Long-Cooked Hen in Tomato Sauce

Long-Cooked Hen in Tomato Sauce

This is about as spontaneous as I will get when it's regarding this publication. I hadn't planned on this dish until the day I prepared it. I had been looking at this recipe since the day I found it in one of my cookbooks and earlier this week curiosity got the best of me. Also, I already had all the ingredients required except for the chicken and tomatoes.

Braising is one of my favorite cooking techniques, especially in cold weather. In fact, I also have another braised dish planned for next week. Braised chicken is pretty common (I've prepared four braised chicken dishes within the last nine months alone.) but braising a whole chicken without breaking it down?

The Challenge

Successfully applying a standard cooking method to an unusual protein.

The Source

Taken from page 168 of Michael Chiarello's Casual Cooking by Michael Chiarello with Janet Fletcher, but I also found it on Chef Chiarello's website, NapaStyle.

Ingredients

1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil
2 cups onion, chopped
1 cup celery, diced
1 cup carrots, diced
2 tablespoons garlic, minced
2 bay leaves
Kosher salt
2 cups red wine
6 28-ounce cans whole tomatoes, partially pureéd through a meat grinder, or a food mill, or pilsed in a blender (I used 28-ounce cans of crushed tomatoes)
Freshly ground black pepper
1 4-pound whole fryer chicken
1/2 cup fresh basil, minced
1/4 cup fresh Italian (flat-leaf) parsley

Method

1. Preheat oven to 325° Fahrenheit. Heat the olive oil in a large stock pot over high heat. Add the onion, carrot, celery, garlic, bay leaves and 1 teaspoon salt. Cook, stirring occasionally for approximately 3 minutes. Reduce heat to medium and cook until the vegetables are lightly browned, about twenty minutes.

2. Deglaze with the wine and scrape the pot, loosening the fond. Add salt and pepper to taste, however add enough salt to season the chicken as it cooks.

3. Add the chicken, breast-side down, in the sauce and bring to a simmer. Transfer the pot to the oven and cook, uncovered until the chicken is very tender, about two hours, occasionally spooning the sauce over the chicken. Stir in the basil and parsley and cook for an additional fifteen minutes. Serve the chicken topped with sauce family style or the sauce with pasta as a first course and the chicken as a second course. Freeze any leftover sauce.

Successful?

A couple of notes: The stock pot I used to cook this chicken is the same one I used to brine whole chickens I buy. It's only 8 quarts, so when I prepare my brine I use only 1 gallon (or 4 quarts) of water because when I submerge the chicken in it, the displacement brings the fluid level to almost the top of the stock pot. I note this because I noticed that I was approaching the 4-quart line of my prep bowl as I was emptying my fourth can of tomatoes, so I only used 4 cans.

I also advise adding the chicken after bringing the tomatoes to a simmer (stirring occasionally) because I burned my mirepoix waiting for the tomatoes to heat.

Ultimately, the dish is a little bit of a departure for me because it was rustic and served family style but successful. Mrs. Stuntman enjoyed it and in the end, that's all that matters.

Tra Vigne's Braised Beef Short Ribs

Tre Vigne's Braised Beef Short Ribs

Hello there! Have you forgotten about me? I'm still here but I took the month of November off. I wanted to get better acclimated with my kitchen and I didn't want to add to the noise of conflicting advice on how to prepare a successful Thanksgiving feast.

During my time off I won a giveaway hosted by Kaitlin of I Can Cook That. You might remember I noted her earlier this summer when I won another giveaway she hosted that was sponsored by Buitoni. This time I won Lidia's Favorite Recipes by Lidia Matticchio Bastianich and Tanya Bastianich Manuali. To thank Kaitlin, I'll prepare at least one dish from Chef Bastianich's book which will appear here soon.

Tre Vigne Restaurant is in the Napa Valley region of California which originally opened by Michael Chiarello. Tre Vigna's current menu features a short rib dish but specifies the ribs are smoked, then braised which is different from this recipe.

The Challenge

I looked at dozens of braised beef short rib recipes and all followed a basic operating procedure of searing the ribs, removing the ribs, adding and browning a mirepoix, deglazing and adding the braising fluid along with the ribs, bringing to a simmer and reducing the heat to low to break down the connective tissue that makes the short ribs so tough except one. This recipe separated itself by putting the beef in a brine overnight before cooking which is unusual for beef.

This isn't so much of a challenge as it is a question: Will the brine make a difference in flavor and moisture in a beef dish?

The Source

I took this recipe from epicurious.

Ingredients

1 quart water
1 cup light brown sugar, packed
1 cup Kosher salt
1 bay leaf
5 juniper berries (I didn't have any available.)
4 pounds meaty beef short ribs
1 tablespoon vegetable oil or more if needed
2 medium onions, chopped
1 large carrot, chopped
1 head of garlic, unpeeled and cut in half crosswise
2 cups of beef broth or stock
1 cup of dry red wine
1 cup Sherry vinegar (I used red wine vinegar.)
1 cup canned crushed tomatoes tomato pureé

Method

1. Brine the ribs. Combine water, sugar, salt, and bay leaf in a pot and simmering over medium heat until the sugar and salt are dissolved. Cool the mixture to room temperature. Add the short ribs to the brine and chill covered in the refrigerator for at least four and up to twenty-four hours. Remove short ribs from the brine and pat dry with paper towels. Then discard the brine.

