ETA: Not sure I’ve ever big-footed anyone so thoroughly, but consider this a thread for everyone who doesn’t care about hockey, of whom I am one.
Hey all. You may recall that roast chicken is an object of obsession in the Levenson household. It is the one true votive food, as far as I’m concerned, comfort and connoisseurship and all that.
Since that prior post (it’s only been ~4 years…), we’ve played around a lot with the Melissa Clark recipe that prompted it. Our standard fast variation on that (given that ramps (a) aren’t that much of a favorite in our house and (b) are only available for about twenty minutes a year) is to replace the original vegetable medley with a couple of leeks and a mixture of mushrooms — usually shiitakes with creminis or oysters or whatever’s on hand — together with capers, garlic and lemon rind.
A wonderful change up on that has been to use this recipe for curried cauliflour instead of leeks and mushrooms, whilst still following Clark’s basic method. (We add these to the cauliflour dressing: 3 papadew peppers, sliced; ten coarsly chopped garlic cloves; and 1 tsp baharat spice mix (or any kind of random flavorful spice mix lying around).We start the splayed chicken breast side down for ten minutes, and then add the dressed cauliflour at the turn. For a 3.5 lb chicken, allow for roughly 40 minutes total — and when you’re done you get this lovely curry – esque roast chicken. Not the crispest of skin, but very tasty.
But all that’s prologue to two new-to-me roast chicken recipes I made this week, both of which rocked my world. Given that I’m really trying to spend a whole weekend without writing about politics*, I’m offering these up as both a gesture of peace to both the Bernistas and Hillarions that may visit this site — and as a displacement activity to ensure I don’t start talking the relative benefits of Glass-Steagall vs. rigorous capital requirements and so on.
First up — this lovely recipe from an old NY Times column on what chefs like to eat when they seek a meal they didn’t cook. It’s dead simple, and very quick: a 3.5 lb chicken** roasts in just over half an hour. The only even mildly tricky bit is the removal of both the back and breastbones: two different good knives help (a big chef’s knife and a robust boning knife). Other than that, it’s just a matter of basting the thing a lot and making the green sauce. My only change-up on first trying it was to add some sherry vinegar to the salsa verde; the capers alone didn’t give it enough bite. But allowing ten minutes for prep, the whole meal takes about three quarters of an hour and the result is a simple, clean chicken with a lovely spring-summer sauce for counterpoint.
And second, from a chef who’s work has really shifted the palette in our house, this not-quite-roast chicken turned out beautifully this Wednesday. It’s Yoram Ottolenghi’s Chicken Sofrito, slightly modified to avoid the occasional pitfall of Jewish cookery, the felt need to make sure the damn thing is really, really done.
Our amendments: no potatoes. Only about four or five good sized garlic cloves, roughly chopped, instead of his twenty five (sic!). I butterflied a 3 lb. chicken (I like the smaller birds), rather than quartering it. Having seared it as the recipe calls for, I pulled it and sauteed on large white onion, sliced, and then added sliced up yellow and red sweet pepper — a half a pepper of each — then the garlic. Cooked those down for a few minutes before returning the chicken to the pan. Most important — I substituted pimenton — Spanish smoked paprika — for the sweet paprika Ottolenghi specifies. Takes it to a whole different place. And I squeezed just a little lemon in, because I always do.
This is another quick-cooking dish. The chicken was above refrigerated temperature (I pulled it from the icebox about an hour before cooking), small, spatchcocked, and seared pretty good. Cooking time after reassembling the chicken and vegetables was around a half an hour.
The result was simply fabulous. Where the first recipe was the essence of simple, clean, chickeny-ness, this had a lovely sense of secret knowledge and the romance of the East and all that. Both dead easy; both fast enough for mid week.
I know, I know — I’m babbling. But while I’m no evangelist in most domains, roast chicken in almost any variation, done right, is as near as I get to heaven in this vale of tears. So I hope y’all won’t take it amiss if I spread my poultry gospel.
And even if you do, take solace in finding in this post something to kvetch about that doesn’t involve orange scalp ferrets or the proper way to consume pizza.
Now — over to you. Talk about the essential foods for your tables or anything else you damn well please.
*I’m not sure if spending manic hours gutting David Brooks most recent two risible attempts at rise-above-it-all civic moralizing/thumbsucking would count, but my nearest and dearest are. Let me thus say here only my now-standard reaction to BoBo: intercourse yourself ninety-degrees-off-bilateral-symmetry-axis with an oxidized farm implement.
