Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.

Let there be snark.

Happy indictment week to all who celebrate!

We’re not going back!

“Squeaker” McCarthy

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

Cole is on a roll !

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.

The GOP is a fucking disgrace.

And we’re all out of bubblegum.

This isn’t Democrats spending madly. This is government catching up.

No Justins, No Peace

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

I was confident that someone would point it out and thought why not me.

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

So many bastards, so little time.

Jack be nimble, jack be quick, hurry up and indict this prick.

Schmidt just says fuck it, opens a tea shop.

“What are Republicans afraid of?” Everything.

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

You are here: Home / Food & Recipes / Cooking / Thursday Friday Recipe Exchange: Squab in A Coffin

Thursday Friday Recipe Exchange: Squab in A Coffin

by | 96 Comments

This post is in: ,


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First, I owe TaMara (and her fans) an apology — I managed to overlook her email two weeks in a row, and I don’t even have a good excuse. Sorry!

Now, on to the good stuff from our Food Goddess:

One of the things that has been quite fun since I started creating and writing recipes, is receiving favorite recipes from others. One night in a Balloon-Juice recipe thread, Kirk Spencer mentioned he was making Squab in a Coffin for dinner. I immediately requested the recipe and from that a beautiful friendship was born. He’s contributed many recipes and tips to What’s 4 Dinner Solutions over the years, plus starting an entire recipe theme week called: Nasty bits.

Over the last 10 years I have received many recipes from all over the world and it’s a privilege to post them. One of my most requested guest recipes is Piri Piri, from another Balloon-Juice commenter, TattooSydney. I reposted it today and it can be found here.

Do you have a recipe from family or friend that has become a favorite? What’s on the menu for this autumn weekend?

Tonight’s featured recipe from Kirk Spencer (photos are mine):

Squab in a Coffin:

You’ll need a baking potato and a cut up chicken OR cut up duck OR half squab (pigeon). Seasoning is wildly variable – start with simple salt and pepper and experiment later to your particular taste. You might need a bit of bacon.

Bake the potato. Cut it lengthwise, off-center by 1/3 to 1/4. Scoop out the larger potato leaving a wall. Rough chop what you removed, seasoning if desired, and add to within 1/2 inch of top of the larger potato.

Place meat – classically half a dressed squab, but I use a chicken or duck thigh, drumstick, or breast with the skin on – in that depression, and finish filling around the meat. The chicken can be seasoned any way you want. You want to leave the skin on OR add some additional juiciness – as noted above when I use a breast without skin for my wife I wrap it in some bacon.

Place a lid over the bird to close the coffin (grin), and bake again in a medium oven till the bird is done – about 30 minutes for me, your mileage may vary.

The juices drizzle into the potato while baking, making it moist and flavorful.

You will have potato left over. What you do with it is up to you – I mix it into the next day’s potato pancakes.

Thanks Kirk! When I make it, I generally use bone-in chicken thighs. I leave the skin on, but strip it off after cooking because it doesn’t cook up crisp, so it’s kind of, eh. But the fat from it makes the potatoes just oh, so good. When I bake the potato, I scrub it well, rub it with olive oil and coat lightly with coarse salt. I skewer it with a metal skewer and it bakes up quick with a crisp, flavorful skin.
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For the chicken, I pull up the skin of the thigh just a bit and season underneath it with salt, pepper and garlic. That’s it. Add a salad or vegetable and there’s dinner.

Reader Interactions

96Comments

  2. 2.

    Origuy

    Ooh, peri peri! I’ve been craving it ever since I had it at Nando’s in Carlisle, England. There isn’t any place to get it around here (San Jose). This recipe doesn’t look to hard to make.

  3. 3.

    Van

    Sounds great. I would like to add a wonderful tip that I heard not too long ago about twice baking potatoes. When baking the potato the first time drizzle it with olive oil and rub it over potato and then season the outside with coarse sea salt. That way the skins are seasoned when you eat them!

  5. 5.

    MikeJ

    @Hal: I’ve only ever eaten squab at very good restaurants. Don’t know if I’d want to try it at home, but damned tasty in the hands of someone who knows what they’re doing.

  7. 7.

    Keith

    For some reason, I thought piri piri was a dish of skin-on cod sauteed in the pan. Anyone know what I’m talking about? The name comes from the bubbling sound the skin makes, but it escapes me.

