LINDSBORG, KANSAS
The Kansas prairie is a flat forever. On a late winter afternoon, the end-of-day sounds—the whinny of gears in a pickup, the bullish snort of a combine turning frosty dirt—seem bigger than anything mortal, and as the shadows grow ominous in the changing light, the little town of Lindsborg seems like the only safe place.
From an early age, Frank Reese’s job was to usher the turkeys on his family’s farm from the barn to the open range to peck for insects. When the other children in his first-grade class wrote adoring sonnets to their cats and dogs, Mr. Reese turned in a personal essay entitled “Me and My Turkeys.” Even today, he has no memory of ever not loving turkeys and chickens.
In his well-pressed flannel shirt, Mr. Reese looks as if he could have stepped off a page of the 1954 Sears, Roebuck catalog. But to food lovers, animal lovers, and many family farmers, Frank Reese is a saint. He is the man who saved American poultry. He has devoted his life to the genetic preservation of American pure-bred poultry.
Layers, fryers, roasters, stewers—since the American colonial era, there have been different birds for every season and different uses for every bird. When it was published in 1874, the American Poultry Association’s Standards of Excellence recognized five distinct varieties of turkeys, fifty-four varieties of chicken, and hundreds of variations on these basic themes. In subsequent editions, the title of the handbook was changed to Standards of Perfection, but the volume continued to detail the traits that comprise an ideal example of a given variety.
The differences between the chickens can be as dramatic as those between a Great Dane and a dachshund, and for nearly a century, farmers and hobbyists bred for the qualities that distinguished one purebred bird from another. Doing so generally resulted in increased hardiness, better meat quality, greater reproductive prowess, and physical beauty. Winning was good for business: Growers wanted to buy chicks from champion stock.
Correct way to bake turkey, demonstrated by Uncle Sam’s expert cooks, Washington, D.C., 1937.
In remote regions like Mr. Reese’s patch of Kansas, a “best in show” fever raged well into the late twentieth century. It was a milieu in which hair dryers were aimed at feathers rather than fur. Mr. Reese won his first blue ribbon with a Jersey Giant chicken at the McPherson County Fair when he was 6 years old.
“They didn’t have any junior category back then, but I had the champion and the reserve champion for ten years running,” he says.
His winning streak ended when he was old enough to manage turkeys and began to show them. “I was up there with all the legendary turkey breeders; Sadie Caldwell and Gladys Hanssinger with their Bourbon Reds, Martha Walker and her Bronzes, Norman Kardosh and his White Hollands. I got beat a lot.”
He also got an education. “They taught me the history of each variety, told stories about the culture that grew up around purebred birds. It was a world that respected individuality and rewarded excellence. They had me sitting on the ground with my standards book, studying each bird, imprinting the ideal of each variety so I could look at a flock and know immediately which bird to breed.”
After he’d learned to appraise dozens of varieties of chickens, ducks, geese, and turkeys, the young bird man was adopted by the legendary Norman Kardosh of Alton, Kansas. Before him, Mr. Reese understood what a perfect bird was. Under Mr. Kardosh’s tutelage, he says, “I learned what a well-bred bird means. It ensures the survival of the strongest, healthiest bloodlines, it ensures diversity. Without those two things, any creature is doomed.”
Between earning his nursing degree, completing his military service, and his first decade as an anesthesiology nurse, Mr. Reese realized that American standard-bred birds were in big trouble.
Shortly after Herbert Hoover promised Americans “a chicken in every pot,” big business began breeding more chickens and growing them faster and cheaper.
The result was Big Chicken: Corporations that own every aspect of their business from research facilities, hatcheries, and feed production to factory farms, processing plants, marketing, and distribution supply American markets with more than 9 million pounds of low-cost chicken a year.
“The commercial industry developed a couple varieties that cost less to feed, fattened up faster, and sold well, and they raised these to the exclusion of all others,” says Mr. Reese. “This means that one flu could wipe out every chicken, or turkey, or duck, or goose in this country. I always competed against fifty to a hundred birds at every show. Suddenly it was just me, and the pure bloodlines were dying out.”
In 1989, he bought a hundred-year-old farm that he named Good Shepherd Turkey Ranch, and began restoring the populations of standard-bred birds. By 2002, his populations of American Standard Bronze, White Holland, Narragansett, Bourbon Red, and Black turkeys were strong enough to allow him to begin marketing the birds.
“The only way to save these birds was to get people to eat them,” he says.
Mr. Reese has saved a dozen varieties of American purebred chickens—Jersey Black Giant and Jersey White Giant; Barred Plymouth Rock; Dark, White-Laced, Red, and White Cornish; beautiful golden Buff Orpingtons; Silverlaced Wyandotte with their silver and black feathers; Dark Brown and Light Brown Leghorns.
In 1972 Americans ate about forty-two pounds of chicken a year. In 2007 the figure had more than doubled, to eighty-seven pounds. “They don’t think of chicken as anything special,” says Mr. Reese. “They see chicken as an inalienable right.
“They all look the same! They all taste the same! They’ve lost their individuality. They’ve lost their dignity! When I was growing up, you ate fried chicken in the summer because that’s when the little fryers were ready, you roasted chicken in the fall, you stewed it in the winter.
“Chickens used to tell you the time of year, they let you know where you stood. When you appreciate the differences between chicken, you value what makes you special and unique. You don’t spend all your time trying to be just like everybody else. You go ahead and make your contribution to the world, the one you were created to make.”
LINDSBORG, KANSAS
Frank Reese says: “I’m fourth-generation poultry farmer on my father’s side, a fifth-generation poultry farmer on my mother’s side, and second-generation German and English stock. It’s a common combination in the Midwest prairie. When the railroad was being built, you could get your own land by clearing it, and many immigrants did just that. Most were big on simple, hearty food. My grandmother and great-grandmother fixed chicken this way for large groups, like the harvesters who came to the early spring and the late fall. Previous generations used lard for the first frying, but I use Crisco with a little pat of butter added for flavor. Over time, the homemade poultry spice blend gave way to a commercially made one, but making a fresh blend gives a better flavor. And you can use it in dressings, to season birds for roasting, even in chicken soup. This chicken recipe comes from a friend’s grandmother. The meat can be served sliced and cold in sandwiches, or hot with mashed potatoes and a green vegetable. You can make Midday Chicken out of just about any breed of chicken, and frozen chicken works real well, so it’s a year-round favorite and oh-so-good.”
1 teaspoon Poultry Seasoning (recipe follows)
1 teaspoon kosher salt
½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
½ teaspoon sweet paprika
One 4-pound chicken, cut into 8 pieces and trimmed
1 cup vegetable oil or vegetable shortening
2 tablespoons (¼ stick) unsalted butter or lard
½ cup water
1 cup heavy cream
½ cup milk
1. Place an oven rack in the center position and preheat the oven to 325°F. Set a wire rack over a baking sheet and a roasting rack in a roasting pan, and line a plate with paper towels.
2. In a shallow dish, whisk together the flour, poultry seasoning, salt, pepper, and paprika. Coat each piece of chicken in the flour mixture and transfer to the wire rack.
3. Heat the oil and butter in a large cast-iron skillet over medium-high heat until a deep-frying thermometer registers 365°F to 375°F or a pinch of flour bubbles and sizzles in the oil. Carefully add half of the chicken to the skillet and cook for 8 to 10 minutes, until golden brown on both sides. Transfer the chicken to the paper-towel-lined plate to drain briefly, then transfer to the roasting pan. Repeat with the remaining chicken.
4. Carefully strain the oil through a fine-mesh strainer into a heatproof container. (Discard the oil when cool.) Return the browned bits in the strainer to the skillet and add the water. Bring the water to a simmer, scraping and stirring constantly, and cook for 1 minute. Pour this mixture, along with the heavy cream and milk, into the bottom of the roasting pan. Cover the pan with aluminum foil and bake for 2 to 2 ½ hours, until the chicken is tender. Serve.
SERVES 4 TO 6
3 tablespoons dried thyme
2 tablespoons dried rosemary
2 tablespoons dried marjoram
1 tablespoon dried savory
1 tablespoon dried sage
2 teaspoons celery seeds
½ teaspoon dried oregano
½ teaspoon ground fennel
½ teaspoon ground allspice
⅛ teaspoon cayenne pepper
In a small bowl, stir together all of the ingredients. The spice blend can be stored in an airtight container for up to three months.
MAKES ABOUT ⅔ CUP
TAMPA, KANSAS
Danny Williamson says: “I grew up in Douglas, Kansas. My father did the cattle and wheat, my mother had the vegetables and chickens. My older brother helped my father; I helped my mother and my grandmother. This was back in the 1960s. My mother enjoyed cooking so she took her time with it. Her attitude melted into me. She didn’t season food much, but she let me experiment. Once in a while I ruined dinner. We were so poor that losing a meal was a big thing.
“I hated the farm. I hated getting up early. I wanted to play. I didn’t want to work all the time. I couldn’t wait to get off that farm. When I was seven, I tied the babysitter to a big old tree and left her all day. I was already feeding and watering the chickens. I loved those chickens. One of the best moments of my life was sitting under that big old tree plucking chickens with my grandmother. Another shining moment was Sunday dinner. My mother always fixed chicken, sometimes fried, sometimes roasted, sometimes stewed, it depended on the time of the year.
“I really wanted to be a chef. I went to school for it but I only lasted a year. I’m not the chef type. I’m a home cook. After school I worked in construction, I worked at H&R Block. Then one day I saw Frank Reese’s birds at the state fair and it changed how I looked back at my childhood and how I imagined my future. I realized how much I’d learned growing up the way I did. I learned how to respect chickens, and that naturally carries over to how you treat people. Those chickens were teaching me to be responsible and independent and decent. I was back on the farm within a month. My partner and I put in wheat, soy, and milo and I started breeding bantams. They’re tough. I had to study a lot just to keep them alive. After a while, I started keeping some of Frank’s birds. I have about five hundred birds on my farm. I also judge poultry shows.
“I can tell you one thing for sure: There is no such thing as a spring chicken. In the spring, you have baby chicks in the barn and you are cooking up the last of your frozen birds. The first chickens of the year come in July. In the spring I like to make chicken and noodles. The Eastern European immigrants in the Midwest of my grandmother’s generation made fresh dill noodles and when I can take the time, I do, too. I always add lemon to give the soup a bright flavor and fresh dill and spring onions because they are the first green things I get in the spring. I use a six-quart Crock-Pot. It comes out perfect every time.”
One 3½-to 4-pound chicken, cut into 8 pieces and trimmed
1 medium onion, peeled and quartered
1 lemon, quartered
½ teaspoon kosher salt
6 whole black peppercorns
2 bay leaves
4 fresh dill sprigs
4 quarts water
3 spring onions or scallions, green and white parts, finely chopped, or ⅓ cup minced fresh chives, for garnish
FOR THE NOODLES
3 large eggs
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons water, plus more as needed
2½ cups all-purpose flour
¼ cup minced fresh dill, plus more for garnish
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1. To make the chicken: The day before serving, in a 6-quart slow cooker, combine the chicken, onion, lemon, salt, peppercorns, bay leaves, and dill. Pour the water into the cooker, set on the lowest setting, cover, and cook for 12 hours. (Chicken can also be cooked on the stove. To do so, place the chicken and the aromatics in cold water over medium-low heat, bring to a boil, reduce heat to low, and simmer uncovered for 3½ hours or until the meat is cooked and the vegetables are very tender.)
2. Strain the broth through a fine-mesh strainer into a tall container, cover, bring to room temperature, and refrigerate. Transfer the chicken pieces to a plate and cool to room temperature. Remove and discard the skin and bones, keeping the pieces of meat as large as possible. Cover and refrigerate the chicken.
3. To make the noodles: In a small bowl, whisk together the eggs, oil, and water. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, dill, and salt. Make a well in the center of the flour, add the egg mixture, and stir until a rough dough forms. If the dough does not come together, add water, 1 tablespoon at a time, until it does. Transfer the dough to a lightly floured work surface and knead about 3 minutes, until smooth. Shape the dough into a ball, cover, and refrigerate for 2 hours.
4. If using a pasta machine, follow the directions for rolling noodles about ⅛ inch thick, ⅓ inch wide, and 8 inches long. If rolling by hand, roll the dough on a floured work surface until ⅛ inch thick, then cut the dough into strips about ⅓ inch wide and 8 inches long. Hang the noodles on the back of a chair to dry slightly.
5. To serve, skim the fat from the chicken broth. Bring the broth to a simmer in a large Dutch oven. Add the noodles, stir gently, cover, and cook for 4 to 6 minutes, until tender. Stir in the chicken and cook about 30 seconds, until warmed through. Season with salt to taste.
6. Ladle into bowls, sprinkle each serving with the chopped spring onions and dill, and serve.
SERVES 6
MADISON, WISCONSIN
“Cambodians like to poach poultry in a fragrant broth,” says Pech Khunn, a pianist and music teacher whose parents and grandparents fled Southeast Asia when Ms. Khunn was less than a year old and ended up in Montana. “Even at Thanksgiving, my grandmother refused to roast turkey—she poached it. So naturally I loathed and despised poached poultry until I left to go to school in Wisconsin. When I didn’t have my grandmother’s pot-au-feu to turn my nose up at, I missed it like crazy. Living in a group house, I understood how sensible the dish is. You can stretch a bird a long way if you have lots of vegetables and rice and a very flavorful broth. I draw a line at turkey, but no other bird is safe from my pot.”
FOR THE BROTH
Two 5- to 6-pound chickens, each cut into 8 pieces
6 stalks fresh lemongrass, bottom 5 inches only
1 tablespoon coriander seeds
2 teaspoons kosher salt
3 whole black peppercorns
FOR THE SAUCE
¼ cup fresh lemon juice
2 lemons, peel and pith removed, segmented
8 garlic cloves, minced
½ cup reserved chicken broth
½ cup sugar
½ cup fish sauce
1½ teaspoons chili-garlic sauce, plus more to taste
FOR THE CHICKEN AND VEGETABLES
Four 11-ounce bone-in, skin-on chicken breast halves, trimmed and quartered
8 small red potatoes, scrubbed and halved
2 fennel bulbs, trimmed and cut into 6 wedges
30 fiddlehead ferns, cleaned well and trimmed of woody parts
8 medium carrots, peeled, and halved lengthwise, then crosswise
16 asparagus tips with 2 inches of stalk
16 white mushrooms, stemmed
16 ramps or scallions
1. To make the broth: The day before serving, place the chickens in a large Dutch oven. Cover with water by 2 inches and bring to an active simmer, skimming off the foam as it rises. Add the lemongrass, coriander, salt, and peppercorns and gently simmer for 6 to 8 hours.
2. Strain the broth through a fine-mesh strainer into a tall container. Reserve ½ cup for the sauce, then cover, bring to room temperature, and refrigerate. Discard the solids.
3. To make the sauce: Pulse the lemon juice, lemon segments, and garlic in a food processor to make a coarse puree. Transfer to a bowl and stir in the reserved chicken broth, sugar, fish sauce, and chili-garlic sauce. Cover and refrigerate.
4. To make the chicken and vegetables: About an hour before serving, remove the sauce from the refrigerator. Skim the fat from the remaining chicken broth. Place the chicken pieces bone side down in a large Dutch oven and pour the broth over the chicken. Bring to a simmer over medium-low heat and cook for 25 to 30 minutes, until the chicken is firm to the touch and registers 165° on an instant-read thermometer.
5. Transfer the chicken to a warm platter. Remove the skin, drizzle a little broth over the meat, cover loosely with foil, and keep warm.
6. Return the remaining broth to a simmer. Add the potatoes and cook about 8 minutes, until tender. Use a slotted spoon to transfer the potatoes to the platter with the chicken. Cook each vegetable separately and transfer to the platter when tender. Strain the broth through a fine-mesh strainer into a serving bowl or tureen.
7. To serve, invite guests to place chicken and vegetables in their warm bowls, ladle the broth over the top, and stir in some of the sauce to taste.
SERVES 6 TO 8
ANCHORAGE, ALASKA
After getting married on a construction site more than thirty years ago, Laurie Constantino and her husband, Steve, set up housekeeping in a Quonset hut jacked twelve feet in the air, so the second floor offered a 360-degree view of the tundra. In their home office, they practiced law, much of their work on behalf of Yu’pik Eskimos. After a decade, the couple decamped to the Greek island of Limnos to thaw out in Steve’s grandmother’s house. There, Laurie learned Greek by listening to the local women talk about cooking. A year later, they returned to Alaska where Laurie became the state’s chief prosecutor as well as an author. Tastes Like Home: Mediterranean Cooking in Alaska, which she wrote to benefit her church—the only Greek Orthodox church in the state—has sold fifteen hundred copies. This recipe, which she serves with “crusty bread, a light green salad, oil-cured black olives, and lots of napkins,” is one of her family’s favorites.
FOR THE STEW
Eight 6-ounce bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs, trimmed
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoons olive oil
3 medium onions, coarsely chopped
2 celery stalks, coarsely chopped
1 cup dry white wine
2 cups homemade chicken broth or low-sodium store-bought chicken broth
2 cups water
8 scallions, green and white parts, thinly sliced
¼ cup minced fresh parsley
¼ cup minced fresh dill
¼ cup fresh lemon juice
4 large artichokes, trimmed to hearts and quartered
FOR THE AVGOLEMONO
2 large eggs, separated
¼ cup fresh lemon juice
¼ cup minced fresh parsley
1 tablespoon minced fresh dill
4 scallions, green and white parts, thinly sliced, for garnish
1. To make the stew: Pat the chicken thighs dry and season with salt and pepper. Heat the oil in a Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add half of the chicken and cook for 8 to 10 minutes, until golden brown on both sides. Transfer the thighs to a plate. Return the pot to medium-high heat and repeat with the remaining pieces.
2. Pour off all but 1 tablespoon of the fat from the pot. Add the onions, celery, ½ teaspoon salt, and ¼ teaspoon pepper and cook, stirring occasionally, until soft and beginning to brown, about 8 minutes.
3. Stir in the wine and scrape up any browned bits. Bring to simmer and cook about 4 minutes, until reduced by half. Stir in the broth, water, scallions, parsley, dill, and lemon juice. Nestle the chicken pieces into the vegetables, skin side up. Bring to a simmer, cover, reduce the heat to medium-low, and cook for 30 minutes.
4. Stir in the artichoke hearts, making sure they are completely submerged and the chicken thighs remain on top. Bring to a simmer, cover, and cook for 35 to 40 minutes, until the artichoke hearts are tender.
5. To make the avgolemono: In a medium bowl, whip the egg whites with an electric mixer until soft peaks form. Beat the egg yolks into the egg whites until just incorporated, then beat in the lemon juice, parsley, and dill.
6. Beat in 1 cup of the cooking liquid from the stew into the egg mixture, then quickly stir the mixture into the stew. Cook over low heat until the sauce thickens slightly. (Do not boil or the eggs may curdle.)