Image: Osias Beert and workshop,** Still life of a Roast Chicken, a Ham and Olives on Pewter Plates with a Bread Roll, an Orange, Wineglasses and a Rose on a Wooden Table, before 1623
**better known for artistic craftsmanship than originality of titling.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
I don’t know about chicken, but I’ve really been craving turkey for the last few days. I was somewhere a few days ago and smelled turkey cooking. I forget where it was, but it was somewhere you wouldn’t think you’d be smelling turkey cooking, like a pet shop or grain elevator, or maybe a railroad station. Anyway, I’ve wanted turkey ever since. Also, I’ve had a weird thing for barbeque potato chips for the last few weeks. I only hope I’m not pregnant again…
MazeDancer
Good chicken cooking ideas always welcome!
Political side dish: Video of Pope Francis, on plane, describing “common courtesy” walk-by handshake with Bernie. Includes Pope’s laugh at end. Does not include any brief “meeting” or “discussion” as per Bernie’s early AM indications.
Yutsano
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.): My family will cook a turkey every now and again throughout the year. They do sometimes go on sale outside of holidays plus breasts seem to be available here. In fact, I might ask mom tomorrow when I see her when she wants to do that again.
You can spatchcock a turkey too.
Lamh36
our fav Bernie Celeb on Bill Maher last night
aimai
Where’s my weeping emoticon? I am back on Weight Watchers for the nonce. Cooking amazing meals but not my beloved Chicken with sage, lemon, and milk which I got from Jaimie Oliver. However I will share my method for incredibly juicy, crispy skinned, breast meat.
Take one whole chicken breast, skin on and bone in, and crack the breast bone without breaking the skin. Salt and pepper it. Sear in skin side down until the skin is crispy (ish) and then take it out of the pan. Sear and sauté onions, celery, carrots and then add some milk, white wine, about 10 cloves of garlic (smashed but not chopped), a handful of sage, a long dried hot pepper, the peel of one lemon, and the lemon juice. Cook for a bit on top of the stove and then put the chicken on top and put in the oven at some damned heat. Maybe 350 or 450, and cook until the sauce is caremelized and yummy and the chicken is just cooked through. The skin will be crackling crisp and the meat as juicy as in a restaurant.
Mary G
I almost never cook any more, but when I do, it usually involves smoked paprika. Love that stuff. Is Spanish better or different from Hungarian?
Woodrowfan
a cooking thread and a hockey thread. just add an insurance thread you you hit the trifecta. ;)
Tom Levenson
@Mary G: Don’t know — I’ve only had the Spanish version. Which is fabulous.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Lamh36: I’ve actually seen this critique [assuming I know what she means] a lot–Obama didn’t keep his voters engaged after the ’08 election, and I have no idea what it means.
ETA: and now I am very hungry, and have been thinking about roasting a chicken lately. I just find it a messy project and I’m feeling too lazy.
joel hanes
@Lamh36:
Sarandon is mistaken. It was Rahm who spurned the grassroots.
Ultraviolet Thunder
The last food I ‘made’ was two falafel patties and a stuffed grape leaf roll arranged on a plate into a smiley face.
I added a piece of lettuce for eyebrows and the Chaldean waitress said “Unibrow! You made it an Ay-rab!”
So that went up on Facebook.
That chicken sounds delicious.
Shana
@aimai: How are you doing on the program? I’m heading back when my medical weight loss program in 3 weeks. I haven’t done the program in a couple of years.
SarahT
@Tom Levenson: You didn’t stieal that chicken from Betty Cracker’s house, I hope ?
Aleta
A roasted chicken works great as a thing to bring to a potluck.
chopper
marcella hazan’s roast chicken with lemons is a standard in my house. easy and fuckin’ delicious.
normal liberal
@aimai:
Two observations/questions:
That chicken sounds delicious, I shall try it soon, and;
Why isn’t it cromulent under WW? You wouldn’t want to down the whole thing, but nothing in the recipe seems out of bounds, if, say, you slice a chicken breast sideways and split it between two meals.
bystander
We are big fans of Ottolenghi’s marinated turkey breast. Leftovers make great sandwiches, too.
