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FOOD FOR THOUGHT |
| • | Biscuits: An American classic |
One thing about the Internet is that the era of losing touch with people is pretty much over. A mixed blessing. But it's nice when loved ones from your past look you up. A while back, an old flame, someone with whom I'd largely lost touch, checked in via e-mail to tell a few kitchen anecdotes and share a recipe.
My friend, G. Armour Van Horn, is the only man I ever hung with who was and is as skilled in the kitchen as I am — and as interested in cooking and as willing to whip up a meal. Not so willing to do the dishes, as I recall, but since not having to do the dishes is my primary motivation for cooking, I shouldn't talk.
Living in the fruitful Pacific Northwest, we had some great adventures — canning prune-plums, making preserves from quinces, driving out to Snohomish to pick raspberries and arriving home stained brown and our sweaters shredded by thorns, learning how to make fresh cider from a crotchety local farmer who befriended us, attempting to grow ducks for meat and down (boy, were we dumb!).
Van sent me a characteristically amusing e-mail with a recipe and, as he put it, "a little airy persiflage to display my literary pretensions."
The recipe is for a cookbook he says he's never going to write called, "The Second Best Piece of Chicken," devoted to dishes made from chicken thighs. Since Islanders generally think chicken thighs are the first best piece of chicken, this never-to-appear book would be a best-seller here, I'm sure. Maybe I'll steal the idea.
Van's views on chicken breast happen to coincide with mine: "the least tasty part of the bird, the part most likely to be tough and stringy. I don't eat chicken breasts, I don't cook them and I'm sure not going to encourage anyone else to." (I make one exception: Chicken breasts are very nice poached; just be sure to gently simmer, don't boil.)
Here's his recipe, recommended for guys out of barbecuing season. "Guys can relate to barbecuing, where you crank up the heat, toss the food into play and fuss over it until it's done. This is one straight-ahead power-cooking wonder of a dish that should satisfy the same urge indoors," wrote Van.
CRIMINEY CHICKEN
About 40 minutes before serving time, dice the chicken, chop the onion and slice the mushrooms. If you're a purist, mince enough garlic; I just scoop mine out of a jar.
At 30 minutes out, put a 6-quart stockpot of water on to boil for the pasta, with 1 tablespoon of olive oil and a pinch of salt. Put the other three tablespoons of olive oil and the butter in a large skillet, but hold off on the heat.
At 25 minutes out, crank the heat up full on the stockpot and put the tortellini in the water to boil. (Just to clarify; you have two pots going here — one in which water and pasta are boiling and one in which oil and butter are waiting to be heated.) Set a timer for the pasta, two minutes short of the package directions. We want the final cooking to occur in the stew.
Now, turn on the heat under the skillet. As soon as the butter starts to foam, add the chicken. Stir until most of the translucency is gone from the surface of the chicken. Add the onion and garlic and continue to stir to avoid sticking. As the onion starts to become translucent, add the mushrooms and continue to stir for at least one minute. Reminder: The timer probably shows about three minutes left on the pasta. Add the tarragon and about half the broth to the skillet. Yes, that's a lot of tarragon.
Drain the pasta when the timer goes off and slop it into the skillet. You'll probably need to start using two spoons to stir now, but we just need to keep it from sticking. Add the rest of the broth and the capers. After the stew has come back to a boil, you can back off to medium, but keep the heat on until the liquid is fully absorbed. This isn't a soup; the broth is blending the flavors and intensifying the chickenness of the whole.
Serve with a good dusting of cheese. OK, serve with a LOT of cheese. Assiago is better than romano is better than parmesan — but even Kraft in the green shaker is better than nothing.
For a wine pairing, Van recommends a big chardonnay or pinot grigio, chianti classico or a good microbrewed stout such as Deschutes Obsidian.
Oh, and you may be wondering what Van thinks is the best part of the chicken? The second joint of the wing. "Good flavor, always moist, but you'd have to kill a couple of dozen chickens per serving, which means the market for a cookbook based on that alone might be five copies, and one of those would be my mother, who would expect to get it free."
Note: A confession: I am not fond of tarragon. I am REALLY not fond of tarragon. So I made this with a very large handful of chopped fresh basil instead. Criminey!
Send recipes and queries to Wanda A. Adams, Food Editor, Honolulu Advertiser, P.O. Box 3110, Honolulu, HI 96802. Fax: 525-8055. E-mail: wadams@honoluluadvertiser.com.
For more information about our 150th anniversary cookbook, call 535-8189 (message phone; your call will be returned). You can order the cookbook online.
