Hullo again and apologies for being a little late.
If it's a consolation, I've been lurking around dairy farms in the Alps and researching Reblochon.
This edition is longer than usual, partly as it deals with an obsession and partly because there's nothing else to do up an Alp but eat cheese and write.
As always, please feel free to forward this email to friends and encourage them to subscribe at the website .
Enjoy...
Stretching a Chicken
A Culinary Alphabet:
D - Disgust
We love to get all misty eyed and lyrical about the food we adored as children but few of us care to remember the things we really hated.
Any adult who’s ever tried to feed something to an unwilling child will know that the disgust reaction is profoundly physical and all but impossible to overcome. If a kid doesn’t like spinach, no amount of intimidation, cajoling or bribery will make him eat it.
When was the last time, though, an adult refused something you’d
cooked them? Clearly, we lose some of that visceral disgust as we mature.
Except for dieters, vegetarians and those with psychosomatic food ‘allergies’
who, I hope, you have no need to dine with, grown-ups are properly omnivorous
or at least polite.
But surely those infantile revulsions were every bit as formative of our
adult tastes as the things we loved.
A brief and unscientific survey of childhood food phobias reveals some
interesting facts. There was a surprising gender split amongst respondents
with women remembering things in vivid descriptions of revolting tastes
and smells and men seeming much more moved by texture. It also appeared
that the things we really hated were most often the sort of nonsense that
no adult would ever serve to another.
This correlates with my own particular loathings. Packet vegetable soup
that seemed indistinguishable from vomit, containing imperfectly reconstituted
cubes of dried and nameless vegetation, now sticks in my memory as intractably
as it once stuck in my gullet. Worse, if possible, was a concoction by
our school dinner ladies - a ‘Russian Salad’ comprising inadequately
drained tinned diced veg with the terrifying addition of a lumpy, floury
white sauce. This was called ‘Macedoine’.
It was Kilgour, a classicist and limp-locked Ganymede of the upper sixth
who remarked that, if the Macedonians really ate like this, it was little
wonder that Alexander the Great laid waste to Asia Minor.
Aaah, the heady days of youth. I believe he’s a mobile phone salesman
now.
I’m sitting, alone, in the kitchen at 1.13 in the morning. When
I say alone, I’m only being partially accurate. There is, of course,
the chicken.
I admit this is not normal behaviour. A man doesn’t usually leave
his bed, his slumbering wife and child and nip down to the kitchen for
silent contemplation of dead poultry. On the other hand, this is no ordinary
chicken. It’s a Gauloise, the same breed as the legendary
poulet de Bresse but from an English farm. It’s organic
and unlike the authentic French version which is ‘hand finished’
on a diet of corn soaked in milk, entirely free-range.
It weighs just over 2.2 Kg and cost me £26.29, an hour-long, round
trip to pick up and £3.00 in parking charges. A phone call to my
butcher tells me that for the same amount I could have a kilo of organic
filet aged for up to four weeks – the most expensive piece of beef
in the shop.
The piece of steak would serve four, is cooked in three minutes and eaten
in six. I learned from my Mum that a roast chicken is just the start of
a process that can contribute to a family’s meals for over a week.
I plan to use this chicken as carefully as I can to prove that the expense
of the free-range organic bird is at least as justifiable as the steak.
Which is why I’m sitting in the kitchen staring at it. This kind
of thing takes planning.
The Gauloise is a spectacular bird with unusually long and slender
legs. It smells absolutely fresh and shows no sign of bruising or other
damage pre or post-mortem. In fact, once you’ve been staring at
it for twenty minutes, its skin is really very beautiful. Of consistent,
creamy colour, dry, supple and with well distributed subcutaneous fat
that’s still firm at room temperature. I don’t think this
chicken was plucked so much as charmed into disrobing by an elderly roué.
Buying Chicken
Any tyro can march into an organic butchers and demand their most splendid
poultry but they’ll just walk out with the bird. If you’ve
spent time and effort developing a relationship with your butcher, he’ll
certainly appreciate the effort you’ve making and, most likely,
reward you with a few ‘extras’ if asked politely.
Without plunging too deeply into veterinary arcana it is fair to say that
every fully functioning bird comes with a complete set of giblets. Fortunately
not everyone wants them, this means your butcher may well throw in a few
extra sets for a special customer who asks nicely. Many buyers will want
their bird professionally reduced to breasts or legs, leaving spare carcasses
and wings. Some butchers sell these for stock but the smart ones give
them to favoured customers.
My bird came with six extra wings, two full carcasses and a spare set
of giblets. Even the ‘special’ ones they breed in gene labs
for KFC don’t usually come that over-equipped. It was time for the
first phase of the experiment.
Roast Chicken
I’m obviously getting spoiled but, with London butchers and restaurants
improving, seemingly daily, it’s no longer such a challenge to find
excellent beef. A great roast chicken, though, is an altogether rarer
treat. I find myself agreeing with the immortal Lucius Beebe who felt
that “…a hot bird and a cold bottle” were essential
preconditions for a civilised night on the town.