7. Season with salt and pepper to taste and serve, sprinkling each portion with scallions.
SERVES 4
HILLSBORO, KANSAS
In 1873, Mennonite leaders in Russia made arrangements with the Santa Fe Railroad to purchase central Kansas land in Marion and McPherson counties, and tidy farms soon sprang up like winter wheat. Growing up there in the 1940s, Arlene Hett learned to cook from her mother, a traditional Mennonite cook. This recipe, which she found in a Mennonite cookbook published in North Newton, Kansas, is well suited to heritage and free-range birds because of its long, slow cooking. Mrs. Hett votes for using “cast iron or something heavy that holds the heat better.” If you use a commercially produced bird for this recipe, you must reduce the cooking time by approximately 10 percent. Use a meat thermometer to register the internal temperature. The USDA recommends an internal temperature of 165 degrees for chicken, but many people prefer their birds less well done. Begin checking the bird’s internal temperature after 45 minutes. The pan juices are wonderful and best served with a potato dish.
FOR THE COMPOUND BUTTER
4 tablespoons (½ stick) unsalted butter, softened
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons minced fresh parsley
3 garlic cloves, minced
2 teaspoons grated lemon zest
½ teaspoon kosher salt
¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
FOR THE CHICKEN
One 3 ½- to 4-pound whole chicken, trimmed
4 garlic cloves, peeled
1 lemon, halved
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
1. Place an oven rack in the center position and preheat the oven to 450°F. Set a rack in a roasting pan.
2. To make the butter: Process all of the ingredients in a food processor until smooth. Transfer the butter to a small bowl.
3. To make the chicken: Starting at the neck, use your fingers to loosen the skin from the breast, thighs, and drumsticks. (Do not completely detach the skin.) When the skin is loose, spread all but 1 tablespoon of the garlic butter between the skin and the flesh of the bird. Stuff the cavity with the garlic cloves and the lemon halves and truss the chicken.
4. Pat the chicken dry. Rub the reserved 1 tablespoon butter over the skin and season with salt and pepper. Place the chicken on the rack and roast for 20 minutes.
5. Reduce the oven temperature to 350°F, baste the chicken with the fat from the bottom of the pan, cover with aluminum foil, and cook for 45 minutes to 1 hour, until an instant-read thermometer registers 175°F in the thigh and 165°F in the breast.
6. When the chicken is done, remove from the oven and let rest, still covered, for 15 minutes. Carve and serve with the pan juices.
SERVES 4
STATEN ISLAND, NEW YORK
“This simple dish was one of my family’s favorites when I was growing up,” says Tom Lombardo. “It’s a great meal for a crowd, and it’s delicious. But the reason I love to make it is that it reminds me of my mother and Sunday, and all of us at the table with so much to look forward to and also the feeling that nothing could be better than being right where we were.”
Twelve 6-ounce all-natural bone-in chicken thighs or two 3 ½-pound chickens, cut into 8 pieces each
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
½ cup good olive oil
6 red potatoes, quartered
1 pound pearl onions, peeled
8 garlic cloves, peeled and smashed
2 lemons, cut into ¼-inch rounds
2 bushy sprigs fresh rosemary, leaves removed from stems and bruised
1. Preheat the oven to 350°F.
2. Season the chicken pieces with salt and pepper. In a heavy-bottomed casserole with a tight-fitting lid, heat ¼ cup of the olive oil over medium heat. When the oil is hot, add the pieces, skin side down. Cook until golden, about 5 minutes, then flip and repeat on the other side. (If the casserole isn’t big enough to hold all the chicken in one layer, cook in batches and return all the browned chicken to the pot before proceeding.)
3. Add the potatoes and onions. Combine the garlic, lemons, and rosemary with the remaining olive oil and pour over everything. Cover, place in the oven and bake until the potatoes are tender and the chicken is done, about 40 minutes. Adjust seasoning with additional salt and pepper if desired and serve immediately.
SERVES 4 TO 6
ALEXANDRIA, VIRGINIA
Ramona Padovano has wowed her family with her Polish mushroom soup and impressed her father-inlaw with her rendition of his mother’s Italian meatball recipe, but what she loves best about cooking is relying on her ability to respond to ingredients. For her, spring has been the greatest challenge. The ingredients that announce the demise of winter—morel mushrooms and wild ramps—were daunting to her at first. But over the years, she’s refined this chicken dish, which is best made the day before and refrigerated overnight so that the flavors can marry. She likes to serve the dish with noodles, parsley potatoes, or herb gnocchi to soak up the sauce, and steamed asparagus on the side.
Eight 6-ounce bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs, trimmed
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
½ cup all-purpose flour
3 tablespoons (⅜ stick) unsalted butter
2 tablespoons olive oil
½ cup cleaned and trimmed fresh morel mushrooms
12 ramps, trimmed and roughly chopped (bulbs and leaves)
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 teaspoon dried marjoram
1 teaspoon dried thyme
1⅓ cups dry white wine
1 cup homemade chicken broth or low-sodium store-bought chicken broth
1 cup half-and-half or light cream
1. Place an oven rack in the lower-center position and preheat the oven to 325°F.
2. Pat the chicken dry and season with salt and pepper. Place the flour in a shallow dish. Lightly coat the chicken in the flour and shake off the excess.
3. Melt 2 tablespoons of the butter with the oil in a Dutch oven over medium heat. Add half of the chicken and cook for 8 to 10 minutes, until golden brown on both sides. Transfer the chicken to a plate. Return the pot to medium heat and brown the remaining chicken. Transfer the chicken to a plate.
4. Add the remaining 1 tablespoon butter to the drippings in the pot and let melt. Add the morels and ramps and cook for 4 to 6 minutes, stirring occasionally, until soft. Stir in the garlic, marjoram, and thyme and cook about 1 minute, until aromatic. Transfer the vegetables to the plate with the chicken.
5. Increase the heat to high, add the wine, and scrape up any browned bits. Bring to a simmer and cook about 4 minutes, until reduced by one-third. Stir in the broth.
6. Return the chicken and vegetables to the pot. Cover, place the pot in the oven, and bake about 1½ hours, until the chicken is tender.
7. Transfer the chicken and vegetables to a warm platter and skim any fat off the surface of the sauce. Stir the half-and-half or cream into the sauce and season with salt and pepper to taste. Heat until hot but not boiling. Pour the sauce over the chicken and serve.
SERVES 4
Morels, those crenellated, conical mushrooms that evoke visions of hobbits, magic, and dollar signs, thrive in the moist soil around the Great Lakes. For the past half century, nearly twenty thousand people have gathered each year at the National Morel Mushroom Festival in Boyne City, Michigan, on Lake Charlevoix to compete in foraging, cooking, and, of course, eating. Morels with scrambled eggs, in custards, on pasta, pizza, lake fish, and chicken abound.
HUNTSVILLE, ALABAMA
Like most north Alabamans, Mike Whisante believes that white barbecue is the real barbecue. The sauce, a tangy concoction of mayonnaise, spices, lemon juice, and vinegar, was created at Big Bob Gibson Bar-B-Q in Decatur, Alabama, in 1925. Mr. Whisante likes it on just about any meat that can be grilled, but his favorite is split chickens, and he has developed his own version of the local favorite that he says has a high “tang.” “I’ve never even tasted a red barbecue sauce. For me, white barbecue sauce and chicken is like ketchup and french fries.”
FOR THE SAUCE
¾ cup mayonnaise
¼ cup fresh lemon juice
2 tablespoons distilled white vinegar
1 tablespoon sugar
½ teaspoon barbecue spice rub, preferably Wizzy’s SmokinRub
½ teaspoon kosher salt
½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
FOR THE CHICKEN
One 3½- to 4-pound whole chicken, backbone removed, split in half, and trimmed
¼ cup barbecue spice rub, preferably Wizzy’s SmokinRub
1. To make the sauce: In a small bowl, whisk together all of the ingredients. Cover and refrigerate for 12 to 24 hours.
2. To make the chicken: The day before serving, coat the halves evenly with the spice rub. Transfer to a large plate, cover, and refrigerate for 12 to 24 hours.
3. Heat one side of a grill to medium-high and the other side to low. Place the chicken halves on the hotter side of the grill, cover, and cook about 1 hour, turning often, until an instant-read thermometer registers 175°F in the thighs and 165°F in the breast.
4. Wrap each chicken half in aluminum foil and place on the cooler side of the grill. Cover and cook for 30 minutes more, until the chicken is falling off the bones.
5. Brush the chicken with some of the barbecue sauce and serve, passing the remaining sauce on the side.
SERVES 4
GEE’S BEND, ALABAMA
Tucked into a curve of the Alabama River, Gee’s Bend is surrounded on three sides by water, and since the antebellum era when it was mostly occupied by the Gee brothers’ ten-thousand-acre cotton plantation, the place has been isolated from the rest of the country. In 1845, in order to settle a debt, the two Gee brothers gave their plantation with its forty-some slaves to their cousin Mark Pettway, who subsequently walked to Alabama from North Carolina with ten slaves who bore his name. After emancipation, most of the black Pettways remained in the Bend, working as tenant farmers. It was not until the 1930s that a New Deal relief project stemmed starvation and replaced the area’s local logand-mud cabins with the clapboard dwellings that locals call “Roosevelt Houses.” Isolated from the rest of the country, “Benders” developed their own distinct handicrafts, as well as a remarkably well-preserved version of “soul food,” the traditional poverty dishes of the rural American south. Both the crafts and the cooking express the local moral code, a make-do ethic that deplores waste. Mary Lee Bendolph, the 76-year-old descendant of a slave whose hand-stitched quilts were discovered by an Atlanta collector and displayed at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City, cooks and quilts from scraps and leftovers that might otherwise have gone to waste. In her own words:
“It hurts me to see people waste up things the way they do these days. That is a change in the world. I had sixteen sisters and brothers, we had to be careful and creative and smart or we were going to be hungry and cold.
“Gee’s Bend represents not merely a geographic configuration drawn by the yellow pencil of the river. Gee’s Bend represents another civilization. Gee’s Bend is an Alabama Africa. There is no more concentrated and racially exclusive Negro population in any rural community in the South than in Gee’s Bend.”
—Reverend Renwick Kennedy, The Christian Century, 1937
I started my first quilt when I was twelve, and it took me a whole year because I kept running out of the flour sacks and old skirts and shirts we used. My last piece I found was a raggedy old shirt in the mud that some wagon had run over. Oh! I was so happy, so excited. I couldn’t wash that old rag fast enough to finish my quilt. We didn’t have electricity, the dogs and the hogs lived under the house, you could see them through the floorboards, and it was cold, real cold. We made quilts to keep warm. There was nothing that couldn’t be made into something to keep people warm. When they forget what it is like to be cold and hungry, people start throwing things out and buying new. Some of the quilters even buy new fabric, but not me. Old clothes have a spirit in them. I see that scrap of apron in a quilt and I remember the woman who wore that apron thin. Cooking is like that too. I make my cornbread to remember all the cornbread that was made for me.
Most of the young peoples had to leave the Bend to find work. There’s about seven hundred of us left here, and most of us are real old or real young. I’m lucky, my daughter, Essie, is right next door. My sons, seven of them and their wives and my grandchildren, come on the weekends and I cook. Yes, Essie and I make the cornbread, the greens, the chicken, the potato salad, the pies. We could go to the store and buy things, but then we’d just be eating. We wouldn’t be caring, we wouldn’t be remembering. The first thing I did when people started calling our blankets “great modern art” and our quilting collective started to make money was build me a kitchen, with running water and a refrigerator and an electric range. That’s all I wanted was my kitchen. Otherwise, I want what I have.
“[The quilts of Gee’s Bend are] . . . some of the most miraculous works of modern art America has produced.”
—Michael Kimmelman, The New York Times, 2002
Some people have easy lives, but I had a hard life. I had my first baby when I was fourteen, before I knew where babies come from; that’s how it was back then, nobody told you. They made me leave school; I loved school, and, oh, I cried. But I got to meet Dr. King and to see him up there right next to Jesus. I sang and marched with Dr. King. I took in all that tear gas, they beat us up, threw us in jail, but we got the vote. Once I saw Dr. King drink from the white folks’ water fountain and I thought I’d get me some of that white water. I found out that water’s water. Your life is your life. On Sunday Essie and I make this grilled chicken. Everybody comes.”
Old cable ferry between Camden and Gee’s Bend.
5 pounds chicken legs, thighs, and wings
2 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons black pepper
4 cups ketchup
¾ cup brown sugar
1 cup molasses
1 cup Worcestershire sauce
½ cup soy sauce
¼ cup vegetable oil
¼ cup sesame oil
¼ cup grated fresh ginger
1 tablespoon garlic powder
2 teaspoons onion powder
3 teaspoons ground cumin
3 teaspoons chili powder
¼ teaspoon chili pepper sauce, plus more if desired (optional)
1. Four hours before serving the chicken, rinse it off, pat dry with paper towels and arrange pieces in a baking pan. Sprinkle the chicken with half the salt and half the pepper and place in the refrigerator for half an hour.
2. Combine the remaining salt and pepper with the ketchup, brown sugar, molasses, Worcestershire and soy sauces, the oils, ginger, garlic and onion powders, cumin, and chili powder. Remove the chicken from the refrigerator, pat dry, and slather the meat with 3 cups of the sauce. Reserve the remaining sauce to serve with the chicken. Refrigerate and let the chicken rest for three hours to soak up the sauce, turning occasionally to keep it all the pieces well coated.
3. Prepare a charcoal grill and allow to burn until the fire is medium low. Place the grill as far above the fire as possible. Remove excess sauce from the chicken so that it doesn’t burn and place pieces on the grill, cover and cook for 20 minutes. Turn over and cook for 20 to 30 minutes more until the meat is firm. Slather the meat again with the sauce and cook, uncovered, for 5 to 10 minutes, turning often, to get a nice shiny glaze and a crisp skin. Serve immediately with extra sauce on the side.
SERVES 8
OKLAHOMA CITY, OKLAHOMA
Mika Garnett has two giant three-ring binders filled with six hundred recipes, the earliest of which were handwritten by her great-aunt Eva in the 1950s. Each recipe has been rated by her family and carries a dateline from points around the United States as well as India, Europe, and Asia, especially Korea, where her daughter was born. When leafing through her notebooks to select a favorite, Ms. Garnett was surprised to discover something missing: the Oklahoma Mexican dishes that she and her two sons and daughter call dinner at least two times a week. “I guess you just don’t think about the dishes that are second nature to you,” she says. As in many of her Okla-Mex recipes, green chiles take the place of tomatoes. When she doesn’t have time to roast and peel her own chiles, she’s found that high quality canned chiles work fine. She serves this stew garnished with sour cream, cheese, and blue corn chips or packaged corn tortillas that she blisters over her stove.
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 medium onion, finely chopped
1 red bell pepper, stemmed, seeded, and coarsely chopped
1 carrot, coarsely chopped
1 jalapeño chile, stemmed, seeded, and finely chopped (optional)
One 4-ounce can chopped green chiles, drained
4 garlic cloves, minced
½ teaspoon ground cumin
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
2¼ cups homemade chicken broth or low-sodium store-bought chicken broth
1½ pounds boneless, skinless chicken breasts, trimmed and cut into 1-inch chunks
1 cup corn kernels
2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro
1. Heat the oil in a Dutch oven over medium heat. Add the onion, bell pepper, carrot, and jalapeño (if using) and cook about 4 minutes, until the vegetables are soft. Stir in the green chiles, garlic, cumin, ½ teaspoon salt, and ¼ teaspoon pepper and cook about 1 minute, until aromatic. Stir in the flour until incorporated.
2. Stir in the broth and chicken, bring to a simmer, and cook for 5 minutes. Stir in the corn and cook for 5 to 10 minutes more, until the corn is tender and the chicken is no longer pink.
3. Stir in the lime juice and cilantro and season with salt and pepper to taste. Serve.
SERVES 4
RICHMOND, CALIFORNIA
Unlike most of the Chinese who came to Hawaii in the mid-nineteenth century, Doris Lum’s family did not leave Canton to work the sugarcane fields. They were an educated lot who took jobs as merchants and bookkeepers, and their descendants bought taro and sugar plantations. In a state where a third of the population is Chinese Hawaiian, they became part of the elite. She was not encouraged to cook as a child—her father didn’t have patience for amateurs in his kitchen—but after moving to California, Ms. Lum, a workers’ compensation researcher, became an accomplished cook. She has a weakness for macadamia nuts, lotus seeds, and coconut. This dish, she says, is a “variation on a family recipe for lotus-stuffed chicken from the old days, one of those simple dishes that tastes divine.” Ms. Lum managed to trim the traditional cooking time of four hours to ninety minutes, but she still makes the original for holidays and other special meals.
¾ cup dry sherry or dry white wine
¾ cup homemade chicken broth or low-sodium store-bought chicken broth
2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons honey
1 teaspoon kosher salt
½ teaspoon light brown sugar
¼ cup peanut or vegetable oil
2 tablespoons grated fresh ginger
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 scallion, green and white parts, cut into ½-inch pieces
One 3½- to 4-pound whole chicken, trimmed
8 fresh cilantro sprigs
3 scallions, green and white parts, thinly sliced
2 tablespoons shredded unsweetened coconut
2 tablespoons chopped macadamia nuts
Half-circles of fresh or canned pineapple
Maraschino cherries
1. In a small bowl, whisk together the sherry, broth, soy sauce, honey, salt, and sugar.
2. Heat the oil in a wok or Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Stir in the ginger, garlic, and ½-inch-cut scallion and cook, stirring, about 1 minute, until aromatic. Add the chicken and cook for 6 to 8 minutes, turning as necessary, until golden brown on all sides. Carefully pour off any oil in the pot.
3. Pour the sherry mixture over the chicken and bring to a simmer. Cover and cook, basting and turning the chicken occasionally, for 50 to 60 minutes, until an instant-read thermometer registers 175°F in the thighs and 165°F in the breast.
4. Transfer the chicken to a plate and let rest for 20 minutes. Using a cleaver, chop the chicken into 3-inch pieces.
5. To serve, transfer the pieces to a serving platter and arrange in the shape of a whole chicken. Pour over the sauce and top with the cilantro, sliced scallions, coconut, and nuts. Place the pineapple around chicken and put a cherry in the middle of each slice. Serve.
SERVES 4
MOSCOW, IDAHO
Cat Sentz calls herself a “devoted eater,” which she became after moving from her family’s Ohio horse farm to New Orleans to attend Tulane University. Several weeks before Hurricane Katrina, Ms. Sentz and her new husband, Adam, relocated to Moscow, Idaho, to start a family. Their worries of living behind a “culinary Iron Curtain,” were quickly dispelled. In addition to open space and friendly neighbors, their corner of Idaho offers wonderful artisanal ingredients such as the tangy goat cheese and spicy baby arugula that inspired this dish, which is a favorite of her dinner guests.
Kosher salt
Four 6-ounce boneless, skinless chicken breast halves, trimmed and pounded to ⅓ inch thick
1 cup yellow or red cherry tomatoes, halved
1 cup red grape tomatoes, halved 3 ounces mild goat cheese, crumbled (about ¾ cup)
3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil Freshly ground black pepper
4 cups lightly packed baby arugula
2 tablespoons minced fresh chives, for garnish (optional)
1. In a large bowl, dissolve 2 tablespoons salt in 3 cups cold water. Add the chicken, cover, and refrigerate for 30 minutes. Remove the chicken from the brine, rinse, and pat dry.
2. Meanwhile, in a colander set over a bowl, toss the cherry tomatoes, grape tomatoes, and ½ teaspoon salt. Let sit for 15 minutes.
