Food & Recipes

Welp…

So Very Small went on sale today.

I put a post last week that talked about the book (and its imminent arrival) in some detail, so I won’t repeat all that here. Instead, I’ll just say that the editor of my last four books thinks it’s my best work to date, and I believe–more with each passing day that RFK Jr. remains the top US health official–that it’s my most important.

What I do want to do here is make good on a promise I made in that earlier post: to provide a food/cooking interlude at some later date. (I’m much later than I’d suggested, but I’m hoping that the thought counts.)

So two recent cooking experiences/suggestions.

1: This (with a slight variation).

That’s a Yotam Ottolenghi recipe for spatchcocked chicken cooked with butter beans and shallots, recently published in The Guardian. My cousin, a former producer on the BBC 4 Food Programme (now there’s a gig!) made it for me a few weeks ago when I blew through London for a few days, and I really liked it.  I came home, tried it once; thought it was good but could be better, and just this weekend made it again, and nailed it.

My variations on Ottolenghi’s original:

First, I used a much smaller bird than he prescribes. I like 3.5 to 4 lb birds (~1.6 to 1.9 kg); my cousin had made her version with a chicken on the larger end of what Ottolenghi suggests and it was tasty, but the texture wasn’t right and I think it’s easier to control the doneness of the whole dish with the smaller options.

Then I cheated just a little downward on the amount of turmeric. It’s a very strong spice and I think going a little lighter made the dish a bit more graceful.

I used water as mentioned in the recipe the first time out but on the second I used a 50:50 combo of white wine and home made chicken stock and it was really good.

After the first by-the-book version, I tried slicing the lemon into thin rounds instead of two halves. That was better to my taste, though you give up squeezing the roasted lemon juice, which is fun.

Finally, I think one can play around with the variety of beans. I stuck with butter beans on the first iteration and really enjoyed them; they brown up well and play very nicely with everything else. Second time out, though, the local supermarket was out of them, so I substituted cannelloni beans (I’d been thinking about going this way) and they were great. They hold their shape and texture more than the others, and they tasted great.

2: I think I’ve already commended Yasmin Khan’s sumac-pomegranate chicken thighs to the Jackaltariat. If not, I should have. It’s grand, and I don’t do anything to the recipe. Just rock and roll and eat like a monarch.

What’s new (for me) is that last Friday I found myself with a small piece of boneless leg of lamb–a pound and a quarter, perhaps. I pounded that sucker into a more or less consistent depth, cut cross hatchings top and bottom, and then rubbed the marinade from that chicken recipe all over and into the meat. I let it sit for a little, then roasted it in a 375 degree oven to medium rare (a little closer to medium than I’d like, perhaps)–maybe 20 minutes, maybe a little less. It would have been good if I’d had time to marinate it for a bit, but it was damn fine as it was and was an unbelievably quick turnaround for supper for two.

This thread is open–but if you’ve got tales of fun variations on favorite recipes, well…as they say in kindergarten, bring enough for everyone.

 

 

 

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