  8. 8.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @BGinCHI: Worse than dead girl or live boy? Thinking about it, yes. It’s like where you keep fucking that chicken, but it’s already dead.

  9. 9.

    presquevu

    It’s playing with pizza oven prototype here. Atop a 30″ square stainless prep table on wheels, I stacked a U-shaped oven with firebrick, used half thickness firebrick for a floor and inner wall, and a stainless bowl from a firepit as the dome.

    Heat is by a Chinese Superstove ring propane burner, with a 15″ round x 5/8″ kiln shelf sitting in a 15″ square stainless magnetic memo board as heat shield (added after stone cracked in test burn).

    Temperature of stone gets to >600F in under 40 min. Walls and dome didn’t get much past 300F in last night’s stiff breeze.

    For the crust I followed this guy’s method:

    http://www.varasanos.com/PizzaRecipe.htm

    Dropped a little chunk of smoking wood in one of the corners of the heat shield for wood oven effect.

    Tried brushing the inside of ziplock bags with olive oil and flouring the dough balls. Worked well, no sticking.

    Stretched a couple per the link and rolled one out with rolling pin. All had the crunch and chew with sourdough flavor that defines proper pizzafication, but the rolled version had less pronounced bubble at the edges.

    Thinking BLTs – Bacon, Lavosh, and Tomato (sauce).

    Need to work on a broiler element to brown the top before the bottom burns.

    Now to get some sand and fireclay to mortar it together with cob . . .

  10. 10.

    SuperHrefna

    I wonder if it would be possible to make a vegetarian version of this… maybe using cheese instead of fatty poultry? But I can’t think of what else to tuck into the coffin for protein, I suppose there could be southwestern coffins with black beans, tomatoes, corn & cheese, served with salsa – anyone got any other ideas?

  12. 12.

    The Golux

    After having some marvelous rotisserie chicken with piri-piri in Cascais, Portugal, then a magnificent seafood bake with melted butter and piri-piri later in the same trip in Sesimbra, we bought some there to bring home. That ran out fairly quickly, but we just found some at Central Market while visiting our son in San Antonio. (Cue Homeresque drool…)

  20. 20.

    Violet

    I’m overrun with eggplant from the garden right now, so I’m doing my best to use them up. Am going to attempt to make this in the near future. A friend of mine made it last year and it was a big hit.

    Last night I put the eggplant on the bbq grill, also grilled some onions, plus cherry tomatoes on skewers. Let cool slightly, tossed in olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Added basil and…yum. So good! I think I might make it again tonight.

  21. 21.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    I use Kirk Spencer’s recipe for paint, and TattooSydney’s recipe for disaster.

  23. 23.

    SuperHrefna

    @catclub: Oooh, Spinach! There’s an idea – tender braised spinach with garlic, chickpeas, cheese (feta and/or mozzarella?)… I like Yutsano’s mushroom idea too, can’t quite think what to pair them with though.

    This thread is making me hungry.

  24. 24.

    TaMara (BHF)

    Ok, no real squabs were used in my recipe and Anne Laurie, I appreciate the apology, but unnecessary! Thanks as always for putting this up.

    I’m already working on next week, which will be pumpkin stuff.

  30. 30.

    Culture of Truth

    10 Best Films of the 90s (the 1890s).

    # 8 The Squab In The Coffin

    # 7 Tattoo Sydney and the Secret Of Piri Piri

  35. 35.

    Violet

    @SuperHrefna: For mushrooms, try pairing with onions. You can add cheese or not. Go with something like a swiss if you do mushrooms and onions. Or maybe something like mushrooms with rosemary and parmesan.

    You could do mushrooms, broccoli and cheddar and top with bread crumbs at the very end, toasted under the broiler for some crunch.

    Sour cream could be added at the very end for a slightly different take.

  36. 36.

    Roger Moore

    @? Martin:

    Those hippies in Utah again.

    The people in Utah would probably say it’s the hippies in Salt Lake City. Oddly enough, SLC is now about the most liberal place in Utah- they even elected a Democrat to the House- so if anyone in the state is going to endorse Obama, they would be there.

  38. 38.

    mainmati

    @Keith: Piri-piri is an African sauce made with very hot piri-pirir chilis. Often used with fish or prawns but doesn’t have to be. Peri-Peri is Nando’s name for pretty much the same thing and they use it on chicken.

  40. 40.

    Joel

    Watching the Obama interview on the Daily Show right now.