3. Whisk 2 ounces of the goat cheese, 2 tablespoons of the oil, and ⅛ teaspoon pepper into the tomato juices in the bowl. Gently fold in the remaining 1 ounce goat cheese.
4. Heat a grill to medium-high or a grill pan over medium-high heat. Brush the chicken with the remaining 1 tablespoon olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Grill the chicken for 8 to 10 minutes, until well browned on both sides, firm, and an instant-read thermometer registers 165°F.
5. Divide the arugula evenly among 4 dinner plates, place a chicken paillard on top, then spoon the tomato and goat cheese over the chicken. Sprinkle with the chives (if using), and serve.
SERVES 4
SOME GET THROUGH THE WINTER MONTHS DREAMING OF THE first pitch on opening day, others long for the afternoon when the tennis courts are playable or the morning when the earth is warm enough for planting again. John T. Edge, the intrepid stalker of iconic American food, looks forward to July Fourth and the start of fried chicken season with the fervor of a founding father.
On traditional farms, the first chubby fryers were ready in early July, which may be why fried chicken became a staple of the Independence Day table. But the man known as John T has another theory. July Fourth tends to mean “picnic,” and that means “cold fried chicken.”
America’s fried chicken recipes define families, regions, and eras. Variations have caused feuds and created heroes. Dusting, battering, or breading chicken and frying it in hot oil may not be indigenous to America, but who else besides Americans declare where they came from simply by ordering “extra crispy,” “hot,” or “batter-fried”? Fortunes were made when Colonel Harlan Sanders and George W. Church created a version that could be mass produced, and sold it back to the people who invented it in the first place: home cooks.
John T has spent several decades decoding fried chicken, driving several hundred thousand miles and eating more than two thousand pounds of fried chicken. His first true love was Maymee Lee Robinson’s chicken. Mrs. Robinson worked for his family in Clinton, Georgia, for decades and made a fried chicken so crisp that its edges were frilled with a nearly translucent coating that shattered on first bite.
After leaving home, he fell under the sway of the chicken that Deacon Burton fried in gigantic cast-iron skillets at Burton’s Grill, a gathering spot for neighborhood folks, politicians, civil rights activists, and, as word got out, food lovers. John T’s first bite was shocking.
“It wasn’t crisp. It didn’t shatter and fall apart; the crust and the meat underneath were one. It was soft, comfortable chicken, the kind you get when you cover the skillet, and maybe he did, but what would he have used? A manhole cover? Maybe the magic was the steam table.” At Prince’s in Nashville and Gus’s in Mason, he found chicken that “packed a roundhouse punch of cayenne, enough to knock you in the dirt. This was not comforting chicken. This was not your mother’s fried chicken. It was late-night, sober-you-up-from-a-twelve-pack-stupor kind of chicken. But it wasn’t a fast-food chain, it was somebody’s life work; it had somebody’s name on it. There were men standing by the skillets who cared, artisans.” John T romanced deep-fried chicken, Chinese fried chicken, Bosnian fried chicken, and Caribbean fried chicken. Nearing the half-century mark, he finally understood his taste in chicken.
“I personally believe it’s better cold than right from the skillet.” And there is no cold chicken better than his friend John Fleer’s sweet tea–brined chicken. Working as the chef at Blackberry Farm in Walland, Tennessee, Mr. Fleer perfected a recipe that uses Southern iced tea to both tenderize the meat and supply a puckery-tannin counterpoint to the richness of the dish. The thick coating is reminiscent of Maryland-style batter-fried chicken and it keeps the meat moist while providing a crunch.
“You bite into it and this cold chicken consommé dribbles down your chin,” he says. “It is a thing of beauty.”
WEST MILLER’S COVE, TENNESSEE
When he was the chef at Blackberry Farm, John Fleer developed this recipe with the day after in mind. The Maryland-style batter creates a next-day cold chicken that can even make Southern purists a little weak at the knees. The recipe is still served at the farm, one of the nation’s premier garden-to-table inn and restaurants.
FOR THE CHICKEN
1 quart freshly brewed tea
Zest of 1 lemon, removed with a vegetable peeler
1 cup sugar
½ cup kosher salt 1 quart ice water
8 whole chicken legs, thighs and legs separated
FOR THE COATING
5 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups buttermilk
2 large eggs
2 cups finely ground cornmeal
2 tablespoons seasoning, such as Old Bay
1 tablespoon chili powder
1 tablespoon fine sea salt
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
6 cups vegetable oil, for frying
1. To brine the chicken: Two days before serving the chicken, combine the tea, lemon zest, sugar, and salt in a saucepan and simmer for 2 to 3 minutes, until the salt and sugar are dissolved. Remove from heat, add the ice water and cool completely. Submerge the chicken pieces in the liquid, cover, and refrigerate for 48 hours.
2. At least 1 hour before serving, remove the chicken from the brine and drain in a strainer for 10 minutes.
3. To make the coating: Place 3 cups of the flour in a large bowl. Whisk together the buttermilk and eggs in a second bowl. Whisk together the remaining flour, the cornmeal, Old Bay, chili powder, salt, and pepper in a third bowl. Set two wire racks over two separate rimmed baking sheets.
4. Pat the chicken dry with paper towels. Coat each piece lightly the plain flour and shake off the excess. Dip in the buttermilk and egg batter, and finally roll the chicken in the cornmeal mixture. Transfer the pieces to a rack and let sit 20 to 30 minutes before frying.
5. Pour the oil into a large cast-iron skillet and heat over high heat until a pinch of flour sprinkled into the oil immediately bubbles or a deep-frying thermometer registers 365°F. Working in batches, fry the chicken pieces, adjusting the heat as necessary to maintain the oil temperature. Cook for 8 minutes, flip, and cook for 7 minutes more. The chicken should be golden brown. The juices should run clear when the thickest part is pierced, and an instant-read thermometer should register 165°F.
6. Transfer the pieces to the clean wire rack; blot them with paper towels. Cool for a few minutes or cover lightly and place in the refrigerator overnight before serving.
SERVES 8
SPENCER COUNTY, KENTUCKY
Mrs. Herndon makes a classic, unembellished fried chicken with a shatter-crisp crust. Her sister-in-law Lavon Yates taught her how to make it, fifty years ago, shortly after she married. Not long after, Mrs. Herndon and her husband took over a six-hundred-acre farm close to Taylorsville. The farm had seventy-five dairy cows, eight acres of tobacco, and a passel of farmhands. The most-requested midday dinner was fried chicken. She made it as often as three times a week and served it with coleslaw, green beans, mashed potatoes, gravy, biscuits, and sweet tea.
Mrs. Herndon is firm in her approach. She prefers the flavor of a whole chicken and cuts it up herself. She uses only White Lily self-rising flour. “Lots of people put pepper in their flour,” she says, but she only adds salt, and fries the pieces until they are dark brown and crisp. Lately she has made one change: “I used to use the lard from my own pigs but after my husband passed, I started to use Wesson oil.” She adds, a little wistfully, “His favorite piece was the back.”
One 3 ½- to 4-pound chicken, cut into 10 pieces and trimmed
1 tablespoon kosher salt
Vegetable oil, for frying
1½ cups self-rising flour (preferably White Lily brand)
1. Set two wire racks over two separate rimmed baking sheets. Pat the chicken dry and season with salt. Place the pieces on one of the wire racks and refrigerate uncovered for 1 hour.
2. Place an oven rack in the center position and preheat the oven to 200°F. Line a plate with paper towels.
3. Heat 2 inches of oil in a Dutch oven over medium-high until a deep-frying thermometer registers 350°F. Do not pat the chicken dry, as the moisture the salt draws from the chicken will help make the crust crispy. Coat half of the chicken in the flour, shake off the excess, carefully add to the hot oil, and cook for 10 to 12 minutes, until golden brown on the first side. Flip the chicken and cook for 10 to 12 minutes more, until an instant-read thermometer registers 175°F in the thighs and drumsticks and 165°F in the breast.
4. Transfer the chicken to the plate to drain briefly, then transfer to the clean wire rack. Keep warm in the oven.
5. Return the oil to 350°F and repeat with the remaining chicken. Serve.
SERVES 4
CAPE MAY, NEW JERSEY
Dot Burton and Lucille Thompson learned to fry chicken from their mother, Helen Dickerson, who worked at the Chalfonte Hotel in Cape May for seventy-seven years. Her version has a firm but soft crust more often found in the “covered skillet” fried chickens of the Midwest. Her daughters say that Winifred Jones of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, gave Mrs. Dickerson the original recipe. The sisters believe that the secret to their chicken lies in their skillets, which came from Virginia, where the family lived during the school year. More than likely, another factor is the thick onion slices that Mrs. Burton and Mrs. Thompson allow to caramelize in the skillet to create a subtle steam and a haunting, sweet flavor. The greatest secret, of course, lies in the hands of a family of women who have gently shaken the skillets fourteen hours a day from Memorial Day to Labor Day for the past eighty years.
One 3 ½- to 4-pound chicken, cut into 10 pieces and trimmed
Kosher salt
2 tablespoons lemon pepper
1 cup all-purpose flour
Freshly ground black pepper
Peanut oil, for frying
2 medium onions, cut into ½-inch-thick rounds
Ice water
1. Set two wire racks over two separate rimmed baking sheets. Pat the chicken dry and season with 1 tablespoon salt and the lemon pepper. Place the chicken on one of the wire rack sets and refrigerate uncovered for 1 hour.
2. In a brown bag, combine the flour, 1 tablespoon salt, and ½ teaspoon black pepper. Do not pat the chicken dry as the moisture that the salt draws from the chicken will help make the crust crispy. Working with two pieces at a time, add the chicken to the bag and shake to coat with the flour. Remove the chicken from the bag, shake off the excess flour, and return to the wire rack. Let the chicken sit for 10 minutes. Save the flour in the bag.
3. Place an oven rack in the center position and preheat the oven to 200°F. Line two plates with paper towels.
4. Heat 1 ½ inches of oil in a large cast-iron skillet over medium-high heat until a deep-frying thermometer registers 350°F. Carefully add half of the onion and cook for 3 to 4 minutes, until soft and golden. Use a slotted spoon to remove the onions and discard. Place the remaining onions in a bowl of ice water.
5. Return the oil to 350°F. Carefully add half of the chicken pieces to the hot oil and cook for 10 to 12 minutes, until golden brown on the first side. Flip the chicken and cook for 10 to 12 minutes more, until an instant-read thermometer registers 175°F in the thighs and drumsticks and 165°F in the breast.
6. Transfer the chicken to the plate to drain briefly, then transfer to the clean wire rack. Keep warm in the oven. Return the oil to 350°F and repeat with the remaining chicken.
7. Drain the onions and separate into rings. Shake half of the onion rings in the flour bag until well coated. Return the oil to 350°F. Carefully add the onion rings and cook about 4 minutes, until golden brown. Transfer to the other plate to drain briefly, then transfer the wire rack with the chicken. Return the oil to 350°F and repeat with the remaining onion rings.
8. Season the onion rings with salt and black pepper and serve on top of the chicken.
SERVES 4
CHATTAHOOCHEE, FLORIDA
“When I was a young man serving a temporary post in Tennessee, I had occasion to become familiar with hot chicken,” says Wayne Lee. “I grew up on sweet lard-fried chicken in the Florida panhandle. The first time I tasted hot chicken in Tennessee I thought there had been some kind of mistake, a cook perhaps had mistaken an entire bottle for a drop of hot pepper sauce. I was like to die of that chicken, but the gentlemen who took me to the hot chicken joint couldn’t get enough of it. What was a visiting seminarian to do? I developed a taste for hot chicken and in the past fifty years, worked on cracking the hot chicken code. It comes down to a balance of the tart, the sweet, and the hot. A lot of it depends on your bird. We pretty much use grocery store chicken here and this is the best I’ve come to getting it right. I prefer to use lard in the fry bath—it makes it lighter and crisper.”
2 ½ cups buttermilk
One 12-ounce can evaporated milk
½ cup kosher salt
¼ cup hot sauce, preferably Tabasco
Eight 4-ounce chicken drumsticks, trimmed
Eight 6-ounce bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs, trimmed
4 cups all-purpose flour
¼ cup sweet paprika
3 tablespoons freshly ground black pepper
1 tablespoon cayenne pepper
Peanut oil, lard, or bacon grease, for frying
1. The day before serving, in a large bowl, combine the buttermilk, evaporated milk, salt, and hot sauce. Add the chicken pieces and turn to coat evenly. Cover and refrigerate for 12 hours, turning the chicken occasionally.
2. Set two wire racks over two rimmed baking sheets. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, paprika, black pepper, and cayenne. Working with two pieces at a time, remove the chicken from the marinade and let the excess drip back into the bowl. Coat the chicken in the flour and shake off the excess. Transfer the chicken to one of the wire racks.
3. Place an oven rack in the center position and preheat the oven to 200°F. Line a plate with paper towels.
4. Heat 2 inches of oil in a large cast-iron skillet until a deep-frying thermometer registers 350°F. Carefully add half of the chicken to the hot oil and cook for 10 to 12 minutes, until golden brown on the first side. Flip the pieces and cook for 10 to 12 minutes more, until an instant-read thermometer registers 175°F in the thighs and drumsticks and 165°F in the breast.
5. Transfer the chicken to the plate to drain briefly, then transfer to the clean wire rack. Keep warm in the oven. Return the oil to 350°F and repeat with the remaining pieces. Serve.
SERVES 6 TO 8
CLINTON, MISSOURI
Debbie Page-Pfetcher says: “Our father, a construction worker, would have the family travel with him during the summer to the areas of Missouri where he was working. Once we lived in a small (almost minus population) town called Huntingdale. My father leased a home that had belonged to the Squire Paul Henry family for which the county was named. The house was an old, magnificent structure with an upstairs full-front porch with a swing and a ‘summer kitchen’ in the back. In the kitchen sat our mother’s delight, the original wood stove of the Henry family and it worked beautifully. On that stove were created some of the most unforgettable meals of my life. One of the many foods created by my mother on that stove was her fried chicken. It was cooked in a cast-iron skillet cleaned each time with cornmeal and, with her more-than-adept skill of moving the skillet to various areas of the stove’s heat, she managed to create the unexplainable.
“I returned to Clinton some years later and married. I worked with a friend who married into the Henry family and became more aware of the magnificent history that revolved around the house. I did some research at the local library and discovered that Squire Paul enjoyed a good cook and a good meal. I can’t help but think that the pleasures of him, his wives, their children, and their friends were revived each time the old cookstove was loaded with wood and the scent of food wafted throughout the house.”
2 cups buttermilk
Kosher salt
1 tablespoon green hot sauce, preferably Tabasco
One 3½- to 4-pound chicken, cut into 10 pieces and trimmed
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
Vegetable oil, vegetable shortening, or lard
1. In a shallow baking dish, combine the buttermilk, 3 tablespoons salt, and the hot sauce. Add the chicken, cover, and refrigerate for 2 hours, turning the chicken pieces every 30 minutes.
2. In a second shallow dish, whisk together the flour, 2 teaspoons salt, and the pepper. Set a wire rack over a rimmed baking sheet. Working with two pieces at a time, remove the chicken from the marinade and let the excess drip back into the bowl. Coat the chicken in the flour and shake off the excess flour. Transfer the chicken to the wire rack and let sit for 20 minutes.
3. Line a plate with paper towels. In an electric skillet, heat 1 ½ inches of oil to 375°F. Add the chicken to the skillet and cook for 10 minutes, until just beginning to brown. Flip the chicken pieces, cover, and cook for 20 to 30 minutes more, until the chicken is cooked through and deep golden brown, and an instant-read thermometer registers 175°F in the thighs and drumsticks and 165°F in the breast.
4. Transfer the chicken to the plate to drain briefly. Serve hot.
SERVES 4
NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA
“The first time I cut up a chicken I was working at Portia’s. The chef there, Bill Turner, asked me where I learned how to do it. I said I learned from my mother at home. He taught me how to get twelve pieces from a whole chicken; my mother was able to get thirteen pieces from the same chicken because she broke the back into two parts. When you cut it properly you won’t loosen the skin.
You start by cutting it down the back. Take a sharp cleaver and place the chicken firmly on a block and hold it down. After you split it down the back, open it up and take out the insides and put them aside. Then you cut straight through the breast. Cut it into quarters with the cleaver, separating the thighs from the breast. Then disjoint it at the wings, and disjoint the legs from the thighs. If you use a cleaver, be careful. Always move all other knives away from the board when you use a cleaver because you can mis-strike, and if that cleaver hits a knife, it can jump up and hit you. After the chicken is cut up, salt and pepper it, mixing the pieces around so the salt and pepper get all over the chicken.
Alice Curtis and her poultry, LEWIS HINE, 1921.
I learned all about fried chicken from Bill Turner, too. It’s the easiest job in the kitchen. You can tell by the sound when fried chicken is done. If you listen to it, you can hear how the sound of the grease crackling in the fryer changes. Then you know it’s time to bring it up. I never cook it well done; I never cook any meat well done. What I do is take the blood out of it first. While the chicken is frying, take a pair of tongs and squeeze each piece. Squeeze it till it bursts to let the blood out. You can look right down there by the bone and see if there is any blood there. When it’s ready, the chicken will float to the top, a part of it will stick up. Then you take it and check it over. If you cook it properly you can keep your guests or customers from ever seeing any blood. That’s what they object to, when they prefer well-done meat—not the taste, but the blood.
If you use an electric fryer, set it at 350°; if you pan-fry, wait till the oil is beginning to bubble. I use peanut oil for frying. Put the heavy pieces in first (thigh, leg, and breast), making sure you don’t crowd the chicken. If you put too much in at one time the heat and oil can’t get all around the meat and it will cook unevenly. You have to watch the flour that falls to the bottom of the pan very carefully. After each set of pieces gets done, strain the oil out and clean the pan, otherwise the flour at the bottom is going to burn. You’ve heard people say the first chicken looks good, the second so-so, and the third you can forget. That’s why. Never fry anything else [meat, fish, or sausage] along with the chicken, because it will give it a bad taste. It’s like frying hot sausage on a grill and then following it up with steak or ham. You see that a lot in restaurant kitchens and that’s why the food has a strange taste.
—Austin Leslie in Creole Feast, compiled by Nathaniel Burton and Rudy Lombard (Random House, 1978)
Like many people in New Orleans, Mr. Leslie went to his attic as the waters rose after Hurricane Katrina. He was trapped there for two days in 98-degree heat and died of a heart attack in Atlanta several days after being evacuated.
One 3 ½- to 4-pound chicken, cut into 10 pieces and trimmed
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoons Cajun seasoning
One 12-ounce can evaporated milk
1 cup water
1 large egg, beaten
½ cup all-purpose flour
Peanut oil
FOR THE PERSILLADE
1 cup minced fresh parsley
12 garlic cloves, minced
10 dill pickle slices
1. To make the chicken: Place a wire rack set over a rimmed baking sheet. Pat the chicken dry and season with salt, pepper, and Cajun seasoning. Place the chicken on the rack and refrigerate uncovered for 1 to 24 hours.
2. Place an oven rack in the center position and preheat the oven to 200°F. Line a plate with paper towels and place another wire rack over a second rimmed baking sheet.