His cookbooks are really fun, except the really beautiful one, Nopi. The recipes in that one are comically convoluted.
bemused
One of my favorite cartoons is a turkey, duck and chicken in bed together smoking cigarettes. Having satisfied their curiosity, the three went their separate ways, never speaking of making turducken again.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Lamh36:
She said this exact same thing on a local Boston broadcast the night before the MA primary. It was the 2nd time I’d heard it, the first time was by a Bernfeeler in a friends post on FB a few weeks before and I remarked how much bullshit it was then because I was getting so many emails from OFA I asked them to unsubscribe me. It comes from Bernie.
bystander
@Mary G: The Spanish pimenton has a depth of smokiness the Hungarian lacks. Like the Hungarian, tho, pimenton can be either hot or sweet. Good investment because a little goes a long way.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@bemused: Heh. Sounds like “The Far Side: After Dark”
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: it goes back years. The only Rahm! thing I remember is he was rude to Jane Hamsher. And really, you can’t imagine a savvy operative like Jane Hamsher doing anything that would blow back politically, can you?
John Cole
tl;dr but isn’t roast chicken an obsession in every household. I mean, it’s roast chicken!
The Blog Dahlia
@John Cole:
I’m a vegan, you insensitive clod!
raven
NINETY THREE THOUSAND AT THE GEORGIA SPRING GAME BITCHES!!!!! WOOF THE FUCK WOOF!!
Ruckus
Not a big fan of chicken, not since the navy. I have stories I shan’t tell, for this is a food post.
I make a half hour meal that I like, poached salmon on veg.
Saute garlic and onion in a fry pan with glass lid over med low heat, I add a very small amt of sesame oil.
Add broccoli and green beans cut up to small bites, returning the cover.
Add orange bell pepper, yellow cucumber squash, mushrooms, chopped to no bigger than 1/2 pieces, cover.
Add juice of one lemon, salt/pepper to taste cover.
Add baby spinach and herbs on top, cover.
Cube salmon to about 1/2 in, add on top, cover.
About 6-8 min and the salmon is done. Each addition to the pan I do as I chop up the ingredients which takes about 20 min. Each course is added in the order of cooking time, longest first other than the salmon. Do not use too much heat. If everything is copped first the presentation is better, taste is the same and it takes me longer. Limes could be used in place of the lemon.
Ruckus
@John Cole:
See my post above. The answer is NO.
The Blog Dahlia
@Ruckus:
That sounds…interesting.
normal liberal
I have the Spanish sweet smoked pimenton, which for a while I was using in everything. As was mentioned above, it doesn’t take much, and if you overdo it the smokiness swamps the other flavors. Smoked paprika plus salt and pepper is a fine rub mixture for grilling.
I’ve got four of the Ottolenghi cookbooks, all of which have things worth making. Such as poached pears with cardemom and saffron.
And a brief thought for the long-ago scullery maid stuck with washing that multi-stage goblet in the painting atop the OP.
Roger Moore
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.):
If you want turkey but don’t want to cook the whole thing, you can always buy turkey parts and cook them. I’m a dark meat person, so I regularly cook turkey thighs and use them in tacos and burritos. Fabulous.
StellaB
Even my arthritic old hands can spatchcock a chicken with a good pair of kitchen shears. I’m less likely to slice a hole in my lefthand that way.
There is no reason why you can’t eat roast chicken or turkey on WW, just not the skin. The spouse won’t eat pork, I don’t eat beef, so I rotate chicken, fish, turkey, fish, beans, fish endlessly.
Roger Moore
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I assume it means the speaker is still waiting for his pony.
NotMax
@John Cole
No.
bemused senior
Reposted from the dying General Tso thread below. Ok, I found the mildly smoking gun in the 2014 Sanders tax return. Jane’s income (small consulting fee) is from “TLLRWD commission”. This, it turns out, is because she is the alternate representative to the commission overseeing low level nuclear waste disposal under the compact between Vermont, Maine and Texas. The back story of that is here. So not a sign of devil worship but it should be embarrassing to both of them.
chopper
@Roger Moore:
since i have a chest freezer i usually pick up a whole frozen turkey when they go on sale before or after xgiving (last one i got was free from safeway). eventually i get around to thawing it, parting it out and turning it into a butt-load of stock. the skin gets saved and made into gribenes or stuffed with things and fried. until then it’s the insurance policy in case of power failure cause a 20 lb bird will keep everything else in there frozen for days.
bemused senior
@Roger Moore: After learning that my butcher always had turkey quarters and getting the thigh/leg quarters to roast for chile verde, I have taken to using them at Thanksgiving as well, since my family all want the dark meat. I make a small whole turkey to have a little white meat and a carcass for soup, but … Yay turkey parts.