    Stewart’s a weak interviewer with people who dominate the stage (i.e. politicians) and this one is no exception. The president did well enough, though.

  41. 41.

    Pooh

    So to share my great culinary discovery: bacon bison burgers:

    Bake about twelve strips of bacon at 375 for 15-20 minutes until desired crispiness (slightly less than you’d normally eat would be my suggestion), dice, mix with 2 lbs ground bison, about 1/2-3/4 tbsp of rosemary, tsp of paprika, a couple pinches of cayenne. Form into 8 fairly flat patties. Grill. Heat with napkins handy due to the juiciness.

  43. 43.

    Keith

    @mainmati: Yeah, I was thinking of al pil pil, something very different. It’s cod filets poached with garlic and chilis in olive oil, and then the evoo is slowly added back to the fish while rotating the pan. The gelatin in the fish skin causes an emulsification, leading to a beautiful golden sauce.

  44. 44.

    Maude

    OT article by Jake Tapper, Issa has released documents about Bengazi and is claiming Obama didn’t send in more security.
    Yahoo news has it. Issa released cables, some from Ambassador Stevens. He sent Obama a letter and demanded answers to 10 questions.
    Well, I find the timing of this suspicious.
    May Issa DIAF for politicizing this.

  47. 47.

    Roger Moore

    @BGinCHI:
    Raw spinach is great, and so is cooked spinach. It’s just that you use them so differently that it doesn’t make sense to think of them as being the same stuff. I think that’s true of a lot of vegetables; they’re changed so much by cooking that you really have to think of the raw and cooked versions as different foods.

  48. 48.

    catclub

    @Maude: Why am I not worried.
    Issa always seems incredibly ham-handed in timing his political witch hunt stunts.

    Band name: Witch hunt Stunts

    Umm, maybe not, unfortunate rhymes.

  49. 49.

    Randy P

    This sounds very familiar. Was there something like this in “Babette’s Feast”? Something in Sarcophagi?

    I’m gonna draw the line at killing and preparing my own turtle (which Babette did for Turtle Soup).

  50. 50.

    R-Jud

    @mainmati:

    There’s a Nando’s right across the street from where I work in DC. Yum! I think the original Nando’s is from South Africa.

    Yep. There is a veritable infestation of Nando’s here in Britain. When I go out to eat with my training partner, we inevitably wind up at one because they are a) reasonably budget-friendly and b) capable of providing huge portions of protein, which appeals to her “Paleo” diet.

    I will admit I buy their sauces in the supermarket, though. Really nice marinades.

  52. 52.

    Randy P

    Hey, a question for all the wise foodies at BJ, brought to mind by the mention of spinach. What is the secret to making Palak Paneer? I’ve tried it a few times and my spinach always ends up tasting way too, well, spinach-y.

    You might say “what’s wrong with that?” but when I’ve had Palak Paneer as cooked by Indians it has some indescribable other flavor (partly the seasonings I guess) and isn’t really recognizably spinach any more. It’s just… Palak.

    Am I just not cooking it long enough? Or not having a heavy enough hand with the spices?

  54. 54.

    Emdee

    Hey, you juicers who are imagining a veggie version of this delicious dish: watch the liquids.

    A chicken thigh or drumstick isn’t going to release a lot of juice while roasting in an oven, but the veggies you guys are mentioning will flood your potato. Mushrooms and spinach in particular would release so much liquid that your potato could be extremely soggy.

    So for these versions, go the pizza route: pre-cook the veggies until almost all the liquid is released and evaporated, seasoning them as you like. Then load up your spud and put it back in the oven for just 10 minutes or so, until any cheese you put on top is nicely melted. (Or follow that with a quick broiler blast for a couple of minutes to get some nice browning).

    Alternately, I guess, you could poke several holes in the bottom of the potato skin with a fork so excess liquid could drain, and do the final bake on a wire rack over a rimmed baking sheet. But I’d prefer to get most of the liquid out of the veggies first so I could control exactly how much juice got to flavor the potato and what seasoning is in it.

    (For the same reason, if you use something like frozen corn, be sure to thaw and drain it first even if it won’t release a lot of liquid while cooking.)

    YMMV; just trying to help deliciousness happen.

  59. 59.

    Kirk Spencer

    heh – 3+ years since I posted this recipe to Balloon Juice.