3. In a large bowl, combine the evaporated milk, water, and egg. In a shallow dish, whisk together the flour, 2 teaspoons salt, and 1 teaspoon pepper. Working with two pieces at a time, add the chicken to the milk mixture and turn to coat evenly. Remove the chicken from the marinade and let the excess drip back into the bowl. Coat the chicken in the flour and shake off the excess. Return the chicken to the wire rack.
4. Place an oven rack in the center position and preheat the oven to 200°F. Line a plate with paper towels and place another wire rack over a second rimmed baking sheet.
5. Heat 2 inches of oil in a large cast-iron skillet over medium-high heat until a deep-frying thermometer registers 350°F. Carefully add half the chicken pieces to the hot oil and cook for 10 to 12 minutes, until golden brown on the first side. Flip the pieces and cook for 10 to 12 minutes more, until an instant-read thermometer registers 175°F.
6. Transfer the chicken to the plate to drain briefly, then transfer to the clean wire rack. Keep warm in the oven. Return the oil to 350°F and repeat with the remaining pieces.
7. To make the persillade: In a small bowl, combine the parsley and garlic. Top each piece of chicken with a slice of pickle, sprinkle with the persillade, and serve.
SERVES 4
IN ADDITION TO BEING INDIVIDUALIZED AND REGIONALIZED, A DISH NEEDS TO BE commodified to assure its status as an American food icon. Harlan Sanders was the poster child for this phenomenon. He began serving fried chicken from his gas station and motel in 1930, and when he sold his business in 1964, there were six hundred franchises in the United States. Today there are eleven thousand outlets in eighty countries.
The Colonel’s “original recipe” is shrouded in mystery: It was even transported in armored trucks when the company’s corporate offices moved. The Colonel claimed that the recipe contained “11 herbs and spices,” but when the chicken was analyzed in the early 1980s for William Poundstone’s book, Big Secrets, the laboratory found only flour, salt, pepper, and MSG. The formula may have been changed after the sale. The Colonel himself said that the corporate types had turned his recipe into “nothing more than a fried dough ball wrapped around some chicken.”
For better or for worse, the Colonel’s chicken, along with McDonald’s burgers, are America’s leading culinary ambassadors. In 2007, a wire service reported: “In Pakistan anti-American protesters set a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant on fire. The protesters mistakenly thought they were attacking a high-ranking U.S. military official—Colonel Sanders.”
REDMOND, WASHINGTON
After marrying an American businessman, Etsuko Scholz moved from her native Tokyo to the Pacific Northwest where she taught English as a second language and raised three children. When she wanted to share the tastes of her past with her children, she cooked. “Japanese restaurants here are aimed at American tastes,” she says. “Sauces are sweeter, and the vegetables are different.” In a curious turn, her son’s work eventually took him back to Tokyo, along with his three children. When she visits, her grandchildren beg her to cook “American.” McNuggets, she found, take on a whole new meaning when they are breaded in panko, Japanese bread crumbs, and served with shaved cabbage, spicy Japanese mustard, lemon wedges, and tonkatsu sauce for a fine late-summer picnic (and leftovers make one mean sandwich).
FOR THE SAUCE
½ cup ketchup
2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
2 teaspoons soy sauce
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
FOR THE CHICKEN
⅓ cup cornstarch
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 large eggs
2 cups panko (Japanese bread crumbs)
1½ pounds boneless, skinless chicken breasts, trimmed and cut into ¼-inch strips
Vegetable oil, for frying
1. To make the sauce: In a small bowl, combine all of the ingredients, cover, and refrigerate.
2. To make the chicken: Place an oven rack in the center position and preheat the oven to 200°F. Place two wire racks over two separate rimmed baking sheets. Line a plate with paper towels.
3. In a shallow dish, combine the cornstarch, 1 teaspoon salt, and ¼ teaspoon pepper. In a second one, whisk the eggs until frothy. In a third, spread the panko in an even layer.
4. Pat the chicken dry and season with salt and pepper. Working with a few pieces at a time, lightly coat the chicken with the cornstarch and shake off any excess. Coat the chicken in the egg, letting any excess drip back into the bowl, and then in the panko. Transfer to a wire rack.
5. Heat 1 inch of oil in a large skillet or wok over medium-high heat until a deep-frying thermometer registers 350°F. Add half of the chicken to the hot oil and cook for 4 to 6 minutes, until cooked through and golden brown on all sides. Transfer the chicken to a plate to drain briefly, then transfer to a clean wire rack. Keep warm in the oven. Return the oil to 350°F and repeat with the remaining chicken. Serve with the sauce.
SERVES 4
WASHINGTON, D.C.
Clay Dunn and Zach Patton are both from the South, but they had very different food experiences growing up. Zach’s mom was a fantastic cook who “even concocted a recipe in a dream and got up the next day and cooked it.” Clay’s mother’s repertoire consisted of great fried chicken for community potlucks, but he can’t remember a fresh herb, and never ate a tomato until college. When Mr. Patton and Mr. Dunn moved in together, neither wanted to part with a single issue of their collection of food magazines, so they cooked at least one recipe from each issue. They experienced royal flops and found flawless recipes, such as this pressed chicken, which originally appeared in Gourmet. “We barely had to tweak it at all,” said Mr. Dunn.
Four 11-ounce bone-in, skin-on chicken breast halves, trimmed
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 pound tomatoes, coarsely chopped
12 ounces yellow squash, cut into ½-inch pieces
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 tablespoon minced fresh marjoram
1. Pat the chicken breasts dry and season with salt and pepper.
2. Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the chicken, skin side down. Cover the chicken with parchment paper, then a heavy pot or skillet, followed by a 3- to 5-pound weight (such as two 32-ounce cans or a brick wrapped in foil). Cook for 10 minutes, then remove the weight, pot, and parchment paper.
3. Flip the chicken and re-cover with clean parchment paper, the pot, and the weight. Cook about 8 minutes more, until the chicken is firm and an instant-read thermometer registers 165°F. Transfer the chicken to a serving platter, cover loosely with aluminum foil, and let rest.
4. Add the tomatoes, squash, and ¼ teaspoon salt to the skillet and cook over medium-high heat about 6 minutes, until the squash is tender and the tomatoes are saucy. Stir in the garlic and 2 teaspoons of the marjoram and cook about 1 minute, until aromatic. Season the vegetables with salt and pepper to taste.
5. Spoon the vegetables over the chicken, sprinkle with the remaining 1 teaspoon marjoram, and serve.
SERVES 4
NEW YORK, NEW YORK
Most cooks are perplexed by Chef Soltner’s tenderizing rite: When the chicken thigh registers 158° to 160°F on an instant-read thermometer, he drops a teaspoon of water in the roasting pan, closes the oven door, turns off the heat, and waits three minutes before removing the bird. “For the soft breast,” he says.
The idea of creating a mini steam room in the oven sends terror through the hearts of cooks who lust after a crisp chicken skin. Even so, most maintain an appreciative, if arm’s-length, tolerance of divergent roasting techniques. After all, people are born to a certain roasted chicken: their mother’s. To malign another person’s chicken is to malign his past. “I can only roast chicken the way I roast chicken,” Chef Soltner says softly.
Two 1½- to 1 ¾-pound whole poussins or small chickens
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
4 fresh thyme sprigs
4 fresh tarragon sprigs
1 medium onion, peeled and quartered
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 teaspoons water
½ cup white wine
½ cup homemade chicken broth or low-sodium store-bought chicken broth
2 tablespoon minced fresh tarragon
2 tablespoons minced fresh parsley
2 tablespoons (¼ stick) unsalted butter
1. Place an oven rack in the center position and preheat the oven to 450°F.
2. Pat the chickens dry and season with salt and pepper. Place 2 thyme sprigs, 2 tarragon sprigs, and 2 onion quarters in the cavity of each chicken.
3. Heat the oil in a roasting pan over high heat. Add the chickens and cook for 4 to 6 minutes, turning as necessary, until golden brown on all sides. Transfer the roasting pan to the oven and roast for 20 to 25 minutes, basting frequently, until an instant-read thermometer registers 160°F in the thighs.
4. Add the water to the roasting pan. Close the oven door, turn off the heat, and let sit for 3 minutes. Transfer the chickens to a carving board and let rest.
5. Pour off any fat from the roasting pan. Add the wine, scrape up any browned bits, and cook over medium heat about 2 minutes, until reduced by half. Stir in the chicken broth, bring to a simmer, and cook for 2 to 4 minutes, until flavorful. Off the heat, whisk in the chopped tarragon, parsley, and butter. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
6. Carve the chickens and serve with the sauce.
SERVES 4
SOUTH SALEM, NEW YORK
Growing up in Savannah La-Mar, a small town on the western side of Jamaica, Andrea Hutchinson watched her grandmother pour love, tenderness, and intensity into her rum cake, her soups, her rice and chicken. Since moving to the United States, Ms. Hutchinson cooks to relax, to entertain, to remember who she is. Rum-washed chicken, which incorporates influences from Jamaica’s Chinese community, was one of her mother’s specialties. Served with Jamaican rice and peas, it remains one of her favorite dishes for family meals and company dinners.
⅓ cup Jamaican white rum
¼ cup jerk sauce, preferably Walkerswood brand
¼ cup Chinese black bean sauce
3 tablespoons char su (Asian barbecue sauce)
One 3½- to 4-pound chicken
2 garlic cloves, minced
One 3-inch piece fresh ginger, peeled and thinly sliced
¼ cup fresh lime juice
1. The day before serving, in a small bowl, combine the rum, jerk sauce, black bean sauce, and char su.
2. Place the chicken in a shallow bowl. Use your fingers to carefully separate the skin from the breast meat. Rub the garlic over the breast meat, under the skin, then place one-quarter of the ginger under the skin.
3. Brush the chicken inside and out with the lime juice. Rub the chicken with the rum mixture. Place the remaining ginger slices in the cavity, cover, and refrigerate for 12 to 24 hours.
4. Place an oven rack in the center position and preheat the oven to 300°F.
5. Place the chicken in a baking dish, breast down, and pour the marinade over it. Cover with foil and roast for 1 ½ hours. Remove the chicken from the oven and use two large forks or paper towels to carefully flip it breast up. Roast, uncovered, for 45 minutes more, until an instant-read thermometer registers 175°F in the thigh and 165°F in the breast.
6. Let rest for 5 minutes, then carve and serve.
SERVES 4
CHICKEN HAS LONG BEEN A FAVORITE DINNER PARTY FOOD. HERE ARE A FEW SAMPLES:
1774: Hannah Glasse, The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy, Chicken Surprise
This loaf of cooked chicken enclosed in bacon and forcemeat was more complex than other popular colonial dishes such as smothered chicken but, said the author, it was “a pretty first course, summer or winter.”
1824: Mary Randolph, The Virginia House-Wife, Chicken Fricassee
A perennial favorite in colonial times, chicken fricassee remained on dinner menus through the nineteenth century. For the most part, the dish resisted outside influences and stayed close to its French roots as a white braise with a sauce of cream, egg yolk, parsley, and lemon juice.
1869: Chef Pierre Blot, Chicken Marengo
A dish of chicken cooked with mushrooms and garlic, Chicken Marengo was said to have first been served to Napoleon by his camp cook after the battle of Marengo in northern Italy. Sixty years passed before it was resurrected as fashionable fare in Britain, by which time white wine and tomatoes had been added to the dish. The recipe was a hit in the United States, where additional permutations such as using fried eggs, roasted peppers, or crayfish to garnish the dish flourished. The recipe was introduced to le tout New York by French chef, cookbook author, and teacher Pierre Blot.
1877: Buckeye Cookery and Practical Housekeeping: Compiled from Original Recipes, Jellied Chicken
Boxed gelatin was first introduced when the British J and G Company began exporting it to America in 1845. By the 1870s its use in the home kitchen was well established in both sweet and savory dishes such as jellied chicken.
1900: Chicken à la King
Craig Claiborne in The New York Times Food Encyclopedia, wrote, “Over the years I have speculated about the origin of the dish called chicken à la king, Curiosity about the source has to do with a possible sea change that may have occurred when the dish arrived here, as I supposed from France.” James N. Keen, a professional photographer in Louisville, Kentucky, was given a brochure forty years ago by E. Clark King 3rd, whose father was a restaurateur, which describes the genesis of the name. “It was in the early 1900s that chicken à la King was first served to the public,” the brochure says. “My father was the proprietor of the Brighton Beach Hotel, a fashionable summer resort outside Manhattan. One night his head chef, George Greenwald, sent word he had concocted a dish he would like to serve my parents. It was enjoyed immensely and they asked for seconds. . . . The next morning, the chef asked permission to place it on the menu. . . . The next day the bill of fare carried the following: Chicken à la King—$1.25 a portion.” In another version, “The French Chef” of Hotel Bellevue-Stratford in Philadelphia is credited with inventing a la King in 1907
1937: Chicken Kiev
The Yar restaurant in Chicago, owned by Russian immigrant Colonel Vladimir Yaschenko, was credited by the Chicago Daily Record with creating this dish of pounded chicken breast rolled around a compound butter, then breaded and fried. The dish later enjoyed a surge in popularity during the cold war when Russian cuisine was a source of curiosity.
1945: Chicken Francese
Everyone agrees that this dish of chicken breasts in a lemon-caper sauce was created in the mid-1940s, but there is little evidence that it was created by New York City Italians and named francese (or “French”).
1950s: Chicken Divan
New York City’s Divan Parisienne restaurant is said to have created this casserole of chicken, broccoli, cream, and cheese, which fits easily into the dinner party repertoire of the casserole-loving 1950s housewife.
1960s: Chicken Cordon Bleu
Often incorrectly thought of as a classic French dish of high style, Chicken Cordon Bleu was created in America during the 1960s to mimic roulades of French, Austrian, and Italian origin. While a European version may have featured prosciutto and Parmesan, here in America deli ham and Swiss cheese were more to taste. It was often found on airline menus—when air travel was still an elegant affair. The earliest reference to the concept of “cordon bleu” was in a Los Angeles Times description of the trendy dishes to be served at a high-end event: “Veal cordon bleu will be the pièce de résistance on the menu.”
1973: Paula Wolfert, Couscous and Other Good Food from Morocco, Chicken Tagine with Chick-Peas
Typical of Wolfert’s recipes collected at the source, this became a standard dish for a particular stratum of up-to-the-minute 1970s hostesses.
1982: Julee Rosso and Sheila Lukins, The Silver Palate Cookbook, Chicken
Marbella This somewhat unexpected combination of chicken, prunes, green olives, and capers cut a huge swath through company dinners in the 1980s and is still served.
DENVER, COLORADO
When Lily Ng moved from Malaysia to live with her daughter in Denver, she spent six months watching the Food Network. She graduated from food television to recipes and food writing, and before you could say sauté, she was a blogger, exchanging recipes and making “good buddies” around the world. Her Chinese salt-baked chicken recipe not only cuts down on the usual ten pounds of salt “that costs more than the chicken,” but steams the chicken Malaysian style—in the microwave.
2 tablespoons oyster sauce
2 tablespoons shaoxing wine (Chinese rice wine) or dry sherry
1 tablespoon fish sauce
1 teaspoon toasted sesame oil
1 teaspoon grated fresh ginger
½ teaspoon Chinese five-spice powder
½ teaspoon turbinado or light brown sugar
¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
Eight 6-ounce bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs, trimmed
Vegetable oil, as needed
3 pounds natural coarse sea salt or kosher salt
1. The day before, whisk together in a large bowl the oyster sauce, wine, fish sauce, sesame oil, ginger, five-spice powder, sugar, and pepper until the sugar is dissolved. Add the chicken thighs, turn to coat them, cover, and refrigerate for 12 to 24 hours.
2. Place two 10-inch parchment squares on the work surface, overlapping them by about 2 inches to make a rectangle. Lightly brush the paper with oil, and then place a chicken thigh in the center. Bring the sides of the paper over the chicken and roll them down the top of the chicken. Fold the ends toward the center of the chicken and secure with butcher’s twine to form a tight package. Repeat with all of the parchment paper and chicken pieces.
3. Line a large microwave-safe bowl or baking dish with several layers of parchment paper. Pour half of the salt into the bowl, arrange the chicken packages on top, and cover with the remaining salt. (Make sure that the packages are covered with the salt.)
4. Cover the bowl with a large sheet of parchment and place a large microwave-safe plate upside down over the parchment. Carefully turn the bowl over onto the plate. Fold the parchment paper up around the bowl and secure with butcher’s twine to form a tight package.
5. Place the parchment-wrapped bowl, still on the plate, in the microwave and cook on medium power for 20 to 25 minutes.
6. Let the chicken sit for 10 minutes, then turn the bowl over so the plate is on top. Remove the plate. Brush away the salt from the parcels. Using kitchen shears, carefully cut the twine and tear open the parchment paper. (Use caution, as the chicken and salt will be very hot.) If serving cold, let the parcels cool to room temperature, then refrigerate. Serve hot or cold.
SERVES 4
LAS VEGAS, NEVADA
In the Flamingo West mobile home park near Las Vegas, Diane Reiner opened a box belonging to her adored father that she’d had since he died. She could almost taste the memories that spilled out. A chef who’d worked in Las Vegas casinos and California restaurants, he had taught her all the important things in life, like how to thicken a cream sauce with roux and how to clean a grill. Now she could almost see him again—prepping vegetables, setting up steam tables, and scribbling recipes, often on paper placemats. In the box with the Hilltop Café placemat with the roast chicken recipe are his instructions: If you cook a whole chicken, make it last for three meals—the first night eat it hot, the next day make chicken salad, then throw any chicken and bones that are left in a pot and make soup.
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon dried sage, crumbled
2 teaspoons sweet paprika, plus more for garnish
1 teaspoon kosher salt
½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
One 5-to 6-pound chicken
1 medium onion, coarsely chopped
½ cup chopped fresh parsley, plus more for garnish
6 garlic cloves, peeled and smashed
1. Place an oven rack in the center position and preheat oven to 475°F. Set a rack in a roasting pan.
2. In a small bowl, combine the oil, sage, paprika, salt, and pepper to make a paste. Starting at neck, use your fingers to loosen the skin from the breast, thighs, and drumsticks. (Do not completely detach the skin.) Rub all but 1 tablespoon of the spice paste between the skin and the flesh of the bird. Place the onion, parsley, and garlic in the cavity and truss the chicken.
3. Pat the bird dry. Rub the reserved 1 tablespoon of the oil mixture over the skin and place on the rack breast up. Roast for 45 minutes. Reduce the oven temperature to 350°F and roast for 45 minutes to 1 hour more, until an instant-read thermometer registers 175°F in the thighs and 165°F in the breast.
4. Transfer the chicken to a carving board and let rest for 15 minutes. Carve, sprinkle with paprika and parsley, and serve.
SERVES 6
NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK
This recipe was adapted from Beard on Food (1974). Garlic was not yet America’s sweetheart when this recipe was published, but the slow cooking mellowed the taste of the garlic and, according to the James Beard Society in New York City, it turns the cloves into “a buttery, mild paste perfumed with garlic that is wonderful spread on crusty toast.”