2. Preheat the oven to 325° Fahrehneit. Heat vegetable oil in a heavy ovenproof Dutch oven over medium high heat on top of stove uncovered. Sauté the ribs in batches until browned on all sides, about three minutes per side. Remove ribs to a platter.

3. Add the onions, carrot and garlic head to the pot and cook over medium heat stirring occasionally until vegetables are golden, about eight minutes. Stir in stock, wine, vinegar and tomato pureé, scrapping up any brown bits on the bottom of the pan. Add the ribs back and any juices on the platter to the pot and bring to a simmer.

4. Cover and transfer to the preheated oven. Braise in the oven until meat is tender about two-and-a-half to three hours. Remove ribs from sauce and discard garlic skin, which should have separated from the cloves of garlic. Serve the ribs with the sauce on the side.

Successful?

The recipe author notes that this dish is even better if cooked on Day 2 (if Day 1 is used for preparing the brine), refrigerated overnight in the sauce, reheated and eaten on Day 3 removing any solidified fat before the reheating process.

In all honesty, I'm unsure if the brine made a difference because the vinegar was so overpowering. The ribs were tender and I could hardly keep the meat from falling off the bone. The one endearing quality is Mrs. Stuntman enjoyed it.

Johnny Garlic's Grilled Peppered Steak with Cabernet Balsamic Reduction

Johnny Garlic's Grilled Peppered Steak with Cabernet Balsamic Reduction

I belong to a networking group on facebook called Food Bloggers Network which was founded by Jessica of Oh Cake. If you write a food blog and are not aware of it, I highly suggest joining it. Keep in mind that self promotion is strictly prohibited. In other words, behavior such as here's my most recent dish I published this morning isn't allowed. Instead, members discuss issues common to all food bloggers such as SEO, managing photosharing sites, helpful plug-ins, best practices when negotiating with publishers, etc. If you would like to join, Jessica can be reached here.

A perfect example of this group working for the benefit of all its members is a recent question that was asked by one blogger who wanted to discuss the ethics of updating old posts with new photographs of the same dish. Other members jumped in with varying opinions of the pros and cons, intent of the updates, and affects on traffic. I suggested what I thought was a reasonable compromise: Update the old post with the new pictures but leave the old ones intact. Then write a new post bringing attention to the updates.

From this topic, I was reminded of a dish I prepared two years ago. It was a failure on several levels. I didn't use the correct cut of beef; I overseasoned; I incorrectly prepared the sauce and the picture composition was especially poor. The original post isn't available, but I still have the pictures.

If I remember correctly, I found this dish originally via foodbuzz from Krista Kooks. Recreating a restaurant dish at home was a novelty at the time, so I thought it might be fun. Johnny Garlic's is a restaurant chain owned by Food Network personality Guy Fieri.

The Challenge

This dish isn't something that I would normally put here, but the challenge isn't food preparation; it's to use it as a measuring stick for my food photography and presentation.

The Source

I was able to find the recipe on foodnetwork.com

Ingredients

2 pounds tri-tip steaks, cut into 8-ounce pieces
4 tablespoons black peppercorns, lightly cracked
2 tablespoons kosher salt
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1/4 cup red onion, minced
1 tablespoon garlic, minced
1 cup Cabernet Sauvignon
1/2 cup balsamic vinegar
2 tablespoons brown sugar

Method

1. Lightly tenderize flank steak with mallet. Season the steaks with peppercorns and kosher salt, pressing seasonings into the beef with the palm of your hand. Refrigerate for 4 to 8 hours to marinate.

2. Heat extra-virgin olive oil in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Add onions and sauté until onions are caramelized. Stir in garlic and cook until it begins to brown. Deglaze with wine and balsamic vinegar, loosening any fond (browned bits) stuck on the bottom of the pan. Add brown sugar and simmer for 20 to 30 minutes or until mixture reduces to 3/4 cup.

3. Preheat grill to high heat. Grill the steaks on a 45 degree angle to mark the steaks, moving once the opposite direction, cooking for 5 minutes total. Then flip, again only moving once to mark steak, cook for 4 minutes. When desired doneness is achieved, remove steaks from grill and let rest 5 minutes.

4. Strain the reduction and return to heat to reduce for 5 more minutes or until thick syrup is created. Spoon the sauce over the steaks.


Successful?

On a side note, this dish is still on the restaurant menu, which leads me to ask the obvious question: What's different about this version from the restaurant version?

One of the things I did not take with me when I moved was my grill, so I used my new grill pan that Mrs. Stuntman purchased to fill the void temporarily instead. I executed the dish better, but I also think my photography and presentation, while still not perfect, is definitely better than the picture I originally published: