There’s an awful conceit abroad the interwebs these days that seems to be encouraging more people than it should to title themselves “freelance food writers”. Perhaps you’ve seen it in the “About” section of a variety of the blogs you frequent? Coincidentally, there is an expression, “facebook hot”, in use among the youth (I know this because I snuck a peak into my sister-in-law’s Cosmopolitan the other day) to describe someone whose picture they have seen on said social networking site but found to be disappointing in the flesh. I flag both these things in order to highlight the little-known fact that the internet is full of charlatans, liars, and duplicity.

However, while it might be pretty straightforward to make oneself look good in a photo, masquerading as an accomplished writer is rather more of a feat. It strikes me that in order to be a food writer, the first pre-requisite is an ability to write well, not, as is apparently the common misapprehension, an interest or knowledge of food. Secondly, in order to be a freelance writer one must earn at least some portion of one’s living from writing, and, therefore, have a track record of getting published by others, instead of just self-publishing. Without both of these (and the former must come ahead of the latter), one is simply a blogger or hobbyist. [It's important to note that there is absolutely nothing wrong with being a hobbyist blogger. We are definitely and contentedly hobbyists, deriving a good deal more expendable income from fluff-encrusted nickels and dimes found down the back of our couch than from our blog.] The point is that, even though most of us would love to get paid for doing stuff we do during our spare time, just because I might know how to use a lawn-mower and an edge-trimmer, exercising this knowledge in my back yard does not make me a “freelance landscaper”.

Those of you familiar with our body of work on this blog may recall previous references to Jim Harrison. Author of such novellas and books as Legends of the Fall, Sun Dog, and Dalva, Harrison has been compared in style and sensibility to such greats as Hemingway and Faulkner. In spite of these comparisons and the adaption of his work into high profile movies, like most successful writers he is modest about his work, and declares, in his often-hilarious collection of essays about food, The Raw & The Cooked, that, apart from his daughter, the only thing he has created that he is truly proud of is an annual spring-time dish of roasted quails stuffed with foie gras and leeks. Immediately, he avers that this does not make him a recipe writer, let alone a cookbook author.

If such an abundantly talented man can be so modest, might not we all be able to learn something from him about humility? We are all prone to attacks of hubris (take this early example of such from yours truly), and there are no real consequences other than self-delusion, but there is something rather saddening about declaring yourself a “food writer” on your blog and then immediately failing to demonstrate any of the requisite literary abilities in inept ramblings. Just because he was told he could be whatever he wanted, Jim Harrison didn’t automatically become 135lbs – except in his mind, and there are many things in our all minds best kept to ourselves.

Do you ever wish you had a secret power? I don’t mean like some stupid superhero who can fly, make it rain, or look great in a unitard. I mean like a gerbil’s ability to store tasty bits in its cheeks for later, or a tiger’s ability to eat 30lbs of wild boar at a single sitting, that kind of thing. No? Hmm, well, I do, and sometimes, in my more reflective moments, I find myself wishing I was blessed with a gizzard. After all, would not my diet be expanded and my ‘intestinal transit’ made smoother if I possessed a specialized second stomach that enabled me to grind up and enjoy commonly indigestible foods?

Having recently questioned a sample group of poultry, reptiles and fish (the only three genera of animals that possess gizzards) about this, I can tell you that 9 out of the 10 chickens surveyed credited their gizzards with giving free reign to their more fibrous dietary proclivities. In the course of my survey, I also learned that while addiction and dependency issues brought on by knowingly being bred for slaughter are a big problem for young roosters, the greater worry among concerned hens is the utter disregard for their gizzards demonstrated by the carnivorous public.

“That’s my son’s (second) stomach they’re throwing them away!”, cock-a-doodle-doed one plump mother of 700 chicks, while another squawked that, “they (humans) should be so lucky to have a gizzard of their own. Ingrates!”

Chastened by these plaintive cries, and encouraged to make a salad we ate at a fabulous gastropub in Lille, France, over New Year’s, we recently explored the potential of confit-ing chicken gizzards. We found that nothing could be easier and more delicious, nor could this preparation be more suited to making the best out of what is a potentially tough part of the giblets.

