivered with care the day before, it was PERFECT.

Lagniappe: That Saint

The adjectival form of James is Jacobian, and my name means "usurper" after Esau's greedy brother Jacob. So the conflation of Saint James and Saint Jacques are familiar to me. What was not familiar is the identity of St. James as the patron of scallopers -- he is sometimes depicted with shells around his neck and Crusaders sometimes adorned themselves with the shells as well. 

Savory Side

Extending the Table --
Accessible global cooking

After I decided to make Texas/Maryland oven-fried chicken for dinner, I pulled our copy of Extending the Table from the shelf to look for a side. I soon found the perfect thing on page 145, amidst several options for making rice more interesting. I chose Mexican Rice, which is recommended specifically for serving with chicken.

The recipe calls for a "large heavy frypan" -- I need to try this in our other kitchen next time, using the biggest of our indispensable cast-iron skillets. Since I was in our weekend kitchen, I used a small stock pot instead.

I could tell that some things would need to move quickly once I started cooking, so I minced a small onion (actually half a large onion) and 7 cloves of garlic before starting. The recipe calls for 5 cloves, but my friend Joe has taught me to treat garlic quantities in recipes as minimum suggestions. I also cut a red and a green bell pepper into thin strips, and then cross-cut the strips in half. The recipe calls for two green bell peppers, but I never miss a chance to have a variety of pepper colors. Especially since Mexico is involved.

Once the vegetables were cut, I heated 2T of olive oil in the pan and then added one cup of dry rice. I stirred it constantly at med-high heat for 2 minutes and then added the onion and garlic, stirring for a couple more minutes before adding 1/2 cup of water and 1/2 teaspoon of salt. I stirred this about 5 minutes more, until the water was absorbed.

I then added another 1 cup of water (slightly more because I did not quite believe this part), the sliced peppers, and 1 cup of frozen corn. I returned it to a boil (the recipe suggests adding the water -- or optional broth -- already boiling. Once it was boiling, I lowered it to the lowest simmer and covered it -- leaving it unstirred until all the water was absorbed, just under 20 minutes -- watch this carefully!

I then removed the pot from the heat and with a spatula spread one cup of sour cream over all the rice. I topped it with about 4 ounces of freshly shredded Vermont sharp cheese. I covered the pan again to let it melt and meld for another 10 minutes before serving along with the chicken. The result: delish!

This book was published nearly 20 years ago by the Mennonite Central Committee, and is very much in the vein of the better-known More With Less Cookbook. Both are filled with simple recipes. In the case of Extending the Table, the recipes are a great introduction to global cuisines and have been thoroughly tested.

Lagniappe

What do I mean by Texas/Maryland oven-fried chicken? Simply this: I decided that one need not choose between chili powder and Old Bay. I added generous doses of both -- along with black pepper -- to a small bowlful of flour and cornmeal. I whisked all of this together thoroughly. I then beat two eggs together with an overhand glug of Tabasco sauce and a little water.

I briefly dredged each piece of (free-range) chicken in the egg mixture and then the flour mixture and put it in a baking dishes in a 400F oven for 30 minutes before starting the rice. Once the rice was started, I checked on the chicken and decided it needed a bit of a brushing with oil. After about 75 minutes, it was spicy-crispy on the outside and moist-tender on the inside. Perfection!