Saffron Roast Chicken

Simple, simple.  Ghee, saffron, thyme, salt, pepper ... 

... and a Happy Lil' Homestead chicken.  That's all you're going to need.

Okay, garlic and rosemary are nice.  But sometimes you want different.  That's when I usually call up the saffron.  And this chicken is amazing.  Different, in a very good way.  I even used the carcass for stock, and the stock was wonderful. 

Really, there is nothing like a roast chicken for a winter's meal.  A luscious local chicken makes the whole thing even better.  For that, go to the Northwest Food Hub and check out the Happy Lil' Homestead freezer, unless you've had the foresight to order chickens from the Antos family and have your own freezer stocked. 

ROAST SAFFRON CHICKEN

One whole Happy Lil' Homestead chicken (3-1/2 pounds or so)
1/4 cup ghee or butter
2 teaspoons dried thyme, or 2 tablespoons fresh thyme
1 teaspoon saffron threads
1 teaspoon coarse salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

In a small bowl, mix the ghee (you may need to let it soften a bit), thyme, saffron, salt and pepper, making a paste.

Put the chicken in a roasting pan, and turn the oven on to 325 degrees.

Loosen the skin of the chicken, and, using a teaspoon, insert the ghee mixture under the skin, including around the thigh/leg area.  If you like, you can rub a little of the mixture on top of the skin.

Roast the chicken for two hours.  It's done when a thermometer stuck inside the thigh/leg joint reads at least 160 degrees (I like 170, but 160 is accepted as safe), and juices run clear.

You'll have a beautiful golden chicken for a beautiful, golden meal. 

Serves 4-6

Homemade Grassfed Pork Sausage

Turn your sausage into patties or meatballs or any form you wish!  It's versatile.

We are blessed with an abundance of grassfed meat producers in our local area.
Baron Farms is a special favorite of mine because of the quality of their products, their philosophy of food and farming, and their extraordinary friendliness and helpfulness.  We're also enjoying products from Pure Country Pork, although just the occasional bit of bacon or ham ... while they don't add synthetic preservatives, Pure Country Pork grain feeds their hogs, whereas Baron Farms grazes their pigs on grass.

Pre-made sausage is, of course, available.  But for many years I experimented with various sausage recipes and at last came up with the perfect recipe.  It will meet all your high expectations, and even has optional ingredients you can vary to suit your mood or the season. 

Tuck a couple of Baron Farms' pastured eggs alongside these sausage patties, and you'll know you've come home at last.
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HOMEMADE GRASSFED PORK SAUSAGE

Place in a medium bowl:

2 pounds grassfed pork, ground

Mix in a small bowl and sprinkle over the pork, working it in thoroughly with your hands.

1/4 cup crumbled dried sage, or 1/2 cup chopped fresh sage
2-1/2 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper
2 teaspoons crushed fennel seed
1 teaspoon dried marjoram
1 teaspoon dried basil
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper

Add any of the following optional ingredients if you wish.  They will change the whole personality of your sausage in wonderful ways.  Use all or only some of them.  You can't go wrong.

2 cloves garlic, minced
1 small onion, finely chopped
1 apple, peeled and finely chopped
1 teaspoon smoked paprika

When the spices (and any optional ingredients) are mixed in really well, form the sausage into patties or meatballs, and fry in a large skillet 'til cooked through, turning occasionally to brown evenly.  No pink should be left. 

You can freeze the cooked sausage patties or meatballs, and reheat them gently in a small covered skillet with a little water.  The uncooked sausage can also be frozen, but I like to cook it all up at once so I can reheat it quickly with no pre-thawing.

Crockafeather Leekie

My last two free-range chickens (will order more from the Northwest Food Hub!) achieved thawed-ness at a very awkward time.  So I put them in the slow cooker, with some leeks and white wine.  Seeing them there, I thought, "Cockaleekie!" and so Googled.

Cockaleekie is Scottish.  Though Scotland's cuisine sometimes can seem a bit perverse, nonetheless the country fascinates me, with its lochs, remote highland moors, wheeling curlews, and rambling old houses.  But I digress.

It seems a certain Ronnie Clydesdale (how can you not trust that name?) from the Ubiquitous Chip restaurant in Glasgow has a recipe for Cockaleekie. It's probably authentic, but seems really plain.  