4 celery stalks, cut into long strips
2 medium onions, coarsely chopped
6 fresh parsley sprigs
1 tablespoon chopped fresh tarragon
⅔ cup vegetable oil
Eight 4-ounce chicken drumsticks
Eight 6-ounce bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
Freshly grated nutmeg
½ cup dry vermouth
40 garlic cloves, unpeeled
1 baguette, sliced thin, for serving
1. Place an oven rack in the center position and preheat the oven to 375°F.
2. In a large baking dish or casserole with a lid, combine the celery, onions, parsley, and tarragon and spread in an even layer. Pour the oil into a shallow dish. Pat the chicken dry, coat with the oil and arrange over the vegetables in the baking dish. Season the chicken with salt, pepper, and nutmeg.
3. Pour the vermouth into the baking dish and arrange the garlic cloves around the chicken pieces. Cover with aluminum foil, then the lid, and bake for 1 hour to 1 hour 20 minutes, until an instant-read thermometer registers 175°F.
4. Squeeze the garlic cloves from their skin and spread on the bread slices, and serve with the chicken and pan juices.
SERVES 8
SAN ANGELO, TEXAS
When Pat Atteberry, who was born in Oklahoma and grew up in New Mexico, thinks of casseroles she thinks of the community dinners and potlucks at the First Presbyterian Church of San Angelo, Texas, that her family has attended for many years. None of the covered dishes served there is more popular than the King Ranch Chicken Casserole, a soft, spicy, cheesy mixture of tomatoes, corn tortillas, chicken, cream, and pepper that Mrs. Atteberry describes as “an enchilada in a dish.” The origin of King Ranch Chicken is a bit foggy and no direct tie has been found to the sprawling West Texas ranch in its name, but when it comes to this casserole, it’s better to not let the truth stand in the way: “Everybody has a recipe and everyone says theirs is the original and the best,” says Mrs. Atteberry. “Feast of Good News, the cookbook that our church published has a recipe and I was probably inspired by that version. I’ve been told that it’s good enough to cure a lost soul.”
6 ounces pepper Jack cheese, shredded (1½ cups)
6 ounces cheddar cheese, shredded (1½ cups)
½ cup vegetable oil
Ten 6-inch corn tortillas
1½ pounds boneless, skinless chicken breast halves, trimmed
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
¼ cup olive oil
4 teaspoons fresh lime juice
4 teaspoons ancho chile powder
4 tablespoons (½ stick) unsalted butter
½ cup finely chopped onion
1 red bell pepper, stemmed, seeded, and coarsely chopped
1 poblano chile, stemmed, seeded, and coarsely chopped
3 garlic cloves, minced
1 teaspoon ground cumin
½ teaspoon cayenne pepper
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 cup homemade chicken broth or low-sodium store-bought chicken broth
One 10-ounce can Ro-Tel tomatoes or 1 ¼ cups canned diced tomatoes with jalapeño chiles
½ cup half-and-half
½ cup chopped fresh cilantro, plus more for garnish
⅓ cup sour cream, plus more for serving
1. Place an oven rack in the center position and preheat the oven to 350°F. Line a baking sheet with paper towels. In a medium bowl, combine the two cheeses.
2. Heat the vegetable oil in a medium skillet over medium heat. Add 1 tortilla and cook about 1 minute, until crisp, flipping halfway through. Transfer to the baking sheet. Repeat with the remaining tortillas.
3. Pat the chicken dry and season with salt and pepper. Heat the olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the chicken, 2 teaspoons of the lime juice, and 2 teaspoons of the ancho chile powder and cook for 10 to 15 minutes, until the chicken is firm and cooked through, flipping halfway through. Transfer the chicken to a carving board and let cool slightly, then shred into bite-size pieces.
4. Melt the butter in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Add the onion, bell pepper, and poblano and cook about 4 minutes, stirring occasionally, until soft. Stir in the remaining 2 teaspoons ancho chile powder, the garlic, cumin, and cayenne and cook about 1 minute, until aromatic. Stir in the flour. Stir in the broth, bring to a simmer, and cook about 3 minutes, until slightly thickened. Stir in the tomatoes and half-and-half, bring to a simmer, cover, and cook about 15 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the flavors have blended.
5. Off the heat, stir in the remaining 2 teaspoons lime juice, ¼ cup of the cilantro, and the sour cream. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
6. Spread ½ cup of the sauce evenly over the bottom of an 11 x 7-inch baking dish. Evenly layer half of the tortillas over the sauce, breaking them as needed to fill any gaps. Top with half of the chicken, half of the remaining sauce, half of the remaining cilantro, and half of the cheese. Repeat the layering with the remaining tortillas, chicken, sauce, cilantro, and cheese.
7. Bake the casserole about 30 minutes, until brown and bubbling.
8. Let cool for 10 minutes. Sprinkle with additional cilantro and serve with sour cream.
SERVES 6 TO 8
ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI
Charles Insler, a law clerk for a federal judge in St. Louis, brings the same mental precision to cooking that he does to his work: He compiles evidence, clues, and insights into each dish he tries. Having grown up in the land of culinary delights that is New Orleans, Mr. Insler had no reason to believe the food in the “rest of the country was so lackluster” until he went to Princeton University, where there was nary a beignet in sight.
While researching the food preferences of the American presidents, Mr. Insler first learned of Jefferson’s penchant for fine food. Jefferson’s chicken fricassee is a perfect demonstration of how, says Insler, he “brought America into the modern food era.” Using the traditional French technique of fricassee, the dish calls for olive oil, which the president imported from Italy, along with mustard from France. “Of all the items in his garden Jefferson deemed his olive tree ‘the most worthy of being known.’”
Not averse to revising the original, which calls for a little butter to finish the dish, Mr. Insler prefers the richness of cream for his fricassee sauce.
One 3 ½- to 4-pound chicken, cut into 8 pieces
½ teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
½ teaspoon sweet paprika
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 cup water
½ cup dry white wine
2 tablespoons (¼ stick) unsalted butter
1 small onion, finely chopped
5 ounces white mushrooms, stemmed and halved
2 teaspoons minced fresh sage
½ cup half-and-half
1 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley
1. Pat the chicken pieces dry and season with the nutmeg, paprika, salt, and pepper. Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the chicken and cook for 8 to 10 minutes, until golden brown on both sides. Transfer to a plate.
2. Stir the flour into the fat remaining in the skillet and cook about 2 minutes, until lightly browned. Whisk in the water and wine and scrape up any browned bits.
3. Return the chicken to the skillet, bring to a simmer, cover, and cook about 45 minutes, until an instant-read thermometer registers 175°F in the thighs and drumsticks and 165°F in the breast. Transfer the chicken to a serving platter and cover to keep warm. Strain the sauce through a fine-mesh strainer into a liquid measuring cup.
4. Wipe out the skillet with paper towels. Melt the butter in the skillet over medium heat. Add the onion and mushrooms and cook for 6 to 8 minutes, until the vegetables are lightly browned. Stir in the reserved sauce, half-and-half, and sage. Bring to a simmer and cook about 5 minutes, until slightly thickened. Pour the sauce over the chicken, sprinkle with the parsley, and serve.
SERVES 4
POTOMAC, MARYLAND
When Myra Carreon Mondzac moved to New York City from her native Philippines in 1988 the “chaotic, and stimulating beat” of her new life was everything the 28-year-old wanted, yet she still longed for the familiar rituals of her country. Eventually, she was able to visit friends in the suburbs for weekends of home cooking, eating, and talking. Nothing brought the émigrés as close to home as adobo, the Filipino national dish of soy-and-vinegar-marinated chicken. Adobo reflects the Chinese influence on the Philippines, and the use of garlic and the “pickling” of the meat in vinegar are Spanish.
Some add coconut milk or sugar, pineapple or tomatoes, but this adaptation is the perfect expression of the multicolonial influences that helped create the unique Filipino culture. Ms. Mondzac uses adobo to introduce non-Filipinos to the polyglot that is her home cuisine.
1 cup sukang paombong (palm vinegar), cider vinegar, or red wine vinegar
6 tablespoons soy sauce
6 garlic cloves, peeled and smashed
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 bay leaf
One 3 ½- to 4-pound chicken, cut into 8 pieces and trimmed
1. In a Dutch oven, combine the vinegar, soy sauce, garlic, 1 teaspoon salt, 1 teaspoon pepper, and the bay leaf. Add the chicken and turn to coat. Cover and refrigerate for 2 hours.
2. Place the pot on the stove, bring to a simmer, and cook 20 minutes. Transfer the chicken, skin side up, to a wire rack set over a foil-lined rimmed baking sheet.
3. Preheat the broiler. Broil the chicken for 10 minutes, until golden brown. While the chicken broils, simmer the sauce for 5 to 10 minutes, until reduced by half. Discard the bay leaf.
4. Return the chicken to the sauce and turn to coat. Season with salt and pepper to taste, and serve.
SERVES 4 TO 6
SHORELINE, WASHINGTON
Forced to support herself from the time she was an orphaned teenager in Mexico, Jesse Banderas worked as a maid and later a cook in a private home. Her specialty was tortillas, which she made by hand, a technique she taught her daughter, Lupe Peach, the proprietor of a Mexican tienda (shop) in Seattle. This dish, another specialty Ms. Banderas passed on to her daughter, originated in Michoacán, the state where she was raised, and it makes a fine meal when served with fresh tortillas.
6 cups water
One 3½- to 4-pound chicken, cut in 8 pieces and trimmed
2 garlic cloves, halved
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
4 plum tomatoes, cored and halved lengthwise
6 tablespoons vegetable oil
4 dried pasilla chiles, stemmed, seeded, and halved lengthwise
½ cup thinly sliced onion
¾ cup shelled and skinned raw peanuts
1 tablespoon sesame seeds
½ cup homemade chicken broth or low-sodium store-bought chicken broth, plus more as needed
½ teaspoon cayenne pepper, plus more to taste
1. Place an oven rack in the center position and preheat the oven to 450°F. Lightly oil a rimmed baking sheet.
2. In a large Dutch oven, bring the water, the chicken, garlic, 1 teaspoon salt, and 1 teaspoon pepper to a simmer. Cook for 30 to 45 minutes, until an instant-read thermometer registers 175°F in the thighs and drumsticks and 165°F in the breast. Transfer the chicken to a plate to cool. Discard the cooking liquid.
3. While the chicken simmers, place the tomatoes cut side down on the baking sheet and bake about 20 minutes, until the skin starts to bubble and separate from the flesh. Remove the tomatoes from the oven and, while still hot, use tongs to remove the skin. Transfer the tomatoes and any juice to a blender.
4. Heat 2 tablespoons of the oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the chiles and cook for 15 seconds on each side, until aromatic. Transfer the chiles to the blender.
5. Add the onion to the skillet and cook about 4 minutes, stirring occasionally, until soft. Transfer the onion to the blender.
6. Wipe out the skillet with a paper towel. Add the peanuts and sesame seeds and cook over medium-high heat for 2 to 4 minutes, stirring constantly, until aromatic and just beginning to brown. Transfer the peanuts and sesame seeds to the blender. Add the broth and cayenne. Process until smooth, about 1 minute.
7. Heat the remaining ¼ cup oil in a large saucepan over medium-high heat. Add the sauce, bring to a simmer, and cook about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. If the mixture is very thick, add more chicken broth, 2 tablespoons at a time, until it is a sauce-like consistency.
8. When the chicken is cool enough to handle, remove and discard the skin and bones, keeping the meat in large pieces. Stir them into the sauce and cook about 2 minutes, until warmed through. Season with salt and cayenne to taste and serve.
SERVES 4
MIDDLEBURY, VERMONT
Novelist Julia Alvarez spent her early years in the Dominican Republic and moved to New York when the political situation there became untenable. Her husband, Bill Eichner, a surgeon, is the son of Nebraska tenant farmers. “His whole family spent every Sunday afternoon sitting around the table, comparing the flavor of this year’s carrots with last,” says Alvarez, who grew up talking culture and politics, not cooking. Eichner spent hours coaxing his wife’s mother, aunts, and cousins, and Ana, the family cook, into giving him the outlines of their family’s dishes and he translated them through his own sturdy Midwestern fare. Pollo criollo is a family favorite, which they usually serve with red beans and rice (page 643) and sweet-and sour carrots (page 584).
FOR THE MARINADE AND CHICKEN
½ cup dry white wine
1 tablespoon cider vinegar
3 garlic cloves, minced
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
¼ teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
5 tablespoons olive oil
One 3 ½- to-4-pound chicken, cut into 8 pieces and trimmed
1 cup all-purpose flour
FOR THE SAUCE
¼ cup olive oil
1 large onion, finely chopped
2 shallots, finely chopped
3 garlic cloves, minced
1 cup water
1 cup tomato puree or crushed tomatoes
½ cup pitted green olives, chopped
1 tablespoon chopped sun-dried tomatoes
1 tablespoon drained capers, rinsed
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
1. To make the marinade and chicken: In a large bowl, combine the wine, vinegar, garlic, ½ teaspoon salt, ½ teaspoon pepper, and the nutmeg. Whisk in 3 tablespoons of the oil. Add the chicken pieces, turn to coat, cover, and refrigerate for 3 hours.
2. In a shallow dish, combine the flour, 1 teaspoon salt, and 1 teaspoon pepper. Remove chicken from the marinade and pat dry. Coat in the flour mixture and shake off the excess. Heat the remaining 2 tablespoons oil in a Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Cook the chicken for 8 to 10 minutes, until golden brown on both sides. Transfer to a plate.
3. To make the sauce: Heat the oil in the Dutch oven. Add the onion and shallots and cook about 4 minutes, stirring occasionally, until soft. Stir in the garlic and cook about 1 minute, until aromatic. Add the water and scrape up any browned bits. Bring to a simmer and cook for 2 to 4 minutes, until reduced by half. Stir in the tomato puree and simmer about 5 minutes more.
4. Stir in the olives, sun-dried tomatoes, and capers, then return the chicken to the pot, skin side up. Bring to a simmer, cover, and cook for 40 to 50 minutes, until an instant-read thermometer registers 175°F in the thighs and drumsticks and 165°F in the breasts. Season with salt and pepper to taste and serve.
SERVES 4 TO 6
OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA
Mahin Rajabi was a law student in Iran before she immigrated to the United States with her husband in 1984. There had always been a cook in her parents’ home and it was not until after her marriage that her mother taught her several dishes including fesanjan, a rich stew of ground walnuts and pomegranate that is often made for special occasions. It is now one of her family’s favorites. For variety, she sometimes uses small lamb meatballs rather than the traditional chicken. She serves the traditional condiments on the side, including plain yogurt, pickled vegetables, and a large plate of mixed herbs that are munched between mouthfuls of stew.
One 3 ½- to 4-pound chicken, cut into 8 pieces and trimmed
3 cups water, plus more as needed
1 small onion, halved and thinly sliced
Kosher salt
1 pound shelled walnuts
¼ cup pomegranate molasses, plus more to taste
2 tablespoons sugar, plus more to taste
Shala’s Torshi-e Litteh (Persian Giardiniera; page 80)
1 bunch radishes, trimmed
1 cup fresh basil leaves
1 cup fresh mint leaves
1 cup fresh tarragon leaves
1 cup chopped fresh chives
½ cup plain yogurt
1. In a Dutch oven, bring the chicken, water, onion, and 1 teaspoon salt to a simmer, cover, and cook for 30 to 40 minutes, until the chicken is cooked through and an instant-read thermometer registers 175°F in the thighs and 165°F in the breasts.
2. Transfer the chicken to a plate. When it is cool enough to handle, remove and discard the skin and bones, keeping the meat in large pieces. Strain the broth into a large measuring cup and add water, if needed, to equal 2 cups. Return the chicken and broth to the pot.
3. Pulse the walnuts in a food processor until finely ground. Add the ground walnuts, pomegranate molasses, and sugar to the pot and bring to a simmer. Cook over low heat for 30 to 40 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the sauce is thick and the oil from the walnuts has risen to the top. Add water as needed if the pot looks dry. Season with salt, sugar, and pomegranate molasses to taste.
4. Serve with bowls of giardiniera, radishes, basil, mint, tarragon, chives, and yogurt.
SERVES 4
TORRANCE, CALIFORNIA
Dawn Marumoto Kita remembers shoyu chicken as a standard entry in her Japanese American family’s dinner repertoire. A simple, homey dish, it could be tossed on the stove or in a slow cooker while her mother rushed her and her four siblings to baseball games and dance classes. Ms. Kita’s grandfather Kumitoshi Marumoto, the child of Hawaiian sugarcane laborers, was educated in Japan in the 1930s. When he returned to Hawaii as a kibei (a U.S. citizen of Japanese descent who is educated in Japan) and became a manager in the sugar plantation, he was, says Ms. Kita, “the nail that sticks out and must be pounded down.” He and his family, including Ms. Kita’s father, were among the two thousand people from the Hawaiian community of 150,000 ethnic Japanese sent to internment camps on the mainland during World War II. He spent three years imprisoned in Arizona. Once free, Mr. Marumoto vowed never to return to Hawaii, and worked in Utah as a farm laborer picking cherries and beets so he would never stick out again.
Ms. Kita’s shoyu chicken is a family standard that remained a constant despite all the uprooting. She has become a community cookbook collector with a particular fondness for the Japanese Hawaiian cookbooks that help her understand the place her grandfather once called home.
Mori Nakashima, Manzanar Relocation Center, ANSEL ADAMS, 1943.
Eight 6-ounce bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs, trimmed
1 cup soy sauce
1½ cups water
¼ cup packed brown sugar
2 tablespoons mirin (optional)
1 teaspoon grated fresh ginger
1 garlic clove, minced
2 scallions, green and white parts, thinly sliced, for garnish
1. In a Dutch oven, bring the chicken, soy sauce, water, sugar, mirin (if using), ginger, and garlic to a simmer, cover, and cook for 30 to 40 minutes, flipping the chicken halfway through, until the chicken is cooked through and an instant-read thermometer registers 175°F.
2. Transfer the chicken to a serving bowl and pour the sauce over the top. Sprinkle with the scallions and serve.
SERVES 4
AKRON, OHIO
In 2007, Jonathan Rosenberg decided that he could wait no longer to fulfill his dream of becoming a father. He adopted his infant son, Parker An, after he learned that Vietnam was one of the few countries that allowed single men to adopt. “I don’t want Parker to see Vietnam as separate from me. It’s part of our family now.” Mr. Rosenberg is teaching himself to cook Vietnamese dishes via Internet cooking videos and cookbooks, and he and Parker love this chicken dish.
2 ¼ cups unsweetened coconut milk
1 tablespoon sugar
1 tablespoon fish sauce
2 tablespoons grated fresh ginger
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 teaspoon freshly ground white pepper
1 teaspoon chili paste or chili oil (optional)
1 stalk lemongrass, white part only, smashed (optional)
2 star anise pods
1½ pounds boneless, skinless chicken breasts, trimmed and cut into ¼-inch-thick slices
1 tablespoon coconut or vegetable oil
1 recipe coconut rice
6 sprigs fresh cilantro
1. Bring the coconut milk to a simmer in a medium saucepan over low heat. Stir in the sugar, fish sauce, 1 tablespoon of the ginger, garlic, pepper, chili paste (if using), lemongrass (if using), and star anise. Cover and let sit off the heat for 3 to 5 minutes, until the star anise is fragrant. (For a stronger star anise flavor, let sit for longer.) Transfer the marinade to a large bowl and cool to room temperature.