We served our gizzards and some similarly confit’d chicken livers over a green salad with some boiled eggs, just as we had eaten it in Lille, but an alternative preparation typical to the Dordogne region of France, especially the town of Perigeux/Perigord, serves the gizzards over a lettuce salad with walnuts and croutons, which would be just as good, no doubt.

This meal was fabulous and so easy to make. It could wow dinner guests and, if you can find some cheap legs, will cost next to nothing per plate.  Crispy skin, sweet sauce, creamy side dish – what else could you ask for?

DUCK LEGS WITH PEAR, CURRANT AND BALSAMIC SAUCE (serves 2)

• 2 juicy, deliciously plump duck legs
• 3/4 cup, white wine
• **2 cups stock (chicken or veggie)
• 3 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
• 1 bay leaf
• 6 whole stems of thyme
• 3 shallots, minced
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 1/2 cup dried craisins/dried cranberries (currants would work too)
• 2 teaspoons sugar (optional)
• 2 pears, peeled and chopped into squares

**RE: Amount of Chicken Stock: You may need more or a little less stock depending on the size of your dutch oven/pot.  The key to keeping the skin of the duck legs crispy is to not allow the level of braising liquid to go over the skin.***

What to do:

1. Trim some of the excess fat off the leg. Score the fat on the duck legs to create “diamonds” (meaning, cut 3 lines one way and 3 intersecting lines the other way – but do not cut deeply into the meat, only score the fat).  Rub salt  and pepper all over the legs.
2. In a dutch oven or heavy-bottomed pot, cook the duck legs, skin/fat side down until lightly browned, about 3 or 4 minutes.  Turn over and brown on the other side for one minute.  Remove legs and allow to rest on a plate for a few moments.
3. Add garlic and shallots along with a bit of olive oil (if not enough fat rendered out of the duck legs) and allow to cook for one minute. Deglaze the pot with the wine and add the balsamic. Scrape up the bits off the bottom of the pan with a wooden spoon and allow the wine to reduce for a minute or two.
4. Add the thyme, pears and craisins and stir.  Put the legs back, skin side up, into the pan along with any accumulated juices. Add the stock, but do not allow the liquid level to go above the duck leg skin. You don’t want to lose the crispy skin. Bring to a boil and then lower to a gentle simmer. Cook at a low simmer for 1 1/2 hours, uncovered.
5. Take the legs out and skim as much of the accumulated fat off the sauce – a lot will have risen to the top!
6. Run the sauce through a sieve and smush down all the good bits (cooked pear, garlic, shallots) to get as much of the flavor out as possible.  Return the sauce to the pot, add the sugar (leave out if you feel it is sweet enough!) and boil sauce for 3 minutes to thicken it.
7. Plate the duck with the sauce and a side of celeriac mash (if you wish).

Usually if I’m trying to make an authentic dish, I always try to make it just that – authentic. That means that I want to use traditional ingredients and I attempt to research the many traditional ways to make that specific dish. I then decide how to combine the best bits from all those traditional recipes and create one recipe. Well, this traditional, old Castillian dish is always made with almonds – more specifically the beautiful Marcona almonds which are bigger and sweeter and more delicious (to me) than the almonds we know here in America. As Penelope Casas writes, “(Pollo en Pepitoria) combines all of the ingredients most often associated with Spanish cooking – garlic, saffron, sherry and almonds – into an unusually savory sauce.” DOH! As I began cooking, I could have sworn I had a fresh bag of almonds to work with only to find that it was a bag of fresh hazelnuts. Could I swap? Yeah… could I call it authentic on my blog… nope. What I can tell you is substituting hazelnuts in this dish for almonds does not actually change the flavor all that much. But the thing that I really decided to do to completely different from the traditional dish was to actually coat the pieces of chicken in hazelnuts and lightly saute them until crispy on the outside and finished them in the oven to keep it moist inside. You all like it moist, right? But, dear readers, you must know that traditionally you would just roll pieces of chicken with the bone in in some seasoned flour and saute them just like that in olive oil.