Wikipedia says that historically, prunes (!) were added to boost Cockaleekie broth's nutritional qualities.

Another website is so Scottish, it has an online game you can play called "Whack a Haggis."  Right.  Their Cockaleekie recipe calls for celery, bay leaf, and optional avocado. They also mention something called "Feather Fowlie," a soup finished with egg yolks and cream. 

Having picked up some duck eggs at the Northwest Food Hub, and having Pure Eire heavy cream to hand, a Feather Fowlie/Cockaleekie hybridization is emerging.   Also, thyme and bacon seem to be Feather Fowlie options. And nutmeg!  And it's topped with julienned prunes.  I love how prunes keep popping up in these recipes.

Back in the kitchen, I drafted a recipe based on my research, and added herbs, spices and prunes to the slow cooker.

The finished soup was deeply satisfying.  And so a blog post was born.


CROCKAFEATHER LEEKIE

For chicken and stock:

2 small free-range chickens
4 small or 2 large leeks, white
   and light green parts only, sliced
1/2 cup white wine
4 cups water
4 prunes
2 teaspoons dried thyme
2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon pepper
1/8 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1 bay leaf

To finish the soup:

1-1/2 cups sliced carrots
1-1/2 cups sliced celery
1-1/2 cups diced onion
1/8 teaspoon crushed red pepper

3 cups of the cooked chicken, cut into smallish pieces for soup

1/2 cup Pure Eire cream
2 duck egg (or three chicken egg) yolks

1 cup sliced bacon
1 clove garlic, minced

2 or 3 prunes, julienned (cut in slivers)


Place all chicken and stock ingredients in 6-quart slow cooker.  Cook on high for 4 to 5 hours or on low for 8 to 10 hours.  Remove chickens from cooker and place them on a platter.  Strain the broth and chill.  Remove chicken meat from bones and set aside or refrigerate.

To finish and serve the soup, skim fat from broth.  Heat broth to simmering in a large soup pot.  Add carrots, celery, onion and crushed red pepper.  Simmer about 45 minutes or until vegetables are tender.

In a small skillet, fry bacon and garlic 'til crispy.  Set aside.

In small bowl, whisk together cream and egg yolks.

Turn off heat under soup pot.  Quickly stir in cream/egg yolk mixture.  Ladle soup into bowls and top with bacon and julienned prunes.

Taste the Scottish history!

Makes 4 very hearty servings.

Bone Broth in the Slow Cooker

I've been picking up grassfed beef soup bones here and there for a while (okay, a couple of years) and finally got 'em all out of the freezer the other day.  Inspired by bone broth makers all over the internet, and with the hope of a hot, nourishing collagen grog, I was (once again) suprised at how easy it all was.  And from first to last sip, the bone broth was, indeed, wonderful!

A diversionary note:  If you have wonderfully marrow-y bones like this, you can actually roast them 'til the marrow is crackly and bubbly, then eat the marrow.  I tasted it, and it was heavenly.  Believe it or not, marrow bones, served with a cool and crispy parsley salad, are a hot ticket item at a high-end restaurant in New York City.

Okay, back to the straight and marrow.  I'll keep this as brief as possible, because there are recipes all over creation for this stuff.

BONE BROTH IN THE SLOW COOKER
These amounts make roughly 3 quarts of broth.

You'll need:

• Grassfed beef bones (about 4 pounds)
• Carrots
• Onion
• Celery
• Apple cider vinegar
• Bay leaves
• Salt and pepper

Thaw your bones.  Rinse them well to remove any bone dust.

Heat oven to 400 degrees.  Arrange bones on a baking sheet as shown.  At the last minute, I decided NOT to use the Silpat, so removed it and placed the bones directly on the baking sheet.

Roast for 20 minutes or so, then check to see how things are going.  The marrow should be sizzling, and any meat on the bones should be getting brown.  Keep roasting 'til things look nice and crispy and brown.  You can use unroasted bones, but roasting adds flavor and color to the finished broth.

While bones are roasting, cut up a few carrots, an onion, and some celery.  This is optional, but will make the broth tastier, I think.  Put the veggies in the crockpot, and add a couple of bay leaves and a few grinds of pepper.