2. Add the chicken to the marinade, cover, and refrigerate for 2 to 4 hours, turning the chicken halfway through.
3. Heat the oil in a large nonstick skillet or wok over medium-high heat. Remove the chicken from the marinade and let any excess drip back into the bowl. Cook for 2 to 4 minutes, stirring occasionally, until no longer pink. Stir in the remaining 1 tablespoon ginger and cook about 1 minute, until aromatic.
4. Serve the chicken on top of the coconut rice, garnished with the cilantro.
SERVES 4
ATASCADERO, CALIFORNIA
Carolyn Tran lives on a desert island within the sea of California’s Asian American culture. In San Francisco, where as an infant Ms. Tran and her mother joined her father who had immigrated, the young woman lived in a pan-Asian community of Japanese, Chinese, Filipino, Korean, and Vietnamese populations, including some seventh-, eighth-, and ninth-generation families as Americans. After moving to Atascadero, she was astonished to find few Asians and no Vietnamese restaurants, not even in the large city of San Luis Obispo, less than twenty miles away.
A managerial economist, Ms. Tran dreams of becoming a professional cook who brings Vietnamese culture to Atascadero plate by plate. She often rents the kitchen of a local café to do small catering jobs featuring her native cuisine. Part of winning hearts and stomachs is, she knows, keeping food light and easy, so she adapted one of her mother’s signature Sunday supper dishes, grilled lemongrass pork ribs, substituting chicken for the ribs. She serves it with steamed jasmine rice, pickled vegetables, and vegetable broth or sliced fresh vegetables and seasoned rice noodles.
¼ cup fish sauce
3 stalks lemongrass (white parts only), minced
2 scallions, green and white parts, minced 1 teaspoon honey or sugar
¼ cup vegetable oil
Four 6-ounce boneless, skinless chicken breast halves, trimmed
1. In a large bowl, combine the fish sauce, lemongrass, scallions, and honey. Whisk in the oil, then add water, 1 tablespoon at a time, as needed, to make a thick marinade. Add the chicken, cover, and refrigerate for 2 to 12 hours.
2. Place an oven rack in the center position and preheat the oven to 350°F.
3. In a large baking dish, arrange the chicken breasts at least 1 inch apart. Bake for 30 to 45 minutes, flipping chicken halfway through, until the chicken is firm and an instant-read thermometer registers 165°F.
4. Slice the chicken into ½-inch-thick strips and serve.
SERVES 4
CASTRO VALLEY, CALIFORNIA
Ricardo Ribeiro was 12 years old when he left Macau, then a Portuguese outpost, after his father, a Standard Oil Company executive, was transferred to California in 1956. He said goodbye to his uncle, Americo Angelo, the chef at the Macanese restaurant Lisboa, known for his African Chicken, which he’d improvised while working in Mozambique, and which had virtually become a Macanese national dish. The last time Mr. Ribeiro saw his famous uncle was in 1979, and he still remembers the meal they had together: “We were served in a private booth at the Lisboa. I ordered his African Chicken and he ordered a bottle of chilled vinho verde. It was one of the most memorable meals of my life.” Mr. Angelo died soon after. Today, there are hundreds of versions of his famous recipe, but this one, say Mr. Ribeiro, is as close as he’s gotten to the original.
FOR THE MARINADE AND CHICKEN
¼ cup extra virgin olive oil, preferably Portuguese
¼ cup chopped fresh cilantro or basil
1 small shallot, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 teaspoons Chinese five-spice powder
1 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1 teaspoon kosher salt
½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
One 3 ½- to 4-pound chicken, backbone removed, split in half, and trimmed
FOR THE POTATOES AND SAUCE
2 large Yukon gold potatoes, peeled and cut into ¾-inch chunks
4 tablespoons vegetable oil
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
4 large shallots, finely chopped
1 red bell pepper, stemmed, seeded, and finely chopped
12 garlic cloves, minced
1 tablespoon sweet paprika
1½ cups homemade chicken broth or low-sodium store-bought chicken broth
1 cup grated fresh coconut or 1 cup coconut milk
½ cup natural peanut butter
2 bay leaves
1. To make the marinade and chicken: In a small bowl, combine the oil, cilantro, shallot, garlic, five-spice powder, pepper flakes, salt, and pepper. Place the chicken in a baking dish and rub with the marinade. Cover and refrigerate for 3 to 24 hours.
2. To make the potatoes and sauce: Place an oven rack in the center position and preheat the oven to 350°F.
3. In a roasting pan, toss the potatoes with 1 tablespoon of the oil, ½ teaspoon salt, and ¼ teaspoon pepper. Spread in an even layer.
4. Heat 1 tablespoon oil in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Add the shallots and bell pepper and cook about 4 minutes, until soft.
5. Stir in the garlic and paprika and cook about 1 minute, until aromatic. Stir in the broth, coconut, peanut butter, and bay leaves, bring to a simmer, and cook about 10 minutes, until slightly thick. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
6. Heat the remaining 2 tablespoons oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the chicken and cook for 8 to 10 minutes, until golden brown on both sides. Arrange the chicken, skin side up, on top of the potatoes. Pour 1 cup of the sauce over each chicken half, reserving the remaining sauce. Bake for about 1 hour, until the potatoes are tender and the chicken is cooked through and an instant-read thermometer registers 175°F in the thigh.
7. Transfer the chicken to a carving board and let rest for 5 minutes. Discard the bay leaves. Carve the chicken and serve with the potatoes and the sauce.
SERVES 4
HAYWARD, CALIFORNIA
Yolanda Ho is the fourth of eight children born to Chinese immigrants who settled in Jamaica in the 1930s to work as shopkeepers. She grew up enduring the traditional Chinese gender restrictions and the even tighter class restrictions typical of the post-colonial Caribbean, but then left for nursing school in England. On her way home to Jamaica, a layover in New York turned into a job at Beth Israel Hospital and the opportunity to socialize among the many ethnic Chinese in New York City’s Chinatown neighborhood, which was established in the 1840s. There, she met Anthony Ho at a dance at the Transfiguration Catholic Church. The couple moved to California and cooked outside year-round, and Mrs. Ho incorporated Jamaican and Chinese flavors in her barbecued chicken. She serves it with Jamaica’s staple side dish of rice and peas.
1 cup soy sauce
¼ cup honey
2 tablespoons ketchup (optional)
1 tablespoon dry sherry
2 garlic cloves, minced
One 3 ½- to 4-pound chicken, cut into 8 pieces and trimmed, or 3 pounds chicken wings, wingtips removed
1. In a large bowl, combine the soy sauce, honey, ketchup (if using), sherry, and garlic. Add the chicken, cover, and refrigerate for 2 to 4 hours, turning the chicken halfway through.
2. Heat a grill to medium-high. Remove the chicken from the marinade and grill for 15 to 20 minutes, flipping occasionally, until the chicken is well browned and an instant-read thermometer registers 175°F in the thighs and 165°F in the breast and wings.
3. Transfer the chicken to a serving platter and let rest for 5 minutes before serving.
SERVES 4
SEA CLIFF, NEW YORK
Aggie Hejja Geoghan’s family fled Hungary during the 1956 revolution, when she was five years old. Their escape began as she ran with her parents across the fields behind their Budapest home, her eighteen-month-old brother in her father’s arms and “sleeping” people on the ground all around them. They were smuggled across the border to Austria in the back of a supply truck, then went to Belgium, and from there sailed to America. Dishes like this one remind her of the miracle of her family’s escape and the good fortune of landing where they did.
Authentic Hungarian paprika is an absolute necessity in this recipe. She prefers the sweet or mild Szeged brand, now available in most major supermarkets. She serves this dish over wide egg noodles or spaetzle.
One 3 ½- to 4-pound chicken, cut into 8 pieces and trimmed
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
5 tablespoons olive oil
2 medium onions, coarsely chopped
2 green bell peppers, stemmed, seeded, and chopped
¼ cup Hungarian sweet paprika
1 cup plus
2 tablespoons water
1 tablespoon cornstarch
¼ cup sour cream
1. Pat the chicken dry and season with salt and pepper. Heat 3 tablespoons of the oil in a Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add the chicken and cook for 8 to 10 minutes, until golden brown on both sides. Transfer the chicken to a plate.
2. Add the onions and bell peppers to the pot and cook about 4 minutes, stirring occasionally, until soft. Stir in the remaining 2 tablespoons oil and the paprika and cook about 1 minute, until aromatic. Stir in 1 cup of the water, ½ teaspoon salt, and ¼ teaspoon pepper. Return the chicken to the pot and bring to a simmer over medium-high heat. Reduce the heat to medium-low, cover, and cook for 1 to 1 ½ hours, until the chicken is tender and just falling off the bone.
3. In a small bowl, whisk together the remaining 2 tablespoons water and the cornstarch until smooth, then whisk in the sour cream. Stir the mixture into the pot, bring to a simmer, and cook about 2 minutes, until the sauce is thick. Season with salt and pepper to taste and serve.
SERVES 4
BRONX, NEW YORK
Nina Chanpreet Singh, a first-generation Punjabi Sikh, grew up in the Amish country of Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania. Her family belonged to a small fellowship of Sikhs there, but she was also influenced by the simple lifestyle and the reverence for community and family of the Amish. Like them, the Sikhs preserved their tradition through the joy of communal cooking for religious events. Ms. Singh’s father drives more than two hours every week to the Sikh temple in Bridgewater, New Jersey, so that his family can participate in the langaar or “open kitchen” where hundreds of the faithful are served. Chicken tikka masala is as basic to Mrs. Singh’s Northern Indian roots as chicken and dumplings are to the Amish. Instead of using measuring spoons, Ms. Singh prefers her method of “smidgeons,” as much spice as she can pinch between her thumb and third finger and rub together to release its essence. Serve the chicken with white rice.
FOR THE MARINADE AND CHICKEN
3 tablespoons plain low-fat yogurt
1½ teaspoons cayenne pepper
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon amchur powder (green mango powder)
½ teaspoon sweet paprika
½ teaspoon kosher salt
¼ teaspoon ground turmeric
1½ pounds boneless, skinless chicken breasts and/or thighs, trimmed
FOR THE SAUCE
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 medium onion, finely chopped
½ teaspoon cumin seeds
1 tablespoon tomato paste
2 teaspoons grated fresh ginger
1 teaspoon ground turmeric
½ teaspoon garam masala
¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper
Kosher salt
1½ cups canned crushed tomatoes
¼ cup half-and-half
1. To make the marinade and chicken: In a small bowl, whisk together the yogurt, cayenne, cumin, ½ teaspoon of the amchur powder, the paprika, salt, and turmeric. Place the chicken in a large baking dish, evenly coat with the marinade, cover, and refrigerate for 2 to 12 hours.
2. Place an oven rack in the center position and preheat the oven to 325°F.
3. Bake the chicken for 10 to 12 minutes, until it is partially cooked and somewhat firm. Remove from the oven and sprinkle with the remaining ½ teaspoon amchur powder.
4. To make the sauce, heat the oil in a Dutch oven over medium heat. Add the onion and cumin and cook about 4 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the onion is soft. Stir in the tomato paste, 1 teaspoon of the ginger, the turmeric, garam masala, cayenne, and 1 teaspoon salt and cook about 1 minute, until aromatic. Stir in the crushed tomatoes, bring to a simmer, and cook about 15 minutes.
5. Add the chicken to the sauce, bring to a simmer, and cook for 15 to 20 minutes, until the meat is firm and an instant-read thermometer registers 175°F in the thigh and 165°F in the breasts. Stir in the remaining 1 teaspoon ginger and the half-and-half, season with salt to taste, and serve.
SERVES 4
THE BEST USE FOR THE TRADITIONAL CHICKENS OF WINTER—FLAVORFUL OLD ROOSTERS and hens that need to be baked, boiled, or stewed long and slow to tenderize them—is in chicken potpies. The meat pies of the British Isles were made in tin pots lined with crusts that were not meant to be eaten, but protected the meat filling from the metallic taste. In American Cookery, the country’s earliest recipe book, Amelia Simmons provides a recipe for chicken pie that calls for six chickens, one and a half pounds butter, and a thick crust. The first record use of the term “pot pie,” however, wasn’t until 1839 in The Kentucky Housewife. The shredded-chicken-gravy-and-dough concept probably inspired other American folk dishes—chicken and biscuits and chicken à la king—and until the mid-twentieth century, the recipes for the creamy poultry pie reflected the cook’s taste, family background, and region. In 1951, the Swanson Company became the first to mass-produce and sell frozen chicken potpies, and in the decades since, chefs have attempted to reclaim and elevate the dish with herbed crusts or puff pastry bonnets. But chicken potpie is a country dish, and the refined urban versions rarely compete with those from Midwestern farm kitchens.
SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA
Benjamin Santana has made his fortune feeding street dwellers, hipsters, and newly minted foodies from his taco truck in San Francisco’s Mission District. In its early days, the truck offered fellow Mexican Americans an outpost of home where they could get an authentic meal for less than two dollars. But over the years his clientele has widened and taco trucks have become the darling of Mexican food purists throughout the city. The more open-minded order the specialty fillings like tripitas (grilled tripe). Today Mr. Santana and his brother-partner, Esquival, own four trucks and a restaurant, El Tonayense, named after Tonaya in Jalisco, Mexico, where their family is from. Mr. Santana’s pollo asado filling for burritos and tacos served with red and green salsas (see recipes for similar versions on pages 83–87) made the brothers famous.
1½ cups orange juice
3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1 tablespoon garlic powder
½ teaspoon dried oregano
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 pounds boneless, skinless chicken thighs, trimmed and cut into 1-inch chunks
8 ounces dried pinto or black beans, soaked in cold water overnight or in boiling water for 3 hours
2 ½ cups long-grain white rice, preferably Mexican
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
6 large (12-inch) flour tortillas
¾ cup tomatillo salsa (page 83)
¾ cup lightly packed cilantro leaves
1 small onion, finely chopped
Lime wedges, for serving
1. The day before serving, in a large bowl, combine the orange juice, lemon juice, garlic powder, oregano, 1 teaspoon salt, and 1 teaspoon pepper. Add the chicken, cover, and refrigerate for 8 to 24 hours.
2. In a medium saucepan, cover the beans with water by 2 inches and add ½ teaspoon salt. Bring to a simmer and cook for 1 to 1 ½ hours, until tender. Drain the beans and keep warm.
3. Bring 6 cups water to a simmer in a large saucepan. Add the rice and ½ teaspoon salt, reduce the heat to low, and cook about 20 minutes, until all the water is absorbed and the rice is tender. Use a fork to fluff the rice, cover, and keep warm off the heat.
4. Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the chicken and cook for 4 to 6 minutes, stirring occasionally, until golden brown on all sides and no longer pink in the middle. Transfer to a medium bowl, cover, and keep warm. Wipe out the skillet with a paper towel.
5. To wrap the burritos, heat the skillet over low heat. Working with one tortilla at a time, cook for 30 seconds to 1 minute, until warm, flipping halfway through. Place about 1 ¼ cups rice in the center of the tortilla, leaving a 1 ½-inch border on each side. Spoon about ½ cup of the beans over the rice, followed by ⅔ cup of the chicken, 2 tablespoons of the salsa, 2 tablespoons of the cilantro leaves, and 2 tablespoons of the onion. Fold the sides into the center, then roll the tortillas around the filling to form a tight cylinder. Serve with the lime wedges.
SERVES 6
DERBY, KANSAS
Katarina Longhofer brought this recipe from Russia to the Great Plains in the early 1900s. Twenty years later, when her son married, she instructed his bride, Helena Litke, in the proper preparation of the decadently rich yet light dumplings that her son had eaten growing up. They were served for family meals, and were added to “sickbed soup” which, according to her great-great-granddaughter, Marcia Quincy, “gets the body back to how it should be.” According to Ms. Quincy, allspice gives the butterballs their unexpected flavor, and success depends on their size. “They should be small and tight, and after you drop them in the broth, you know they are done when they float.”
FOR THE BROTH
One 3½- to 4-pound chicken, cut into 8 pieces and trimmed
2 quarts water
2 teaspoons kosher salt
1 celery stalk with leaves, coarsely chopped
1 carrot, peeled and coarsely chopped
1 medium onion, coarsely chopped
1 sprig fresh rosemary
1 sprig fresh thyme
1 bay leaf
1 garlic clove, peeled and halved
½ teaspoon whole black peppercorns
FOR THE BUTTERBALLS
10 slices best-quality white sandwich bread (about 9 ounces), quartered
1 teaspoon kosher salt
½ teaspoon ground allspice
½ cup heavy cream, plus more as needed
8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, cut into 1-inch pieces
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
FOR THE SOUP
2 celery stalks, cut into ½-inch pieces
2 carrots, peeled and cut into ½-inch pieces
1 medium onion, coarsely chopped
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoons minced fresh parsley
1. To make the broth: In a large Dutch oven, bring the chicken, water, and salt to a simmer and cook for 30 minutes, skimming any foam that rises to the surface. Add the celery, carrot, onion, rosemary, thyme, bay leaf, garlic, and peppercorns and simmer about 2 hours more, until the meat falls off the bone.
2. Transfer the chicken to a plate. When it is cool enough to handle, remove and discard the skin and bones, keeping the meat in large pieces. Strain the broth into a clean large Dutch oven and discard the solids in the strainer.
3. While the broth simmers, make the butterballs: Place an oven rack in the center position and preheat the oven to 325°F.
4. Arrange the bread slices in a single layer on a large baking sheet. Toast for 15 to 20 minutes, until very dry and lightly browned. Let cool to room temperature.
5. Process the bread to fine crumbs in a food processor, or crush with a rolling pin. (You should have about 1 ¾ cups bread crumbs.) In a large bowl, mix them with the salt and allspice.
6. Heat the cream and butter in a small saucepan over medium heat about 5 minutes, until the butter is melted and the mixture is hot but not boiling. Stir the cream mixture into the bread crumbs until combined. Let the mixture cool about 5 minutes, then stir in the eggs until well incorporated and a large ball forms. (If the mixture doesn’t hold together, add heavy cream, 1 tablespoon at a time, until it does.)
7. Form the dough into 1 tablespoon-size balls, about 1 inch in diameter. Place the butterballs on a baking sheet and cover.
8. To make the soup, bring the reserved broth to a simmer. Add the celery, carrots, and onion to the soup and simmer about 10 minutes, until the vegetables are almost tender. Stir the chicken into the broth and season the soup with salt and pepper to taste.
9. Carefully drop the butterballs into the soup and simmer about 5 minutes, until they rise to the surface. Sprinkle each portion with parsley and serve.
SERVES 6
BRUNSWICK COUNTY, VIRGINIA
Stews such as Brunswick stew and its spicier Kentucky cousin, burgoo, were a nineteenth-century hodgepodge of whatever was at hand, including small game such as squirrel and rabbit, beans, and shoe-peg corn. More than an amalgam of available ingredients, they became points of regional pride and, in the case of Brunswick stew, ongoing rivalry. Brunswick County, Virginia, has claimed that the stew was invented there by African-American camp cook Jimmy Matthews in 1825. Back then the primary ingredient was squirrel. Brunswick, Georgia, also claimed it, and after 160 years, the rivalry was laid to rest in 1987 when Georgia conceded that Virginia had the more rightful claim.