Any cookery book will give you a foolproof recipe for roasting. Most recommend
around 20 mins per 500g plus an extra 20 at around 200C. This works well
as a rule of thumb. I check the internal temperature at the thickest part
of the thigh with a probe thermometer. 75C is supposed to be properly
cooked but I err short of that as the vital 15-20 minute rest allows the
meat to continue to cook. The long rest also solves the problem of the
thighs being undercooked while the breast is already drying out. To be
completely honest, I’m happiest when the meat is still slightly
pink at the bone but I realise I’m probably alone in this and, now
I’ve made the admission publicly, I’ll never get a job as
a cook at an old folks home.
Recipes differ on stuffing. I use a couple of onions but avoid lemons
or garlic. These are fine for occasions when a dull bird needs brightening
up but are death to a good stock. Finally, detach the breast skin by working
your hand up inside it. Get all the obvious jokes and innuendi
out of the way then pack in a good 50g of butter.
People love to slather butter and oil over the outside of the bird but
whenever I try it, it ends up in the bottom of the pan. I find that by
packing the butter under the skin, roasting the bird dry and lightly seasoned
and allowing a 20min rest, almost all the juice is retained. That which
escapes usually collects in the cavity.
Finally, I put the chicken on a rack in a roasting tin and strew stock
vegetables underneath before placing in the pre-heated oven.
For the purposes of this experiment the chicken was tested on my parents:
my mother, an All-Star, World-Class chicken-stretcher and my father, a
man who feels that money spent on other than red meat is entirely wasted.
Some of the juices that poured out of the cavity after resting were whipped
into a sauce with reduced vermouth and cream. It was served, with potatoes
roasted in duck fat and steamed broccoli.
It was Dad, arch-traditionalist and the kind of chap who still notices
such things, who remarked that leg and breast meat were more similar in
texture, colour and flavour than he was used to. Indeed, dammit, he was
right. The Gauloise displayed none of the usual poultry polarisation
wherein the breast tastes like overcooked white fish while the legs taste
like a greasy confit de vulture. Though I hate to use the phrase
so unimaginatively applied to everything from alligator to human flesh,
the whole bird, unmistakeably and triumphantly, ‘tasted just like
chicken’.
Chicken Stock
There was plenty of meat left on the carcase. Large and identifiable pieces
were reserved for sandwich use. Next, a careful picking-over of the carcase
yielded two further qualities of meat; dark, fatty, flavourful morsels
to enhance a cream of chicken soup and stringy, tendon laden, cartilaginous
material which went straight into a large stockpot. In honour of the battery
farming and ready meal industry, I refer to this as ‘Manually Recovered
Meat’.
I am a hopeless spendthrift with a complex surgical bypass of his organ
of moderation. In no other area could I be described as prudent or measured
but I admit, I’m obsessed with stocks.
Stock making has gained a bad rep over the years for which Mrs Beeton
must take a lot of the blame. She recommended an eternally boiling stockpot
into which everything from fishbones to breadcrusts could be thrown and
the resulting ‘sustaining broth’ used to extend other revoltingly
self-denying and joyless pap.
Making a good stock is not a begrudging duty of household economy, it’s
a rampant act of creation. While Mrs Beeton was wringing the last vestiges
of edible material out of the tea towels, Escoffier would spend days reducing
enormous quantities of flavourful meat into tarry concentrations. This
is not the humiliating extension of leftovers; it is the manly craft of
getting an entire ox into a demitasse.
The French have an expression for the last treats of the chicken, the
oysters, the winglets and so on… “les, sots l’y
laissent” which translates as “the bits the idiots leave”.
That sums up beautifully the contempt I have for those who ignore the
potential of stock.
The pan in which the chicken was roasted should be deglazed into the stockpot.
The plates on which it was carved and the knife can all be rinsed into
the pot too. The carcase is torn apart and added along with the roasted
stock veg from the pan, freshly chopped onions, leeks, carrots and celery
(neither peeled nor trimmed). Any extra wings or carcases should be added
here for maximum gelatinousness, along with the giblets. Separate and
reserve the liver. Add about four litres of water and bring to a gentle
simmer.
I’ve got to confess, I just don’t get the thing about skimming
stock. Who needs a perfectly clarified consommé in a modern household
kitchen? Were I Jewish or Japanese, crystal clarity would matter. If I
were creating limpid aspics in a 1930’s hotel kitchen, scum would
be my enemy but most of that stuff floating to the surface looks like
a healthy chicken product and, in my kitchen, gets guiltlessly stirred
back in.