Place bones in slow cooker.  Add water to a depth of at least an inch over the bones.  I used a 6-quart slow cooker for the bones shown.  Be sure to use quantities of bones, veggies and water that keep your slow cooker around 3/4 full ... that's what most manufacturers recommend, but mine was a tad more full than that and worked fine.  But don't fill it to the brim.  You'll need room for the simmering action.

Add two tablespoons of apple cider vinegar to the slow cooker.  The wisdom here is that the acid will help release the calcium and other goodies from the bones.

Cook on low heat for 12 to 24 hours.  I cooked mine for 15 hours with great results.  I had read that I should skim the broth periodically, but honestly, there was nothing to skim.  If you have anything floating that doesn't look nice, you could skim it off.

At this point you have a decision to make.  You can remove the bones, strain the broth, then put the bones BACK in the slow cooker, add more water, and keep making broth (for days, even!) until the bones begin to dissolve.  I elected not to do that.

With tongs, pick out the bones and place them on a platter to cool and discard.  Set up a strainer over a heat-proof casserole large enough to hold your broth, then ladle out broth into it.  When the broth level gets low enough, pour the rest of the slow cooker contents into the strainer.  Remove strainer, and stir a teaspoon or two of salt into your broth.  You can also wait and salt the broth to taste when you use it in soups or for drinking.

Cover and chill the broth.  Remove solid fat from top, then freeze broth in containers of choice.  If using glass, leave room for freezing broth to expand.

 And don't forget to heat up a mug of broth for yourself!  You've earned it.

Grassfed Chuck Roast, with Leeks and Fennel, in the Slow Cooker

Remember Crockpots?  Who doesn't have a Crockpot story to tell:  "It tipped over in the car on the way to a potluck!  The beans hadn't even begun to get soft after 12 hours of cooking!"  My personal stories are more along the lines of special dinners being ruined because the slow-cooked entree was ... ah ... not so much cooked as poached in a sea of simmered sludge.

But no more.  Crockpots (generically known as slow cookers) are back with a vengeance.  After all, we're all busy.  We still want, as we did in days of Crockpot yore, to return home on a blustery fall evening to the savory smells of a dinner that is ready to eat.

Creative cooks have worked hard to achieve this renaissance in slow cooking.  Having been intrigued by a number of their cookbooks, I decided to jump into the fray with Liana Krissoff's Secrets of Slow Cooking, and Costco's offering of a sleek, modern, 7-quart Crockpot. 

The ancient 4-quart Crockpot I received as a wedding present in 1978 still works fine, but I was interested in the larger capacity, and ... the new digital controls!  Essentially the same as older models (high and low settings), but now the hours count down so you know just how much time has elapsed, and when the hours you set are reached, the unit switches to "keep warm" mode.

For this, my first slow cooking foray in a couple of decades,  I decided to stick with a simple beef dish.  I thawed a Thundering Hooves grassfed chuck roast (Blue Valley Meats bought the inventory when Thundering Hooves went out of business) and checked out a slew of recipes in books and online.

I drafted up a unique recipe of my own, but when I started to prepare it, I found that my carrots had frozen in the vegetable bin, and I had no onions but did have a fennel bulb.  Hence, the recipe I intended became this recipe instead.  And when, five hours into the cooking process, I discovered two large leeks lurking in the fridge, I sliced those up and tossed them in.  The result was so amazing that I'll definitely re-create this re-created recipe next time. 

SLOW COOKED CHUCK ROAST WITH LEEKS AND FENNEL

A splendid, satisfying winter dish.  I served it with a deep green kale salad with dried cranberries and walnuts, and spaghetti squash.  Winter dinners don't get much better than this.

One 4-1/2 pound grassfed chuck roast (or smaller roasts to total about 4 pounds)

3 tomatoes, diced, or a can of diced tomatoes
1 7-ounce jar or can tomato paste
3/4 cup red wine
1 head garlic, peeled and roughly chopped (about 10 cloves)
1 fennel bulb, diced
2 large leeks, sliced (or put them in at cooking midpoint*)
1/4 cup oregano
1/4 cup thyme
2 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper
2 teaspoons smoked paprika
1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper
5 bay leaves

Cut roast into even pieces (I cut mine into three chunks) and place them in the slow cooker.

Mix all remaining ingredients in a medium bowl.  Pour the red wine into the empty tomato paste jar, cap and shake to rinse all the last bits of tomato paste out.  Pour the sauce mixture over the roast, cover and cook on low for 8-10 hours or high for 4-5 hours.