So, do I have a right to really call this dish Pollo en Pepitoria? Probably not. Do I hate when idiots like Rachael Ray and Sandra Lee completely remake an authentic classic an continue calling it by it’s authentic name but it doesn’t even resemble the original dish? YES. Am I being a bit of a hypocrite right now – uh-huh. Do I care? Not really. It’s only because I’ve been wanting to post this recipe for about 2 months now and it’s 75 degrees and sunny and I want to get outside. Creative juices ain’t a-flowing.

So here’s Pollo en Pepitoria “Kinda”. That’s as creative as it’s gonna get today, kids. Have a beautiful weekend!

If you’re interested, please check out one of our favorite blogs about Spain, all things Spanish and life in Spain – Notes from Spain – a few years ago they posted a recipe for Pollo en Pepitoria.

POLLO EN PEPITORIA “KINDA” – CHICKEN IN A SAFFRON, FINO AND HAZELNUT SAUCE (serves 6)

Ingredients:

• 6 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
• 1 cup flour (seasoned with a bit of salt)
• 2 eggs, beaten + tablespoon of water
• 1 1/2 to 2 cups chopped hazelnuts (to coat chicken) + 1/4 cup of finely ground hazelnuts (to add to sauce)
• olive oil or vegetable oil
• 1 onion, chopped
• 2 cloves of garlic, minced or sliced
• 1 carrot, chopped
• 1/4 cup of dry sherry (fino)
• 1 bay leaf
• 3/4 cup chicken broth
• pinch of fresh grated nutmeg
• pinch of saffron
• salt and pepper
• Optional: 2 hard-boiled eggs, chopped, for garnish

What to do:

1. Heat your oven up to 425 degrees and season your chicken breasts with salt and pepper.
2. Make sure you slightly crush or run a sharp knife through your hazelnuts (the 1 1/2 to 2 cups called for to coat the chicken) in order to make sure they are able to stick to the chicken breasts. Have your ‘coating station’ ready by putting flour on the first plate, the beaten egg mixed with water on the second plate and the chopped hazelnuts spread out on the third plate.
3. Heat up about 1/4 inch of oil in an oven-safe pan or skillet on medium heat. Dip each chicken breast first in the flour (dust off any major excess), then the egg and finally roll around in the crushed hazelnuts. Add to your hot oil and cook on each side for about 1 to 2 minutes on each side. You want the hazelnuts to seal on to the chicken, but not to burn. Check after a minute and then, if necessary, continue to saute for another 30 seconds or so. If there’s not enough room in your pan to cook all the chicken breasts at once (don’t overcrowd!!), do it in batches and just reserve the chicken on the side until all are sauteed.
4. When the chicken has been cooked on both sides and the hazelnuts have adhered, put in your 425 degree oven and allow to cook for another 10-13 minutes, depending on the thickness of your chicken. If the chicken is done before you sauce, just remove from oven and allow to chill out on the side for a bit. It’s ok if it gets cool.



5. Make your sauce by adding the chopped onion, garlic and carrot to some olive oil in a pan and allow to saute on medium to medium-low for about 4 or 5 minutes till they get a bit soft.
6. After they cook till they are a bit softer, add your fino and scrape up some of the bits on the bottom of the pan. After about a minute, add your chicken broth, nutmeg, saffron, bay leaf and a pinch of salt and pepper. Simmer for 10 minutes.



7. While the vegetables are busy getting soft, in a blender or food processor (or with a good old mallet), blitz the 1/4 cup of hazelnuts till finely ground… I mean finely kids! Remove to a bowl until they are needed.
8. Optional: Boil two eggs for 8 minutes to hard-boil. When done, remove and place in cold water, allowing them to cool. De-shell and chop up for the garnish.
9. When 10 minutes or so has passed and you’ve tested the carrots for softness, REMOVE THE BAY LEAF and add everything from the pan to a blender or food processor. Blitz this mixture until smooth. Add the blitzed sauce back to the pan and keep warm on low-medium heat. Add the finely ground hazelnuts to the sauce and stir in – this will act as a thickener.