The Virginia General Assembly promptly proclaimed Brunswick County “The Original Home of Brunswick Stew” and hosted a cook-off on the capitol grounds. Today, Brunswick stew is the fund-raising food of choice in that part of Virginia and stew masters make the circuit of cooking competitions to benefit their firehouses and other charities. One of them, John Clary of the Lawrenceville Volunteer Fire Department, who trained as an apprentice stew master in 1973, has traveled the country with his Proclamation Stew Crew cooking Brunswick stew in the iron cauldron the fire company acquired in the 1930s. They have gone to Brunswick, Georgia, for numerous competitions and as far north as New York City for the annual Big Apple Barbecue. Mr. Clary’s recipe no longer uses squirrel, but it does contain “bacon, fatback, hog jowls, or smoked midlin meat.” It is rarely cooked in small enough quantities for home use, but Mr. Clary has adapted the firehouse recipe here for less than a crowd.
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
1½ tablespoons sugar
¾ teaspoon red pepper flakes
2¼ pounds boneless, skinless chicken thighs, trimmed
3 ounces pork fatback, coarsely chopped
2 pounds Yukon gold potatoes, scrubbed and cut into 1½-inch chunks
1 large onion, coarsely chopped
One 28-ounce can crushed tomatoes
Three 15-ounce cans small green butter beans (lima beans), drained and rinsed
Two 11-ounce cans white shoe-peg corn, drained and rinsed
4 tablespoons (½ stick) unsalted butter
1. In a small bowl, combine 2 tablespoons salt, ¾ teaspoon black pepper, the sugar, and red pepper flakes.
2. Place the chicken and fatback in a Dutch oven and cover with water. Bring to a simmer over medium heat. Reduce the heat to medium-low and cook for 45 minutes to 1 hour, until the chicken is tender.
3. Add the potatoes, onion, and 1 tablespoon of the spice mixture. Return to a simmer and cook about 15 minutes, until the potatoes are tender. Stir in the tomatoes, butter beans, and 1 tablespoon more of the spice mixture, and cook for 5 minutes more, until the beans are soft.
4. Stir in the corn, butter, and remaining spice mixture and simmer for 10 to 15 minutes more. Season with salt and pepper to taste and serve.
SERVES 6 TO 8
FREY, LOUISIANA
West of the Atchafalaya Basin, where the swamp gives way to prairie, small communities such as Frey, Robert’s Cove, and Mowata rise out of the rice fields. The German work ethic and Old World food traditions thrive in the hands of folks like Bubba Frey.
Mr. Frey, of Frey, Louisiana, about thirty miles west of “Hub City” (Lafayette), operates his own country store on Highway 13, which he has turned into a specialty meat shop. Most days he is working by 3:00 a.m., “to boil the boudin meat, fix the rice, hang sausages in the smokehouse, and cook the hog cracklin’s. It’s nothing to make four hundred pounds a day now.” Mr. Frey’s immaculate meat case is packed with smoked spareribs, hog’s head cheese, jalapeño pork sausage, garlic pork sausage, beef sausage, even stuffed beef tongue. Seasonally, the case might also hold guinea fowl, turkeys, ducks, roosters, quail, or geese from Mr. Frey’s chicken yard.
It’s not surprising that Bubba Frey makes a terrific Rooster Sauce or Rooster Brown Gravy. “It’s not a stew,” insists his great-nephew and godson, Lawrence. “The only time my uncle made a stew, he made it with a hen. If he cooked it on the carport outside, it was a rooster brown gravy. My old uncle called it sauce du bois because he cooked it on a wood fire.” Whether stew, sauce, or brown gravy, it is best served over white rice.
One 6- to 8-pound rooster (6 months to 1 year old)
Kosher salt
⅛ teaspoon cayenne pepper
Garlic powder
1 to 2 tablespoons fresh hog lard
2 medium white onions, chopped
1 celery stalk, chopped
½ green bell pepper, stemmed, seeded, and finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, chopped
One 10-ounce can Ro-Tel tomatoes or 1¼ cups canned diced tomatoes with jalapeño chiles (optional)
1 gallon pork broth, beef broth, or chicken broth; low-sodium store-bought beef or chicken broth or water can be substituted
1. Rinse the rooster under cold running water, cut into 8 serving pieces, and drain well in a colander. Pat dry. Season with salt, cayenne, and garlic powder to taste.
2. Melt some lard in a large cast-iron pot over medium heat. Use just enough lard to cover the bottom of the pot. (The amount of lard depends on the size of the rooster and the size of the pot.) Once the lard is hot, brown the rooster pieces well on both sides. Once the meat has sufficiently browned and all the “good sticky stuff ” is on the bottom of the pot, transfer the meat to a platter. (Once the chicken has browned, you will get a rich gravy and rooster meat with sticky skin.)
3. Add the onions, celery, bell pepper, and garlic to the sticky stuff and cook, stirring from time to time, until the vegetables are wilted and slightly browned. If you prefer a reddish gravy, add the tomatoes and juice as the vegetables wilt.
4. Once the vegetables have browned, return the rooster meat to the pot and cover by half with broth. Cook over low heat. (Add the remaining broth as needed during the cooking and tenderizing process. Additional broth will be needed to prevent the rooster from scorching.) As the broth evaporates, the meat will stick to the bottom of the pot. At that point, add more broth. This process should be done 5 times and will take from 1 ½ up to 3 hours until meat is tender. Keep adding broth as necessary to maintain a stew-like consistency.
SERVES 4 SOUTHWEST LOUISIANANS
NOTES: Cooking time depends on the size of the rooster; the older the bird, the tougher (but better-tasting) the meat. Because of the long cooking time, you will need to begin with a gallon of broth and add more as needed.
Mr. Frey uses what he calls “boudin broth.” This is the water in which he boils his boudin but he says it’s basically pork broth.
SEATTLE, WASHINGTON
Pollo alla cacciatore is a “hunter’s-style” chicken. The recipe may have started with guinea hens, rather than the chickens we know and love today. And it’s never been clear whether the dish refers to the meal Italian hunters eat after they’ve brought home the game, or the one they have while they are out in the woods.
The chicken has a nice brown crust, and braising the meat makes the chicken so moist that it’s sinful. The broth, full of tomatoes, mushrooms, and white wine, has an earthy, sweet taste.
¼ cup vegetable oil
¼ cup plus 2 tablespoons olive oil
4 ounces pancetta, diced
One 3 ½- to 4-pound chicken, cut into 8 pieces and trimmed, or two 2-pound guinea hens, quartered
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
½ cup all-purpose flour
1 medium onion, halved and thinly sliced
3 garlic cloves, minced
½ cup dry white wine
One 28-ounce can whole tomatoes with their juices, crushed with your hand
2 teaspoons minced fresh oregano
Red pepper flakes
8 ounces shiitake mushrooms, stems removed, caps halved or quartered if large
1 green bell pepper, stemmed, seeded, and sliced
1 red bell pepper, stemmed, seeded, and sliced
1. Place a heavy-bottomed soup pot over medium heat. Add the vegetable oil and ¼ cup of the olive oil. When the oil is warm, add the pancetta. Cook, stirring occasionally to avoid burning, about 3 minutes, until brown. Transfer to a plate with a slotted spoon.
2. Season the chicken liberally with salt and pepper. Coat the pieces lightly in flour and tap off any excess.
3. Place the chicken pieces in the pot, being careful not to crowd them. (It’s okay to brown the chicken in batches.) Brown the chicken on both sides. Transfer to a plate.
4. Add the onion and garlic to the oil in the pot and cook for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add the white wine and bring to a boil. Allow the wine to reduce by half, about 4 minutes. Add the tomatoes, oregano, red pepper flakes to taste, and the pancetta and return to a boil. Return the chicken to the pot, pushing it down so it’s covered by the sauce. Lower the heat to a simmer and cover. Cook for 20 minutes.
5. Heat the remaining 2 tablespoons olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the mushrooms and peppers, and toss until the peppers start to lose their crunch. Season with salt. Add to the chicken, stir, cover, and cook for 15 to 20 minutes more.
6. Check the level of the liquid as the chicken cooks. It should just cover the chicken. If necessary, add small amounts of water to maintain the level of liquid as the chicken cooks.
SERVES 4 TO 6
AUSTIN, TEXAS
Lisa Lawless grew up in an idyllic suburban community in central Illinois, the sort of place that her grandparents—farmers descended from Irish immigrant farmers—might have dreamed of as “a better life.” There is no doubt in Ms. Lawless’s mind that the best part of that life came from her grandmothers, “very generous” cooks, who gardened, canned, and froze so that no family holiday feast was ever made from food other than their own. In a smaller way, she and her father have continued that tradition: he hunts the game birds that she prepares, according to family recipes or others she has discovered. Her pheasant mole was inspired by a dish she had at one of Rick Bayless’s restaurants in Chicago. She serves it for Christmas dinner, accompanied by corn tortillas, green beans with fresh nopales (cactus paddles), and purple potatoes roasted with ancho chile powder. She is sure that her grandmothers, who never lost their enthusiasm for exotic dishes, would approve.
3 medium tomatillos, husks removed and rinsed
½ cup sesame seeds, toasted
½ cup vegetable oil
6 medium dried guajillo chiles, stemmed, seeded, and torn into flat pieces
5 medium dried ancho chiles, stemmed, seeded, and torn into flat pieces
5 medium dried pasilla chiles, stemmed, seeded, and torn into flat pieces
Boiling water
½ cup blanched almonds
4 garlic cloves, peeled
½ cup raisins
1 slice white bread, toasted and broken into pieces
1 ounce Mexican chocolate, roughly chopped
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
⅛ teaspoon ground cloves
One 2- to 2 ½-pound smoked pheasant (available at specialty grocers and gourmet supermarkets)
Warm corn tortillas, for serving
1. Place an oven rack in the highest position and preheat the broiler. Line a plate with paper towels.
2. Place the tomatillos on a baking sheet and broil about 10 minutes until soft and the skins are blackened, flipping them halfway through. Transfer the tomatillos to a large bowl. Add 6 tablespoons of the sesame seeds.
3. Heat the oil in a Dutch oven over medium heat. Working with a few pieces of the guajillo, ancho, and pasilla chiles at a time, add the chiles to the pot and toast for 20 to 30 seconds, until aromatic (don’t let them smoke). Drain the chiles briefly on the plate, then transfer them to a large bowl.
4. Cover the toasted chiles with boiling water and let them sit for 30 minutes, covered with a small plate to keep them submerged. Drain the chiles and reserve the soaking liquid. (If it tastes bitter, discard.)
5. Meanwhile, remove any chile seeds from the oil and return to medium heat. Add the almonds and garlic and cook, stirring frequently, for 3 to 5 minutes, until lightly browned. Using a slotted spoon, transfer the almonds and garlic to the bowl with the tomatillos. Stir the raisins into the oil and cook 20 to 30 seconds, until puffy, then add to the tomatillos.
6. In a blender or food processor, process the chiles with 2 ½ cups of the reserved soaking liquid (substitute water if the soaking liquid is too bitter) about 2 minutes, until smooth, adding more liquid as needed. Press the mixture through a fine-mesh strainer into a bowl and discard any remaining solids. (Don’t rinse the blender.)
7. In the blender, process the tomatillo mixture, 1 cup of the reserved soaking water (substitute water if the soaking liquid is too bitter), the bread, chocolate, 1 teaspoon salt, ½ teaspoon pepper, and the cinnamon and cloves until smooth, adding more liquid as needed. Press the mixture through a fine-mesh strainer into another bowl and discard any remaining solids.
8. Pour off all but 1 tablespoon of the fat from the Dutch oven and heat over medium-high heat. Add chile mixture and cook, stirring frequently, for 10 to 15 minutes, until darkened and thickened to the consistency of tomato paste. Stir in the tomatillo mixture and cook, stirring frequently, for 5 to 10 minutes, until thickened again to the consistency of tomato paste.
9. Stir in 1 quart water, bring to a simmer, cover partially, and cook for 45 minutes to 1 hour, until thickened. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
10. Carve the pheasant and serve with the sauce and warmed tortillas.
SERVES 6
LAUREL, MARYLAND
Donald Kinney said: “During World War Two, I was in the Navy and landed in Guam. I was a cook and one of my mates found a patch of Spanish chile peppers growing wild. We put a bunch in small-mouth bottles with vinegar and in a few days we had a nice spicy sauce to add to our drab food. One day I decided to pick some myself. In short order my hands broke out in fine beads of perspiration. I left that pepper field with a trip to sick bay. One hot-blooded Texas cook would eat those peppers by the bowl, half beans, half peppers, use them in anything, inside chicken, pork, you name it. We made a sauce like Tabasco for the tables. While we were making a batch a fellow saw us and asked what we were doing. We put some on a plate to taste and he started gasping for air and water.
“I figured out this chile pepper jelly. It’s real good with chicken and pork, sweet and hot at the same time. I like it with the hot-blooded Texan game hens.”
Two 1½- to 2-pound whole Cornish game hens
2 tablespoons Chile Pepper Jelly (recipe follows), plus more for serving
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
4 jalapeño chiles, stemmed and halved
6 slices bacon
1. Heat one side of a grill to high heat and the other side to medium-low. Soak wooden toothpicks in water for 20 minutes.
2. Pat the hens dry, brush each with 1 tablespoon of the jelly, and season with salt and pepper. Place 4 jalapeño halves in the cavity of each hen. Arrange 3 slices of bacon over the breast of each hen and secure with toothpicks.
3. Place the hens on the hotter side of the grill and cook about 10 minutes, until well browned on all sides. Move them to the cooler side of the grill, cover, and cook for 30 to 40 minutes more, until an instant-read thermometer registers 175°F in the thighs and 165°F in the breast.
4. Transfer the hens to a carving board and let rest for 5 minutes. Remove the toothpicks, split each hen in half lengthwise, and serve with chile pepper jelly.
SERVES 4
3 jalapeño chiles, stemmed, seeded, and finely chopped
3 red (cayenne) or yellow (guero or Hungarian wax) chiles, stemmed, seeded, and finely chopped
2 habanero chiles, stemmed, seeded, and finely chopped
½ cup finely chopped red onion
5 cups sugar
1½ cups cider vinegar
3 ounces liquid fruit pectin
1. In a medium saucepan, combine the chiles, onion, sugar, and vinegar. Bring to a boil over low heat, stirring frequently, and cook for 2 to 4 minutes, until the sugar dissolves.
2. Boil for 2 minutes more, then remove from the heat and skim any foam from the surface.
3. Stir in the pectin, return the saucepan to low heat, bring to a boil, and cook for 1 minute.
4. Remove the pot from the heat and skim any foam from the surface. Pour the mixture into three half-pint jelly jars and refrigerate for 24 hours, until set.
MAKES ABOUT 3 CUPS
THOMASVILLE, GEORGIA
Before the Civil War, in the red clay hills of southwest Georgia, just outside Thomasville, there were seventy-one cotton plantations, with more than three hundred thousand acres in all. By the 1880s wealthy northern industrialists bought the estates for fishing and quail hunting and built retreats where they came to inhale the “pine air cure.” Twentieth-century billionaires such as Ted Turner and Warren Buffett have long since acquired most of these gilded-age “winter cottages,” but a few are still owned and used by the descendants of their Victorian-era owners.
“My great-great-grandfather, Jeptha Homer Wade, cofounded Western Union and lived outside Cleveland, Ohio,” says Wendy Curtis. “At that time, Thomasville was the last train stop south. In 1900 he bought up a bunch of farms, put together thirteen thousand acres, and built Mill Pond. We kept chickens, cows, a huge vegetable garden, and orchards. It was paradise for the children. We were outdoors and free in all those pine woods. There was a big, black wood-burning oven in the kitchen. The cook’s name was LouLou. She made prune soufflé and cheese soufflé and sticky buns. We dressed for dinner. LouLou made a lot of game. It had to be wild. Farm-raised quail especially was beneath contempt. She made it with bacon, or with oranges and wine, or barbecued, or spit-roasted, plain—simple, delicious cooking.”
Eight 4-ounce whole quails
16 slices bacon (about 1 pound)
1½ cups beer
2 tablespoons (¼ stick) unsalted butter
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
1. Heat a grill to high. Soak wooden toothpicks in water for 20 minutes.
2. Wrap each quail with 2 slices of bacon and secure with toothpicks. Arrange in a single layer in a 13 x 9-inch disposable aluminum baking pan.
3. Heat the beer, butter, and lemon juice in a small saucepan over medium heat until the butter is melted. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Pour the mixture over the quail and place the pan on the grill. Cover and cook, basting frequently, for 8 to 10 minutes, until the meat is firm and pink (cut one open to check).
4. Transfer the quail to a serving platter and let rest for 5 minutes. Season with salt and pepper to taste, and serve.
SERVES 4
WICHITA, KANSAS
Bill Purdy says: “I had most of my Christmas menu picked out, but I couldn’t decide on a main course. My mother suggested pheasant, and when I stared at her blankly, she reminded me of her old stories about the hard Nebraska winters when wild pheasant was often the only meat around. Rummaging through my mother’s old cookbook, we found her grandmother’s pheasant recipe on a piece of old, worn paper. Dinner was a hit, and it reminded me to tell the story of my ancestors and their tough lives on the plains and how my great-great-grandmother developed a quick and tasty way to cook the game bird.”
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 carrots, peeled and coarsely chopped
2 celery stalks, coarsely chopped
1 medium onion, finely chopped
2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
One 2-pound whole pheasant
1½ cups all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons vegetable shortening
½ cup water
1. Place an oven rack in the center position and preheat the oven to 350°F. Set a roasting rack in a roasting pan.
2. Melt the butter in a medium skillet over medium heat. Add the carrots, celery, and onion and cook for 4 to 6 minutes, until soft. Transfer the mixture to a bowl, stir in the parsley, ¾ teaspoon salt, and ¼ teaspoon pepper, and cool to room temperature.
3. Pat the pheasant dry and season with salt and pepper. Spoon the vegetable stuffing into the cavity and tie the legs together with butcher’s twine. Refrigerate the pheasant until ready to cook.
4. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour and 1 teaspoon salt. Using a knife and fork, cut the shortening into the flour until pea-size pieces form. Slowly stir in the water until a dough forms.
5. Place dough onto a lightly floured work surface and using a rolling pin, flatten into a 15 x 10-inch rectangle about ¼ inch thick. Place the pheasant in the middle of the rectangle, breast down, and wrap the bird in the dough. Moisten the edges with water and pinch them together to seal.
6. Transfer the wrapped pheasant, breast up, to the roasting rack. Bake for 1 ½ to 2 hours, until the pastry is deep golden brown and an instant-read thermometer registers 175°F in the thighs and 165°F in the breast.
7. Transfer the pheasant to a carving board and let rest for 5 minutes. Break the crust into pieces. Carve the pheasant and serve with the crust.
SERVES 2
THE LETTERS AND JOURNALS OF EARLY EXPLORERS AND SETTLERS IN THE NEW WORLD enthuse about the profusion and variety of small, plump wild duck. In cookbooks until the late nineteenth century, duck recipes could outnumber those for chicken, goose, or turkey and generally called for a specific breed. The American conviction that “bigger is better” waddled into the domestic duck business in 1873, when, Ed McGrath, on a trip to China, mistook a big, white Pekin duck for a goose. He shipped back a batch of Pekins to the United States, but only nine survived. When the breed flourished on Long Island, it was bye-bye Pekin, hello Long Island duckling.