After about 45 minutes of simmering the stock can be strained off. There
should be around two litres but if there’s substantially more it
can be reduced. It should by now be straw yellow, slightly cloudy, full
of clean chicken and vegetable flavours but without the fowly ghastliness
of overcooking. It should also be partially jellied on cooling enabling
the fat to be removed as a single piece. The exhausted remains of chicken
and veg should be discarded though Mrs Beeton would, of course, reuse
them for another gallon of decreasingly entertaining gruel.
Leftovers: The Chicken Sandwich
A chicken sandwich is an essentially leftover dish. It is usually constructed
from the leavings of a feast and is often consumed with a stinking hangover.
It is, therefore, a serious and medically important comfort food and should
not be messed with.
The heaviest, moistest wholemeal bread is vital. One, thin slice should
be smeared with mayonnaise the other with unsalted butter then strewn
with a thick layer of the best leftover chicken. Finally a dressing of
Maldon salt, left in large crystals rather than crushed in the fingers
to create an enlivening crunch.
Neat Stock: Cream of Chicken Soup
With two litres of well-flavoured and jellied chicken stock there is a
tough choice to make. I have several ice trays that will each take a litre
in forty cubes. Four cubes, made up with a litre of water create the base
for a couple of servings of any soup. This would give the option of producing
twenty double helpings of soup from our one original chicken - impressive,
but perhaps too thrifty.
As a child I was always fed Campbell’s cream of chicken soup whenever
I was feeling a little under the weather. A luxury take on a comfort food,
it’s worth turning over a whole half litre of our neat stock to
its manufacture.
In one pan, heat the 500ml of stock and 250ml of thick cream. A clove
of garlic and a bay leaf are optional but splendid additions. Hold at
an incredibly gentle simmer for five minutes then remove from the heat.
In a second pan melt 40g of butter and stir in a 40g of plain flour to
make a roux. Cook through for a few minutes to remove any floury
taste then whisk in the warm stock and cream mixture a little at a time.
Bring back to just below the boil and simmer for five minutes. Start tasting
and seasoning with Maldon salt, fresh-ground white pepper, extra cream
or butter and a subliminal hint of grated nutmeg. Chop and shred the second
grade of picked chicken meat and stir in to finish.
I’m usually all in favour of medical advances but I nurture a quiet
regret that our children’s generation will never know the pleasure
of drinking cream of chicken soup while sitting in bed, watching afternoon
telly and recovering from mumps.
The Joy of Stocks
I live in mortal terror of the ‘mixed vegetable’ soup. Boiling
up the chopped remains of the week’s veg with a stock cube should
never take place outside of a student flat. Call me finicky but I have
real problems with food where it’s not immediately apparent that
it hasn’t been previously eaten. The real beauty of having a reserve
of great stock is that any vegetable available can be honoured with proper
soup. A proper soup has two main ingredients, one bland, one flavourful,
united by a beautifully balanced but diffident stock and ennobled with
cream, cheese or some other luxurious drizzling.
Leek and potato, carrot and yellow lentil, potato and onion, chorizo
and chickpea, pea and ham: all of these can be yours to command with but
four cubes of frozen stock and 20 mins work with pans and blender. I won’t
embarrass you with recipes. This sort of soupmaking is a calling rather
than a transferable skill. Plan soup for lunch for the next two weeks,
start simple and build. Order a home delivery organic veg box and in a
fortnight you’ll be able to write your own recipe book.
On days when you tire of soup experimentation or seriously need to impress
a date, the carefully husbanded cache of cubes can be turned to impromptu
risottos and as a bonus, a single cube can be dropped into any deglazing
sauce to its ultimate benefit.
Les, sots l’y laissent
Remember the liver? There’s only one with each set of giblets but
they are too distinctive in flavour to use in the stock. Trim away the
tough ducts and put it straight into a pot in the freezer. Each new chicken
adds another layer of liver and once you have six it’s time for
a parfait or to flash fry in butter as a garnish to a summer salad.
Finally, any recovered fat can be rendered and kept in a jar as a refrigerator
staple.
Conclusion
I’m not suggesting that anyone really follow this regime step by
step. It requires more time and effort than most people are prepared to
put in and, frankly, one can only take so much chicken. On the other hand,
it does illustrate some important fundamentals.
- It’s hard to find free range and organic chickens in the UK because people refuse to pay such a high price for them, yet a good bird, though it costs as much per serving as the best filet, will produce more good food and ultimately more pleasure.
- Chicken is too often used as a conveniently bland canvas for other flavours. A good bird doesn’t need to be tricked out with clever flavourings.
- Avoiding assertive flavourings means a quality stock.
- …Which, when used neat and with subtle accompaniment is an unadulterated distillation of chicken flavour.
- It has a meaty, filling quality but, as it’s cooked quickly and gently, there’s no overwhelming fowliness. This is the traditional classic stock, rich yet neutral. This increases the variety of uses when diluted in soups and sauces.
- The high quality of the meat means that a greater proportion is pleasant to eat. More meat per bird, more leftovers, better sandwiches.
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