Schlemazel (parmesan rancor)
I totally agree that a well roasted chicken is a joy forever. A couple of problems, one is over cooking which makes it uneatable to me but just requires care in roasting. The big problem is trying to find a decent bird these days. They all have water in them, up to 15% of the total weight either injected or soaked into them. It does make them moist but the texture is spongy & awful and the taste is entirely forgettable.
ETA: I totally agree that removing the backbone and flattening the chicken is a huge help in getting the whole things done at the same time. It isn’t that hard, there are several videos online if you need help.
There is a Chinese market here that sells roasted ducks and they are now my favorite fowl.
Ruckus
@The Blog Dahlia:
Could also be from watching my grandmother, who lived in south central Los Angeles, go out in her back yard and snatch up a chicken and wring it’s neck so we could have Sunday fried chicken. And then having to help pluck and clean it. I wasn’t ten yet. It may have left an impression.
Still not telling the navy stories on a food post. It’s more of a late night palate cleanser.
Brachiator
@Lamh36:
The ultraprogressives, including people who voted for Nader in 2000, were disappointed that Obama did not deliver on the promises that he never actually made to them.
Some of these folk, like Sarandon, understandably like Bernie Sanders. But there is not much to be done about their political disappointments.
NotMax
Chicken with 40 (not a typo) cloves of garlic recipe.
Schlemazel (parmesan rancor)
@NotMax:
GAWD I love that! I used to make it for the kids once in a while and their friends at school thought it was a euphemism or something “Nobody cooks that much garlic!”
bemused senior
@Schlemazel (parmesan rancor): We love that also. But before I first encountered it I made duck with 40 cloves of garlic from the “Julia Child and Company” cookbook. Even more awesome, but also more trouble.
Anya
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I don’t understand this critique. I don’t know if people are being deliberately dishonest or just talking out of their asses becuase they don’t understand the political process. I was I first time voter (eligble to vote), and I stayed engaged. Obama didn’t need to spoon feed me to be engaged. He said it enough times that a change is from the people that I believed it. I volunteered with OFA to educate people about the ACA. I even got involved in the efforsts to oppose the Keystone XL Pipeline. I know a lot of young people who I’ve met through Obama’s first campaign and they’re still engaged. And some of them are actually working for Bernie. You either want to be engaged or you don’t.
Schlemazel (parmesan rancor)
@bemused senior:
I have the “art of french cooking” set but not “& company”. It occurs to me I could combine the two, bone the duck as shown in art and then stuff cloves into the spaces left. I might have to see what a raw duck costs.
I really wanted a goose for Christmas as it was just the two of us but I was unwilling to spend $70-$80 for one damn goose!
opiejeanne
@MazeDancer: Thanks. I heard about this little video but hadn’t gone hunting for it yet.
MattF
@NotMax: I’ve had that, and it’s delicious– although, I should say, I had it back in the days when I was in a group of intinerant garlic-lovers who cooked for each other once a week. The key point is that the words ‘slice the garlic’ appear nowhere in the recipe.
Anya
The strangest thing about cooking is that I am usually a terrible cook. But I can really cook good chicken and salmon dishes. I guess it all depends on repetition. If you cook something enough you’ll eventually perfect it. Here’s my go to website for recipes: http://www.thekitchn.com
opiejeanne
@Lamh36: What a snappy little comment she borrowed from some pundit (can’t remember who).
I’m pretty annoyed with Ms Sarandon, not that I usually care what a celebrity has to say, but she is not helping anyone on our side get elected.
PurpleGirl
@bemused: Have you tried turducken? A friend made it once. It was very good but it is a lot of work. He’s said he won’t make again because of all the owrk involved.
Schlemazel (parmesan rancor)
@Brachiator: @Anya:
I heard a lot of people talk about Obama before the election and too many of them had no clue what his positions were on many issues but somehow imagined him as far more liberal than he had ever portrayed himself. Many expected miracles, though the only one I heard him promise was to change the tone in DC. Not even FSM Himself could do that.