My roast (4-1/2 pounds) was tenderly, meltingly perfect, at 8 hours.  I removed the meat to a casserole, then poured the sauce into a deep saucepan, where I used my immersion blender to turn it into the most amazingly delicious (and starch-free) gravy. 

This recipe easily would serve 8 people.

*It's a myth that removing the slow cooker's cover during cooking releases epic amounts of heat.  You could even leave the lid off and get great results.  So, poke, prod and add to your heart's content!

Creamy Lemon, Garlic and Tarragon Chicken

 

Mr. Eating the Scenery once posited  that if tuna could be called Chicken of the Sea, it only stood to reason that chicken could be called Tuna of the Land.  Of course, this is the same man who wondered, upon observing this sign outside Yakima, a nearby city, if there was a corresponding sign outside Palm Springs billing it as the Yakima of California.  You can see why I like to keep Mr. ETS well nourished.

My intentions for these two free-range tuna ... er, chickens, started along the thyme and rosemary line.  But sunshine, bobbing robins, miscellaneous birdsong, bright green tarragon springing up outside ... diverse factors converged to make it obvious that something quite different was called for on this bright (albeit chilly) Spring day.  Herewith, the result.
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CREAMY LEMON, GARLIC AND TARRAGON CHICKEN
  
Long ago my mom taught me to cut up a chicken.  Later, my youthful, preppy self learned that you can buy chickens already cut up!  Now that I have reverted to local, free-range chickens, which come to me whole, I find that chicken-cutting-up skills, apparently, never leave you. 

2 lovely, free-range, local chickens  (mine were each about 3 pounds)
Coconut oil or your fat of choice
1 cup chopped tarragon
1 organic lemon, thinly sliced, seeds removed
8 cloves garlic, crushed or roughly chopped
1 cup white wine
Salt and freshly ground pepper

Pan juices from roasted chicken
1/2 cup Pure Eire organic Jersey cream
Fresh tarragon

Cut up chickens into leg/thigh pieces and breast pieces.   I left the breasts whole because I don't have a cleaver.  Put backs, necks, wings (if they're scrawny) into a plastic bag and freeze to make stock later.

Season chicken pieces with salt and pepper.

Heat oven to 450 degrees.

In large Dutch oven, heat coconut oil.  Brown leg/thigh pieces on both sides and remove to plate.  Brown breasts on skin sides, then turn upright in pan.  Pour in white wine.  Scatter half the garlic and tarragon over the breasts, and top with half the lemon slices.  Place leg/thigh pieces on and around the breast pieces, and top with remaining garlic, tarragon, and lemon slices.

Cover, and bake for 50 minutes.  Check internal temperature of breasts; when it is 165 degrees, chicken is done.  Lift chicken pieces from the Dutch oven and place them in a shallow casserole.  If you've left the breasts whole, remove the meat from them for easy serving.

Pour chicken juices through a strainer into a suitably sized saucepan.  Heat to a simmer, reduce if desired, stir in cream, heat through and pour over chicken pieces.  Top with fresh tarragon sprigs or chopped tarragon.

Serve with optimally prepared, fresh, local vegetables of your choice.

Makes 8 to 10 hearty servings.  And don't forget to make stock with the backs, wings and bones!

Roast Local Duck

Last November, I picked up my turkey from Russ and Laurie at CG Ranch in Benton City.  It was really cold that darkening afternoon.  Later that night, the first snow of the year would blanket the land.  My friend Michele, several other customers and I were standing around waiting as the turkeys were weighed.  Russ's coveralls were bloodstained from dealing with the turkeys.

Then Russ said, "I have extra ducks if anyone wants one."  Instantly, I knew I had to have a duck.  Visions of a crispy, roasted duck floated before my eyes.  I had never cooked a duck, but in that visceral, rural, meaty moment, inexperience didn't seem any sort of obstacle.  A duck wasn't just meat, it was game meat, something our pioneer ancestors, nay, even primitive man had pursued, slain, roasted over smoky fires, and been nourished by!  (Yes, I know Russ raised the duck, but still.  Ducks have history!) 