    Yes, veggies work. Take one that generates a lot of juice by preference. Mushrooms, for example. (A couple of large portabellos with a handful of pitted olives, for example.)

  60. 60.

    Hal

    @Maude:

    Yahoo news has it. Issa released cables, some from Ambassador Stevens. He sent Obama a letter and demanded answers to 10 questions.

    Just in time for the third debate. The conspiracy theorist in me thinks this was a coordinated effort by Issa with the Romney campaign in what was supposed to me an ongoing narrative extending from the debate. But Mitt fucked that up and Obama tore him a new one, but hey, might as well keep going with it.

    Something tells me the tide has turned in Obama’s favor and we are starting to see the panicking again from Romney.

  61. 61.

    Gravenstone

    @Pooh: I’ve made a similar meatloaf using ground bison cut with sausage. We have a regional sausage vendor here who makes sausage with bacon, and sausage with apple. Either pair well with the bison for a nice rich meatloaf.

  63. 63.

    BGinCHI

    @Omnes Omnibus: I used to hate cooked spinach because of the way it was served where I grew up. Wilted with vinegar.

    But now I love it many ways cooked. And of course we eat it raw in a salad (with arugula and baby kale) pretty much every night.

    I had a spanikopita with spinach and kale the other night. Really good.

  64. 64.

    schrodinger's cat

    @Omnes Omnibus: You should try stir frying spinach with finely chopped garlic. Garnish with toasted sesame seeds. I serve it with shrimp for a quick dinner.

  65. 65.

    Yutsano

    @Randy P: My wild guess is there are some unpleasant compounds hanging around that need to be encouraged to leave the premises. Rinsing after blanching then drying very well should help.

  66. 66.

    Roger Moore

    @Kirk Spencer:
    This is an important point. The starch in a potato can do a great job of soaking up liquid, which is why most people find ordinary baked potato too dry and have to moisten it with butter or sour cream or the like. I’ll often used smashed roasted potato in a burrito (in place of the more commonly used rice) specifically to soak up the excess juices from the rest of the ingredients and keep the whole thing from getting soggy.

  68. 68.

    quannlace

    “Babette’s Feast”? Something in Sarcophagi?

    Yes, those were little birds, of some kind (like the ortolan in the movie ‘Gigi’?) put into a puff pastry casing.

  69. 69.

    schrodinger's cat

    @Randy P: Two things, they cook it to death, and add tons of butter.

    First start with finely chopped onions, cook till they are transparent, add finely chopped tomatoes, ginger and garlic, some turmeric and cayenne. Then add spinach cook till it is takes on the color of palak paneer in your favorite Indian restaurant. Then put it through a blender, add a little bit of water. Return to the pan and cook some more, add the paneer and butter, the more butter you add the more it will taste like the Indian Restaurant palak paneer.

  73. 73.

    Roger Moore

    @Ben Franklin:
    Technically speaking, Manning is in confinement awaiting trial for releasing a whole host of classified information, not cables from ambassadors specifically. Perhaps more important, the law seems to be more lenient toward major decision makers releasing classified information than it is toward lower level people doing the same thing. Guys like Issa (and Obama, for that matter) are given a lot of leeway because they’re elected officials, so it’s assumed that they are releasing classified information because the public is better served by being allowed to talk about it than by keeping it secret. I hope it’s understandable that we don’t give every enlisted soldier with access to secret information the same benefit of the doubt.

  79. 79.

    Roger Moore

    @Ben Franklin:
    And, to be fair, I was a bit imprecise when I say that “the law seems to be more lenient” about officials releasing classified information. By that, I mean more that prosecutors are generally more inclined to give those people a pass, not that they are necessarily technically exempt from obeying the law.

    That said, I know that the President (and I believe other high administration officials) have power to selectively declassify documents that they want to share with the public, so they have a legal mechanism to discuss things they think the public should know about. I don’t know enough about the law to be sure if chairmen of Congressional committees have the same power, but I don’t think they do. Nonetheless, it would be a bold prosecutor indeed to actually tried to do anything to Issa for releasing classified cables, and I can’t blame the prosecutors who have the power to prosecute him for exercising their discretion by refraining from doing so.

  80. 80.

    ? Martin

    Hey, CA unemployment down to 10.2% from 10.6% last month. Maybe we can stop weighing the nations rate down so much. I figure if you excluded CA, the non-CA US unemployment rate should be about .3% lower, at 7.5%. We’re a quite large drag on the total out here – and we’re voting for Obama, so what’s everyone else’s problem?