Now it is true I live in a mixed race neighborhood and I totally get why people of color saw his election as a miracle but I think people had unreasonable expectations. In an earlier thread someone talked about Trump being a blank slate that people projected their own beliefs on. To some extent I think a lot of voters do that because it is easier than learning about the person and studying the issues.
Dr.McCoy
@joel hanes: You give him too much credit….he got his direction from somewhere, and not always his crotch.
bemused senior
@Schlemazel (parmesan rancor): The Julia Child recipe is here amidst several other yummy looking duck recipes. It is a ragout, not a roasted duck. Apparently the recipe calls for 20 cloves of garlic, but of course ducks are smaller than chickens.
Dr.McCoy
@opiejeanne: That’s the point if you want to burn it down-ala “Trump”.
opiejeanne
@aimai: That sounds wonderful, although the addition of milk surprised me. I will hunt down the complete instructions and try it.
My favorite roast chicken recipe is from an old Sunset book called Picnics & Tailgate Parties: Roast Chicken with Herbs. It’s heavier on the garlic and herbs than most recipes were back when the book was printed, because the recipe was meant to be eaten cold. We eat it hot from the oven and while it’s roasting it drives everyone nuts. I’ll have to find it online and link to it.
Schlemazel (parmesan rancor)
@opiejeanne:
If you take political or medical advice from any celebrity you really should do the world a favor & go live in a cave in the Andes. That goes for the ones that I agree with as well as morons like Saranwrap or DeNero
@PurpleGirl:
I make one for Thanksgiving about 10 years ago when the whole family was here. Totally not worth the effort, mostly it is a show-off thing. It is really a left over from the days of slavery when the labor involved was not important but impressing the other bastards was key to your own social status. I saw a recipe that started with a sparrow and ended with a swan and contained about 2 dozen birds.
Schlemazel (parmesan rancor)
@bemused senior:
THANKS!
Baud
Baud! will fertilize the grass roots with lots of manure.
jnfr
We’ve used that splayed chicken recipe regularly since you posted it, and have been very happy with it.
From last Thanksgiving
Clearly you are sound on all things chicken, so I’ll try your other suggestions too. Thanks, Tom!
PurpleGirl
@Schlemazel (parmesan rancor): Nick wanted to try it after he saw a TV cooking show on it. His birthday was coming up and true to tradition he usually planned a turkey for it. So instead he decided to try the turducken. His wife threw together a surprise dinner party for him and everyone was to bring a side or a dessert. He was genuinely surprised. There were no leftovers and everyone liked the turducken.
opiejeanne
Here’s our favorite roast chicken recipe:
https://flic.kr/p/GbKUHb
Click on the photo to embiggen.
Anya
@Schlemazel (parmesan rancor): Maybe I don’t know what a liberal is but I believe Obama is liberal. He does understand the issues, knows the limitations and makes the possible changes. He’s more paragmatic than we like him to be but it doesn’t make him less liberal. I think Obama’s philosophy can be summed by his frequently used Voltaire paraphrase line: “don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.”
J R in WV
@bemused senior:
I love Julia’s cooking, but she can make things that could be simple really complex. Beef in red wine – her recipe takes all day. I can do it in a couple of hours, and – while there is a little difference – it tastes great. And you get to eat just WAY sooner than she thinks it should take.
Schlemazel (parmesan rancor)
@Anya:
I never said he wasn’t a liberal, just not as liberal as many of his supporters believed him to be. The fault was their not his, I don’t recall him ever pretending to be anything other than what we got. AI also was not complaining about BHO.
The problem with not letting the perfect be the enemy of the good is that if you never try for perfect you will never be as good as you could be. I don’t know that anyone could have done better in the last 8 years than BHO, that is reality given the large number of Americans suffering from self-imposed methane poisoning but I think we always have to be demanding more in part to give cover for the folks trying to get things done & partly to remind them that there is always more to be done.
schrodinger's cat
My favorite version of roast chicken is tandoori chicken. Unfortunately, its hard to reproduced in an oven, its better on the grill. Here is my recipe.
Brachiator
Now I’m in a mood for Mediterranean style chicken. A couple of places not too far away brines the chicken, then cooks them slowly in a vertical oven with lots of garlic and spices. Yum.
Haven’t had tandoori chicken in a while, either. Double yum.