And so the duck, wrapped and tucked in the freezer through Thanksgiving, Christmas, and beyond, was never far from my mind.  I Googled.  I read cookbooks.  I talked to people about ducks.  It seemed that ducks were regarded as problematic.  They have lots of fat.  They should be massaged for quite some time before cooking to soften the fat.  They should be poached before roasting.  They should never be poached before roasting!  They should be trussed.  They should be split.  The wings should be removed.  The wings should be left on and tucked.

A few days ago, I put the duck in the fridge to thaw, and it did.  I now had no choice but to Take Action.  I found the recipe I thought would see me though, and it did, splendidly.  We enjoyed a luscious duck dinner tonight, and with less work than I had feared. 

As I write this, I have about two cups of boned duck meat waiting to be made into a curry, about two quarts of luscious, savory duck stock, and a cup and a half of beautiful, golden, rendered duck fat.

All my duck dreams came true, and I am now a duck fan.  I hope you will be, too.
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ROAST LOCAL DUCK

I am indebted to the blog The Hungry Mouse for the excellent instructions and photographs.  I followed the instructions except for the following adaptations:

Rather than scoring the duck's fat, I snipped it in a crosshatch pattern with the tips of kitchen shears.  I cut the wings off, and laid them beside the duck on a rack in a shallow roasting pan.  I salted the duck inside and out, rubbing the salt in.  I did not tie the legs.

My duck was 3.5 pounds, and I was worried about over-roasting, given the recipe's four-hour roasting time for a larger duck.  So I raised the oven temperature to 325 degrees.  The duck roasted in exactly two hours, and I turned it over once after the first hour.  At the two-hour mark, I tested the internal temperature in a thick part of the meat, and it was 165.  I removed the duck to a small, shallow casserole, basted it with the sauce, and returned it to the oven for just about 10 minutes at 400 degrees.  Shiny, fragrant, crackly, perfection.

My sauce adaptation included smaller amounts for the smaller duck:

1/4 cup molasses
2 tablespoons orange juice
1/4 teaspoon Thai red curry paste
1/4 teaspoon salt
A 1-inch knob of ginger, minced
Grated rind of one organic orange

Combine all ingredients in a small pan and simmer over low heat until reduced to a syrupy state.

The 3.5-pound duck served two people with nice sliced pieces, and the two drumsticks would probably constitute another serving.  There are also the smaller pieces of meat taken from the bones later.

Here is my lovely duck fat!  Apparently, it is the French secret to glorious fried potatoes.

Green Curry of Asparagus, Spring Onion and Fresh Garlic

Although only two vegetable vendors were to be found at today's Pasco Farmer's Market, luscious spring onions, radishes, asparagus, and fresh garlic were on offer. All this greenness made me feel like making something green. Someone once told me that when you wear clothing that is all the same color, you feel calmer. I feel calmer when my ingredients match, too.

I'm really pretty excited about how good this dish turned out. You can see that the sauce would suit itself to a variety of other vegetables and meats. The garlic was so fresh that I just sliced the whole head without peeling.

If you don't have mint, use cilantro or basil, or just skip the herb. For fish sauce, you could use soy sauce, but it won't have the same flavor, of course. I didn't have any limes, but if I had, I'd have squeezed a bit of lime juice over everything.

And if you don't have free-range chicken, deranged chicken will do.

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GREEN CURRY OF ASPARAGUS, SPRING ONION AND FRESH GARLIC

1-1/2 pounds asparagus, trimmed and cut into 2-inch lengths
4 large (2-inch diameter) spring onions, white and light green parts only, sliced
1 head very fresh garlic, sliced (or a couple of garlic cloves, chopped)
3 cups local, free-range chicken, boned, cooked and cut into 1-inch chunks

1 small (6-ounce or so) can of coconut milk
1 tablespoon Thai green curry paste
1 tablespoon Thai fish sauce
1 tablespoon sucanat or brown sugar

1/3 cup or so fresh mint, chopped

In large skillet, pour coconut milk and whisk 'til smooth. Turn heat to medium, and add curry paste. Cook, whisking, 'til sauce is hot and bubbly. Add fish sauce and sucanat, cook another minute or two.

Toss in all the veggies and the chicken pieces and cook, stirring often, until the veggies are crisp-tender. Asparagus should still be bright green.

Mix in mint and serve with rice or couscous.

This makes a light but flavorful sauce for everyday meals; if you want a richer dish, and you'd like the vegetables to be really saucy (like in a Thai restaurant), double the sauce recipe.

Makes 4 very hearty servings.