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10. Add your hazelnut-coasted chicken breast to the sauce and place back in your oven for 4 minutes to allow the chicken to come back to temperature if necessary. When it’s out of the oven, sprinkle the top with the chopped hard-boiled egg and enjoy!

Check out these other posts you may enjoy:

• WATERCRESS & RICOTTA RAVIOLI WITH A RADICCHIO BUTTER SAUCE
• GNOCCHI DI PATATE WITH A BROWN BUTTER, SAGE, BREADCRUMB SAUCE
• ITALIAN-STYLE SLOW ROASTED PORK SHOULDER WITH SALSA VERDE
• Truffled Butter: A Prince Among Ideas
• Pork Roll and Scrapple – The Dirty Culinary Pride of South Jersey/Philly
• Diversity Finally Comes to The Food Network

Indeed, to my mind, (and to disagree with Mr. Steingarten, for once) there is one distinct advantage to oven-roasting vs. spit-roasting, namely, drippings, and drippings, like the crumbles in the corner of a bag of chips (crisps), are where the flavor is at. These drippings, you see, can be made into one of the most sublime of all cooking by-products, the gravy.

So, after washing and patting dry my bird, I stuffed its cavity with carrots, celery, onions, garlic, thyme, and lemon, before giving it a good rub all over with olive oil and a healthy sprinkling of salt. I then placed said bird in a dutch oven (le creuset) and leaving the lid off, put it in a 420F oven for forty minutes. After forty minutes, and with the bird looking perfectly golden and crispy, I turned the heat down to more placid 350F and let it roast for another hour before removing it and letting it rest a while out of the oven.

Before carving it, I removed the bird from the pot and took out the stuffing from the cavity, then drained all the juices out of the cavity into the pot where they mixed with roasting juices. Adding the cavity stuffing to the juices, along with about a pint of tap water, I turned up the heat and scraped the burnt bits off the bottom of the pan. I let the liquid reduce by about a third, stirring occasionally and crushing some of the vegetables a bit with my wooden spoon.

Nicely brown and beautifully redolent of chicken, thyme, lemon and the sweetness of roasted carrots, I strained the gravy and then pushed the solids through a sieve to add some body and flavor back in to it. Seasoning only slightly with salt and fresh pepper, I was proud to have made an absolutely fantastic, honest-to-goodness chicken gravy without recourse to stock, bouillon cubes or thickeners like corn starch. It was a moment in which I realized that just by following my instincts I had recreated the kind of gravy you’d commonly find at a good English restaurant or pub, or indeed, a good country French restaurant.

It was really quite an ordinary dinner – roast chicken, dauphinoise potatoes and a warm asparagus salad with fennel and celery tops, but with this gravy it became extraordinary — exactly the kind of restorative elixir that my body needed. “They” say that chicken soup contains something that makes you better when you’re sick, and I am sure that this chicken gravy had some of that goodness in it too. It was freshly made, flavorful and, well, chicken-y in a way that only chicken can really taste like chicken, and it made me feel wholesome without resorting to wheat germ, lentils and colonic irrigation.

Another interesting by-product of this dinner was a rather toothsome recipe for a potato and fennel gratin that I’m also inordinately proud of, perhaps because I didn’t work from a recipe, perhaps because I’m an asshole. Anyway, here’s how to do it:

Potato & Fennel Gratin
Ingredients

• 2 large or 3 medium waxy potatoes (yukon gold are best here) peeled, but left whole
• 1 large fennel bulb with tops trimmed and reserved for fennel salad
• 1/2 to 2/3 cup milk
• 2-3oz low moisture mozzarella, sliced thinly
• salt & pepper to taste

Recipe

• Preheat oven to 350F.
• Using a mandolin on the middle thickness setting, slice your potatoes and fennel.
• Lay out potatoes overlapping one another by about 3/4 slice (see photo below) in a layer in a baking dish.
• Then do the same thing with your fennel slices. This second layer will probably not be as neat as the first one, but that doesn’t really matter.
• Pour the milk over the vegetables but make sure milk does not cover them. Depending on the size of your dish, you may need a bit more or a bit less milk, but it should only come up to the bottom of the upper-most layer of vegetables.
• Season with salt and pepper.