Or some good Chinese style barbecue duck. Even some tangy grilled Korean style BBQ chicken.
It’s been a long day, lots of work, and a short crappy lunch. But the mind wanders.
mclaren
Sorry, no. Chicken is a bland boring tasteless meat that has to be eaten with elaborate sauces. In fact, Escoffier cooking with its five mother sauces exists solely in order to spice up cooked chicken and make it palatable.
Chicken is okay. Nothing wrong with it. But if you want meat that tastes like something, instead of unflavored tofu or cooked eggplant, you have to go with turkey or ham or a steak.
Brachiator
@mclaren:
What, Escoffier don’t know how to fry no chicken? Good fried chicken needs no sauce.
aimai
@Shana: I’m liking it very much. Fruits and vegetables are essentially free, though other things “cost” more like chocolate, flour, etc… However I am finding it very manageable to cook for three people (husband and 17 year old) on it and the meals that I do cook are, if I may say so, fabulous. They have a killer dessert of roasted grapes with rosemary that is so good that I have served it to people who are not dieting and everyone cleans it up.
SiubhanDuinne
@raven:
MORE THAN BERNIE!! MORE THAN TRUMP!!! WOOT WOOT WOOTSIE WOOT!!
aimai
@opiejeanne: Here is a link to the JO version . We don’t really eat the whole chicken because the kids don’t like dark meat, and I find his version is a bit oily. Mine is just made with one big breast and a whole lot of wings (because I love wings) so I’ve modified it a bit because the vegetables, which I also upped like crazy, don’t cook fast enough if you don’t start them out on the stovetop. I have done this with batons of carrots, celery, new potatos and parsnips and it is delicious. Marcella Hazan has a similar pork in milk recipe so I think its quite traditional, even though it seems an odd combination.
p.a.
@bystander: 1) can I just hack sweet paprika with some cayenne, or will this not be close to hot paprika’s taste?
2) if you break down chix often, kitchen shears will make life easier. get all stainless, with the cog-type joint so the shears disassemble for easy cleaning. mine are 20 yrs old, iirc cost $20 then, but may still be a value if as said, you buy whole and break down yourself.
p.a.
@Brachiator: I got the rotisserie attachment for my grill this winter. Can’t wait to try it. I find the upright chix roaster (the invasive body cavity type) works well for oven-roast chix IF you brine first.
normal liberal
@aimai:
Thanks for the link. There’s a comment on that page noting that on video Oliver includes steps not in the recipe, and which sounded like improvements. Thanks to you I will investigate further! I’m getting a little bored with the usual lemon and some herb versions.
Betty Cracker
Must be a pitfall of Irish-English-Scandinavian cookery too! I have to resist the urge to overcook food.
My husband makes an awesome cinnamon and garlic roast chicken from his grandma’s recipe. Not sure exactly how he does it, but I could live off the little red potatoes that roast with it.
Tom Levenson
@bystander: I’ll try that w. turkey thighs. Don’t like white meat. Sounds fab.
Tom Levenson
@Betty Cracker: get him to spill the secret. I’d love to try it.
opiejeanne
@aimai: Thanks. I have bookmarked that page to try. Good idea to add all of those wings because I love wings too.
Feathers
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.): My go to is adapted from non-Thanksgiving-roast Turkey recipe is from Lora Brody’s sadly out of print Kitchen Survival guide. She does it in a pan, but I find it works just as well in one of those oven bags, which with all the sweet in the recipe makes cleanup much easier and less danger of dried out meat.
Take whole turkey breast, place in pan/oven bag. Rub skin with olive oil/butter & salt & pepper. Add savory veg – original calls for 4 thinly sliced onions & 4 carrots. Add 2 cups dried fruit – original 1 c dried apricots & 1 c golden raisins. Liquid – 6 oz defrosted OJ concentrate, 10-12 oz apricot preserves, 2 c white wine or chicken broth. Bake at 350 for 15-20 min per pound. Makes excellent leftovers, slicing some turkey for sandwiches, shredding the rest and mixing with the sauce to serve over rice.
This is probably more of a cold winter night dish than spring, but this has been a cold spring.
Steeplejack
@Feathers:
Lora Brody’s Kitchen Survival Guide is available for Kindle for $6.99. I’m usually leery of the Kindle format for cookbooks, because of problems with formatting and illustrations, but for an out-of-print book it’s great.