  82. 82.

    BGinCHI

    Since this is a food thread, I’ll recommend that any wine people interested in a really nice red for the money, go to WTSO.com right now and get some bottles of the Vina Aljibes that is there for $8.99 a bottle.

    That includes tax and shipping.

    I buy wine from these guys all the time and they are excellent. This is a really nice table wine for 9 bucks (less when you factor in ease of acquiring). It comes Fedex and you have to sign for it; they pack it really well.

  83. 83.

    Maude

    @Calouste:
    I don’t know anything about the Manning case.
    The documents that Issa has might not be classified, but just regular communications.
    The question is why did he do this now.
    I would say that it isn’t clear that security wasn’t increased.
    It will all come out i the wash.

  84. 84.

    shortstop

    Tonight’s culinary adventure will be me dialing for pizza, then consuming it while snuggled on the couch with my entire wolf pack. This week has kicked my large ass. The work challenges! The sinus infection! The racist stepmother-in-law! The control-freak sister! Calgon! Take me away!

    Actually, that’s a really good idea…not Calgon but some nice bath potion. Candles and music. Oh, yes.

  85. 85.

    BGinCHI

    @shortstop: Mrs. BG has a control freak sister and I have a mother-in-law who is right wing in the most lazy suburban way possible.

    Gonna watch Madagascar 3 tonight for some quality laughs. I loves me some penguins!

  86. 86.

    MikeJ

    Trying to decide about Washington Resolution 8223. Allows state Unis to invest in private businesses. It passed the house 93-4, the senate 45-4, so I assume it’s not all bad. It does however, allow the to invest using operating funds, not just trust funds. Which makes me lean towards “no”.

    BTW, anybody else notice the way McKenna wrote the voter guide info on tax issues? He refers to the cost of these taxes, but makes it sound like that is the cost to the state government, when in fact he means the cost to those losing the tax deductions at issue.

  87. 87.

    Joel

    @Hal: Doesn’t even require a conspiracy theorist to imagine a weasel like Issa coordinating with his party’s presidential campaign.

  89. 89.

    Mnemosyne (iPhone)

    I am on vacation and, so far, our upgraded room is teh awesome. I now suspect the innkeepers of an ulterior motive, because I’m not sure we’ll want to go back to a regular room after this.

    Tomorrow, yarn shopping!

  92. 92.

    MikeJ

    @Yutsano: Heh. I paid for business class and Virgin bumped me to Upper. Pre flight champaign, in flight massage, a bar to go lean on when you get tired of sitting in the lay flat seat….

    I (or my client really) paid only $1000 for a $7000 flight. Needless to say they didn’t leap at the opportunity to shell out the full fare next time.

  93. 93.

    Mnemosyne (iPhone)

    @Yutsano:

    I say “room” but it’s actually a little two-bedroom bungalow (though we only get to use one bedroom, presumably to save housekeeping the trouble of changing both rooms when there’s only two of us). I’m sprawled on the couch taking advantage of the free wi-fi while G is taking a nap in the bedroom. I’m pretty sure this is bigger than our entire apartment.

    Next up, wine and cheese in the courtyard. I’m almost hoping it rains since we have a fireplace, but this is Southern Cal, so I doubt it.

  95. 95.

    SuperHrefna

    @Randy P: A lot of restaurants will actually use a mix of spinach and fenugreek leaves for things like palak paneer – If you have an Indian grocery near you look in the freezer section, often you will find frozen fenugreek leaves (also called methi) in the veggie section! And yeah, they put killer amounts of fat in (like most restaurants really).

    Coming back to this thread and reading it over is making me so hungry! I was just at my local art house watching the NT Live performance of Last of the Haussmans and it’s late, but what wouldn’t I give for a baked potato right about now :-)

  96. 96.

    Suezboo

    Re Nando’s : Pretty much the biggest chicken eatery in SA. Beats out KFC and McD. Chicken peri peri likely an import from Mozambique, like Tex-Mex in Texas – neighbours can be delicious. That’s also from where it migrated to Portugal, I would surmise.
    Nando’s are famous in SA for their clever, funny, irreverent TV ads. So that even non-chicken eaters like me like Nando’s. (I’m miles from the nearest city, so no Nando’s here, although I would totes buy the chicken if they were.)

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