• Cover dish with foil and place in oven for about half an hour.
• After this time, remove from oven and lay your mozzarella slices on top. Do not add too much cheese – be a little sparing.
• Return to oven and allow to bake for another twenty minutes or so, until cheese begins to puff and brown.
• Remove and allow to cool a bit before serving (cutting is easier when vegetables and cheese have firmed up a little).
• Serve with roast chicken on a Sunday night and calm the weekly apprehension at your impending return to work.

Check out these other posts you may enjoy:

• BRAISED PORK CHOPS WITH LIME AND OLIVES
• ENSALADA DE CABRALES (Thin Sliced Apple and Cabrales Cheese Salad w/ Vinaigrette)
• AUTHENTIC THIN-CRUST PIZZA
• BLACK, RED OR PINTO BEANS WITH CHORIZO AND CUMIN
• VEAL KIDNEYS WITH MUSHROOMS AND COGNAC
• CREAMY LEMON PASTA
• LIDIA’S LAMB CHOPS (Lamb Chops with A Mustard Anchovy Sauce)

You see, for a while now we’ve been convinced that the problem with so much chicken, like many kinds of poultry, is that when cooked whole, some parts end up perfectly cooked and other parts under-done, or in order to remedy this, some parts get overcooked and dry, so that the other bits are done right. It’s a dilemma which faces every American household at Thanksgiving every year, and frankly, I’ve yet to eat a turkey anywhere that was cooked in one piece that didn’t have dry breast meat. In fact, it gets even worse in the summer when you’re over at the neighbors’ house and they stick a load of chicken drumsticks in bbq-sauce on the grill. 20 minutes later they’re black on the outside and bloody and gross on the inside. That’s really quite unpleasant. However, we think we’ve found a solution to these common problems in spatchcock. Yes, you heard it right, spatchcock.

The derivation of the term is uncertain. Some suggest it is a contraction of the phrase “dispatch the cock” but I’m not sure about that. It just sounds unlikely. Similarly, the inventor of this technique is also unknown, but it is used widely throughout the world in recipes that call for the grilling of a whole bird because it results in deliciously moist flesh throughout, every time. And I mean, every time. It’s almost a fool-proof recipe providing you have a moderate level of control over your limbs and have some concept of fire-safety. Here’s how to do it:

Spatchcock Chicken (with adobo rub)

1 large oven-roaster chicken (about 3-4 lbs)
5-6 tbsp adobo seasoning/rub (this can either be store bought adobo – Goya brand – or you can make your own (see below)
2 tbsp olive oil

Adobo Rub
3 tbsp kosher salt
1 tbsp black pepper
1 tbsp dried oregano
1 tbsp lemon pepper
Combine dry spices in a bowl or make double/triple quantities and store in an airtight jar for later.

*Please note that adobo doesn’t necessarily have a set recipe. It has commonly recurring ingredients, but like many recetas de abuela each one is slightly different.

How to “spatch” the cock:(follow the illustrated step-by-step below)

1. Take a pair of good, strong scissors or kitchen shears. Pat your chicken dry with some kitchen paper/towels and place it breast side down on a cutting board.
2. With your scissors cut along one side of the backbone – breaking through the ribs with a satisfying “snick” – all the way through to the other end. Turn the chicken around and cut along other side of the backbone, so you’re left with the intact backbone in one hand, the scissors in the other, and a chicken with long gap in its back.
3. Now press down on the sides (ribs) of the chicken either side of the breastbone until you hear another little crunch. Feel free to slice open the membrane surrounding the breast bone and remove that too, but it’s kind of a pain and I nearly always end up savaging the breast meat by being clumsy. Anyway, what you get is a chicken that’s now mostly flat.
4. Take your scissors again and trim off the wing tips at the first joint. These tend to burn when cooked.
5. Next, make two small incisions into the flaps of skin below the breast (at the leg end) and poke the legs through these holes. This will help keep your bird flat. Be careful not to rip these holes as you do this, as you want your first spatchcock to look as good as it tastes, right?
6. Then, you’re almost ready. (see how simple this is?) Rub your bird very lightly with olive oil – do not drench it or the spices will all just slide off. Then sprinkle very liberally all over with the adobo rub, patting it on to make sure it sticks. It might look like you’ve used a lot of rub here, and you have, but some will fall off during cooking, and you’re not flavoring the chicken with anything else, so you can afford to be generous. Let your chicken sit with the rub on it, at room temperature for at least fifteen minutes before cooking.
7. Now, you need to prepare your grill. And this must be done on a grill. Okay, it can be done in the oven and turn out well, but with spring approaching you just can’t beat the al fresco cooking experience.
8. Before igniting anything, make sure your grill is clean. Remove the grate and fire up the grill – charcoal or gas, is fine. You want the grill at around 350F. If you’re using charcoal make sure you can rearrange the coals once they’re ready. And if you’re using gas, make sure you can control which burners are on or off – this is crucial to success here because the perfect spatchcock chicken is cooked using indirect heat.
9. When grill is up to temperature, rearrange charcoal (or turn burners on or off) so that you can fit a 10-inch aluminum baking pan containing about an inch of water in the middle of the grill so that it is not directly over the heat source. Replace your grate and brush with oil. Close lid of grill and allow to return to 350F – about five minutes. If you’re using gas you might have to fiddle with the temperature a little because you’ll almost certainly have to turn off at least one of the burners.
10. Anyway, when the thermometer reads 350F place your chicken breast-side up on the grill directly over the baking pan and let it cook for at least 25 minutes. All the while making sure the temperature remains at least 350F. Do not peak at the chicken. It’s doing fine by itself. Every time you even crack the lid a little you add five minutes to the cooking time!
11. Then after 25 minutes, turn your chicken over and cook for another 25 minutes. Depending on your grill you might want to power it up a bit here. You’ll know how it’s doing by how well colored the skin has become. If it’s still looking a bit pale it might either need longer at 350F or a bit more heat. We typically crank it up to a shade over 400F for the last fifteen minutes to make sure the skin gets crispy, which, apart from moist flesh, is the principal requirement of any roasted/grilled poultry.
12. When your chicken is looking golden brown or perhaps a shade or two darker, take it off the grill and tent it lightly in foil for around fifteen minutes. We rarely use our meat thermometer because it’s not accurate, but if you have one you trust, now would be a good time to give it blast. Remember, always check the bit between the breast and the thigh. Generally speaking though, if the juices in the leg are running clear at this point, you’re in a good shape.

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We ate our adobo spatchcock chicken with some roasted potatoes and a mixed green salad, but frankly these accompaniments are just gilding the lily. If you’ve done this right, the chicken itself will be almost too delicious to adulterate with any side dishes.

Naturally, you can flavor your chicken with anything you like. We’ve made north African-spiced chickens, Pollo alla Diavola (Tuscan-style chicken with red pepper flakes), Thai-perfumed birds, and “summer chicken” rubbed with thyme, rosemary, sage, salt and butter, amongst others. Again, the point is not the flavorings you use, but how perfectly this technique cooks chicken. The breast stays moist, the legs are cooked perfectly and the skin gets crispy. And it works every time. I’m planning to spatchcock a chicken every week now it’s getting warmer.

If you liked this post, you should check out these ones:

At the Desk Gourmet #2 – Coconut-Chili Shrimp with Roasted Vegetable Rice

Knowing Your Tagliatelle from Your Tagliolini

Something’s Fishy ‘Round Here – Livornese Fish Stew

Veal Sausages with Herbed Polenta & Roasted Beets

Lemongrass Beef Shortribs with Thai-Inspired Coconut Rice

Another Easy Meal 3 – Ground Lamb “Kabobs” (Lamb Kubideh)