In 1931, Martin Mauer, a duck farmer, constructed “Big Duck,” a twenty-foot-tall building in the shape of a Pekin Duck “to house his retail store and boost sales during the Great Depression.” By then Long Island was the center of the national duck industry, and at its peak in the early 1950s, 60 million were bred there. Weather, the high cost of land and labor, and environmental issues pushed the industry to the Midwest, but, as the chicken industry produced a cheaper bird, the taste for duck shifted away from the mainstream to exclusive French restaurants and ethnic enclaves. Long Island now produces about 2 million ducks. Discerning and adventurous American eaters prefer ducks with a gamier flavor than are grown here, so today in an ironic shift, Long island ships two-thirds of its ducks to China. Today, Big Duck is a national landmark and it maintains its Sphinx-like position on the landscape, as cheery as its Egyptian counterpart is enigmatic.
MACHIPONGO, VIRGINIA
In nasty weather, the cast-iron lighthouse constructed on the south end of Hog Island in 1896 was a lifesaver to sailors near the natural barrier island between Virginia’s Eastern Shore and the Atlantic Ocean. However, the flashing tower light has had the opposite effect on black ducks. In wind, rain, and snow thousands of ducks—also called black brants or just brants—slammed into the edifice and met their doom. In February 1896, Margaret Doughty wrote a letter from her home overlooking the Great Machipongo River and Atlantic marshes: “Papa . . . says the new light house has lighted the last day of January and it’s scared the birds out of the bay, close by the island . . . two fellows at Cobb Island killed 50 tomorrow, one week ago.” Eighty years later, two of her grandnieces, Gertrude and Viola Bell, recalled the rewards of the stormy nights of their youth. “The next morning there would be nothing but ducks!” said Gertrude. “Ducks and geese,” agreed Viola, “the ground would just be covered with them. And the ones that wasn’t [sic] dead, people would just go get them. They used to kill them and clean them and eat them.”
The sisters’ grandnephew, Buck Doughty, remembers the aftermath of such hauls: “Black duck and dumplings! Ahhh! Pop-pop used to get them all the time . . . Everybody would bring them over. He ate everything that wouldn’t eat him!” Black ducks were boiled with plenty of black pepper, but the miracle of the dish was his mother’s dumplings.
“You just roll them out really, really thin . . . don’t know how she would get the dough that thin. But they are really tight, and they would stick your teeth together. She knew they were just right when you didn’t have a doughy effect inside of them. They didn’t go to pieces in the water.”
FOR THE DUCK
Two 2-pound whole black ducks or one 4-pound whole mallard duck
10 cups water
4 medium onions, finely chopped
2 tablespoons whole black peppercorns
Kosher salt
2 bay leaves
3 allspice berries
Freshly ground black pepper
½ cup all-purpose flour
4 tablespoons (½ stick) unsalted butter
4 carrots, peeled and cut into ½-inch pieces
2 parsnips, peeled and cut into ½-inch pieces
2 potatoes, peeled and cut into ½-inch pieces
1 teaspoon cider vinegar, plus more to taste
FOR THE DUMPLINGS
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon kosher salt
1 cup water, plus more as needed
1. To make the duck: In a large Dutch oven, combine the ducks, water, half of the onions, the peppercorns, 1 teaspoon salt, the bay leaves, and allspice. Bring to a simmer and cook 45 minutes. Transfer the ducks to a carving board and let cool slightly. Strain the broth and reserve. Wipe out the Dutch oven with a paper towel.
2. Carve each duck into 10 pieces. Pat the duck dry and season with salt and pepper. Place the flour in a shallow dish. Lightly coat the duck pieces in flour and shake off the excess. In the Dutch oven, melt the butter over medium heat. Add half of the pieces and cook for 8 to 10 minutes, until golden brown on both sides. Transfer the duck to a plate. Return the pot to medium heat and repeat with the remaining pieces.
3. Add half of the remaining onions, half of the carrots, half of the parsnips, and half of the potatoes to the pot and cook for 8 to 10 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the vegetables begin to brown. Stir in the reserved broth and the vinegar, then return all the duck to the pot. Bring to a simmer, skim any foam from the surface, and cook about 3 hours, until the meat is falling off the bones.
4. Strain the broth through a fine-mesh strainer into a tall container, cover, and refrigerate until ready to serve. Transfer the duck pieces to a plate and cool to room temperature.
5. Remove and discard the skin and bones, keeping the meat in pieces as large as possible. Cover and refrigerate the duck.
6. To make the dumplings: In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Make a well in the center, add the water, and stir until a rough dough forms. If the dough does not come together, add water, 1 tablespoon at a time, until it does. Transfer the dough to a lightly floured work surface and knead about 3 minutes, until no longer sticky. Shape into a ball, cover, and refrigerate for 2 hours.
7. Roll the dough on a floured work surface until ⅛ inch thick, then cut the dough into dumplings about 1 inch wide and 2 inches long. Transfer them in an even layer to lightly floured baking sheets. Cover with a kitchen towel.
8. When about to serve, skim ¼ cup of the fat from the duck broth, transfer to a Dutch oven, and heat over medium heat. (Discard the remaining fat or reserve for another use.) Add the remaining onions, carrots, parsnips, and potatoes to the pot and cook for 8 to 10 minutes, stirring occasionally, until they begin to brown. Stir in the reserved broth, bring to a simmer, and cook for 20 to 30 minutes, until the vegetables are just tender.
9. Add the dumplings to the broth, one at a time. Stir gently, cover, and cook for 6 to 8 minutes, until tender. Stir in the duck and cook about 30 seconds, until warmed through. Season with salt, pepper, and vinegar to taste.
10. Serve in warmed, shallow bowls.
SERVES 4
FORT LAUDERDALE, FLORIDA
The late Marcel R. Escoffier maintained that he was not a chef. His great-grandfather immigrated to the United States from France to cook at the St. Regis Hotel in New York City in 1892 and his great-granduncle, Auguste Escoffier, is credited with codifying French cuisine. Marcel R. Escoffier, who answered to the name of Marty, worked in, managed, and owned restaurants in New York, New Jersey, Colorado, Hawaii, and California before settling in Fort Lauderdale, where he taught in the hospitality program at Florida International University. Nevertheless, he argued that he was merely a “cooking enthusiast, verging on the obsessive, but of course, I am French.”
His striking resemblance to his ancestors ran deeper than his carefully trimmed white mustache and beard. He shared the zeal of discovery and an instinct for picking up where previous generations left off: “Twenty-five years ago when I got down here, I realized that the farms in Florida were growing exotic things that you never heard about. Mangos were still exotic back then! I’m not trying to sound pretentious, but to eat well, I had to develop my own cuisine. My apology to A. Escoffier and his caneton à l’orange, but I must say that mango does the job quite nicely. It’s a matter of evolution. Of where you are.” And of course, where you came from.
Mallard duck breasts are wonderful in this full-flavored recipe. The dish is served with steamed rice.
Four 6-ounce boneless, skin-on duck breasts
Kosher salt
4 stalks lemongrass, white parts only, finely chopped
4 lemon leaves, or 4 bay leaves plus four 2-inch strips lemon zest
One 13.5-ounce can unsweetened coconut milk
2 onions, finely chopped
6 shallots, finely chopped
6 garlic cloves, minced
1 tablespoon grated fresh ginger
½ teaspoon saffron threads
1 tablespoon mild curry powder, plus more to taste
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1 ripe mango, peeled, pitted, and cut into ¼-inch cubes
1 banana, peeled and sliced into ¼-inch rounds
1 star anise pod
1 quart homemade chicken broth or low-sodium store-bought chicken broth
1 cup dry white wine
½ cup Cointreau or other orange-flavored liqueur
2 tomatoes, cored, seeded, and coarsely chopped
Freshly ground black pepper
4 scallions, green and white parts, thinly sliced
1. The day before serving, pat the duck breasts dry and season with salt. Place half of the lemongrass in an even layer on a large plate. Place the breasts, skin side up, on the plate and gently press them into the lemongrass. Place a lemon leaf (or a bay leaf and a strip of lemon zest) on top of each breast, wrap tightly with plastic wrap, and refrigerate for 12 to 24 hours.
2. Remove the top of the can of coconut milk and refrigerate until the cream rises to the top. Use a spoon to carefully lift off the cream, transfer to a bowl, and freeze. (Discard the remaining liquid or use for another dish.)
3. In a food processor, grind the onions, shallots, garlic, ginger, and saffron into a fine paste.
4. Brush the lemongrass and lemon leaves off the duck breasts. Pat the duck dry and season with curry powder. Melt the butter in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the duck breasts, skin side down, and cook for 5 to 7 minutes, until light golden brown. Transfer the duck to a plate.
5. Pour off all but 1 tablespoon of the fat from the skillet and return to medium heat. Add the onion paste and cook for 6 to 8 minutes, until soft. Stir in the remaining lemongrass, half of the mango, the banana, and the star anise and cook about 7 minutes, until the mixture is almost dry.
6. Stir in the broth, wine, Cointreau, and tomatoes, bring to a simmer, and cook about 15 minutes, until slightly thickened. Return the duck breasts to the pan skin side up, and spoon the sauce over the top. Partially cover and cook about 15 minutes, until the meat is firm and an instant-read thermometer registers 130°F.
7. Transfer the duck breasts to a serving platter and let rest for 5 minutes. Off the heat, whisk the coconut cream into the sauce. Season with salt, pepper, and curry to taste. Spoon the sauce over the duck breasts and serve, sprinkling with the remaining mango and the scallions.
SERVES 4
RIFTON, NEW YORK
Born in Brooklyn, Robert Rosenthal is a man of great enthusiasm and singular focus. For reasons that neither he nor Noelia, his Puerto Rican–born wife, understand, he was seized in 1982 by an unexpected desire to run away to the country. From their nineteenth-century stone church-turned-farm-and-home in Sullivan County, New York, Mr. Rosenthal, who was determined to make a living from the land, asked chefs, “What do you need, what is missing?” The reply was unanimous: “Great duck.” Duck had become too mild and too mushy, but customers were unhappy when they did not find it on a menu. Mr. Rosenthal began growing heritage breeds of duck, and soon he wanted to find the gold standard, the duck by which all others would be measured. “I kept asking, ‘What is it? Where is it?’ I read, I studied. If you saw my office you would understand the mind of a madman.”
Noelia Rosenthal’s approach is simpler. She cooks the meat slowly, primarily in its own fat. “Only the best duck can be made this simply,” says Mr. Rosenthal. “From Normandy, an aged Duclair. Now, that’s a duck! A cross between a white male and a domestic female—I got a French Pekin and a wild mallard together! So rich and gamey that it needs to be hung and aged like beef. No sane person would do something like à l’orange to a duck like Duclair.” The Duclair, in other words, needs proper cooking but nothing that might mask its extraordinary flavor.
FOR THE DUCK
5 tablespoons olive oil
2 garlic cloves, minced
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
One 4- to 5-pound whole Normandy, mallard, or Duclair duck, cut into 8 pieces, fat trimmed and reserved
2 carrots, peeled and coarsely chopped
1 parsnip, peeled and coarsely chopped
1 medium onion, finely chopped
FOR THE VEGETABLES
12 ounces red potatoes, scrubbed and cut into ½inch pieces
12 ounces carrots, peeled and cut into ½-inch pieces
12 ounces parsnips, peeled and cut into ½-inch pieces
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 cup frozen green peas, thawed
1. To make the duck: The day before serving, in a shallow baking dish, combine 3 tablespoons of the oil, the garlic, ½ teaspoon salt, and ½ teaspoon pepper. Add the duck breasts and turn to coat. Cover and refrigerate for 12 to 24 hours. Season the duck legs, thighs, and wings with salt and pepper, cover, and refrigerate for 12 to 24 hours.
2. Heat the remaining 2 tablespoons oil in a Dutch oven over low heat. Pat the duck legs, thighs, and wings dry, place in the Dutch oven in a single layer, and cook for 15 minutes, flipping once, until light golden brown on both sides.
3. Add the trimmed and reserved duck fat, carrots, parsnip, and onion, and enough water to cover the duck and vegetables by 1 inch. Bring to a bare simmer and cook over low heat about 3 hours, skimming and reserving the fat from the surface, until the fat is completely rendered and the duck is tender.
4. Transfer the duck pieces to a plate and keep warm. If desired, strain the broth through a fine-mesh strainer and reserve for another use. Discard the vegetables. Wipe out the Dutch oven with a paper towel.
5. Heat 1 tablespoon of the reserved duck fat in the Dutch oven. Add the duck breasts and cook for 10 to 15 minutes, flipping once, until golden brown on both sides and an instant-read thermometer registers 130°F. Transfer them to a carving board, cover with foil, and let rest.
6. While the duck breasts cook, make the vegetables: Heat ¼ cup of the reserved duck fat in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the potatoes, carrots, parsnips, ½ teaspoon salt, and ¼ teaspoon pepper and cook for 15 to 20 minutes, stirring occasionally, until tender and golden brown on all sides. Stir in the peas and cook for 1 minute, until warm. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
7. To serve, slice the duck breasts and arrange on a platter with the legs, thighs, and wings. Spoon the vegetables over the duck, drizzle with 2 tablespoons of the reserved duck fat, and serve.
SERVES 4
Releasing ducks at waterfowl sanctuary.
WHEN CONGRESS NAMED THE BALD EAGLE THE NATIONAL bird, Thomas Jefferson wrote to his daughter, saying that he wished they’d chosen the wild turkey. Americans are still inspired by soaring eagles, but at the center is a huge, deeply bronzed turkey. The bird is treasured, anticipated, disparaged, romanticized, and frequently overcooked.
Wild turkey were abundant in seventeenth-century New England, and the bird quickly replaced the English goose as the festive fowl of choice in the New World. “The turkey is certainly one of the handsomest gifts the New World made to the Old World,” noted the French gastronome Brillat-Savarin, after shooting and preparing a wild turkey near Hartford, Connecticut, in 1794. M. Brillat-Savarin might not recognize the shape, size, or taste of most American turkeys today, but he would appreciate the passion and opinions aroused by the big, modern Thanksgiving bird. The most common questions today are fresh or frozen? Organic or conventional? Factory- or farm-raised? Industrial-hybrid or purebred—rise from a desire to have “the best” Cooks are offered factory birds, free-range birds, and “self-basting” birds, and all sorts of advice on how to cook them. One expert advises a 500°F oven for a short time, while another insists on slow roasting at half that temperature. Some brine, some inject the meat with marinade, some cover the bird with foil, or bake it in a brown paper bag, or slow the roasting by packing its breast in ice prior to putting it in the oven. Some roast breast down, others roast breast up. Turkey is barbecued, smoked, and deep-fried.
Given the chance, each side attempts to convert the other by cooking a tastier bird. The basic techniques remain the same—and most of them are roasted, barbecued, grilled, or deep-fried, but all are tweaked to accommodate different provenance, different region, or the cook’s taste and family tradition.
PLYMOUTH, MASSACHUSETTS
During her twenty-two-years as Plimoth Plantation’s food historian, Kathleen Curtin, has developed historical menus to bring alive not only New England’s first Thanksgiving but feasts through the centuries. She knows of only one eyewitness account of the 1621 harvest celebration, found in a letter from Edward Winslow. For the feast, four men were sent “fowling,” and likely bagged turkeys that were plentiful in the New England woods. “We assume that turkey was part of the legendary groaning board,” Ms. Curtin says, “and we know that it was a small, gamier, wild bird that, like a goose, had no white meat and was cooked by spit roasting if young or braised if older.”
Whether using a free-range organic or a heritage Narragansett, Ms. Curtin tries to adapt the spirit of the early technique to accommodate all the changes in cooking technology and turkey breeding. This recipe, she says, “was born out of my desire to create a consistently juicy bird. The one thing that can ruin Thanksgiving is an overdone turkey breast that shreds instead of slices and turns to sawdust in the mouth. There just isn’t enough gravy to cover that problem! But I am pretty sure that if I had the chance to serve this version to a member of the original colony they’d be able to identify the bird they were eating.”
8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted
One 18- to 20-pound whole turkey, neck, giblets and liver reserved, and brined (see Dr. Starkloff’s Cider-Brined Grilled Turkey, page 393, for brining instructions)
2 medium onions, coarsely chopped
2 carrots, peeled and coarsely chopped
2 celery stalks, coarsely chopped
3 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley, or 1 tablespoon dried
3 tablespoons chopped fresh thyme, or 1 tablespoon dried
2 tablespoons chopped fresh sage, or 2 teaspoons dried
Freshly ground black pepper
¼ cup unbleached all-purpose flour
Kosher salt
1. Place an oven rack in the lower-center position and preheat the oven to 325°F. Lightly grease a large V-shaped roasting rack with some of the melted butter and set it inside a shallow roasting pan.
2. Remove the turkey from the brine, rinse well under cold running water, and pat dry. Using metal skewers or toothpicks, secure the neck skin to the back of the turkey, then tuck the turkey’s wings behind its back.
3. In a large bowl, combine the onions, carrots, celery, 1 tablespoon of the melted butter, the parsley, thyme, sage, and pepper to taste. Stuff one-third of the vegetable mixture into the turkey cavity. Tie the legs together with butcher’s twine. Brush the skin with the remaining melted butter.
4. Place the turkey breast down on the prepared rack. Sprinkle half of the remaining vegetable mixture around the bottom of the pan and pour in 1 ½ cups water. Roast the turkey for 2 ½ hours, basting every 30 minutes with pan drippings and adding more water to the pan as needed to keep the vegetables moist and to prevent burning.
5. Remove the turkey from the oven and using kitchen towels or oven mitts, flip it breast up. Baste the turkey, return it to the oven, and roast for 1 to 2 hours more, basting every 45 minutes, until an instant-read thermometer registers 165°F in the thighs and drumsticks and 155°F in the breast.
6. Increase the oven to 400°F and roast for 10 to 20 minutes, until the skin is well browned and an instant-read thermometer registers 175°F in the thighs and drumsticks and 165°F in the breast. Transfer the turkey to a serving platter or carving board and let rest for 30 minutes to 1 hour.
7. While the turkey roasts, make the broth for the gravy. In a large saucepan, combine the reserved neck and giblets, the remaining vegetable mixture, and 5 cups water. Bring to a simmer and cook for 1 hour.
8. Add the liver and simmer for 5 minutes more. Strain the broth through a fine-mesh strainer. Reserve the neck, giblets, and liver and discard the remaining solids. Pick the meat from the neck and finely chop the giblets and liver. (The neck meat, giblets, liver, and broth can be refrigerated until you are ready to make the gravy.)
9. To make the gravy, transfer the pan juices from the roasting pan to a fat separator or a liquid measuring cup and let sit about 5 minutes, until the fat floats to the top. Reserve ¼ cup of the fat and discard the rest or reserve for another use.
10. Return the reserved ¼ cup fat to the roasting pan and heat over medium-low heat. Whisk in the flour and cook for 2 minutes, until it begins to brown. Whisk in the broth and scrape up any browned bits. Stir in the reserved neck meat, giblets, and liver, bring to a simmer, and cook for 5 to 10 minutes, until thick. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
11. Carve the turkey and serve with the gravy.
SERVES 20 TO 22
Thanksgiving turkey for the President, 1929.
FILBERT, SOUTH CAROLINA
Wild turkey is a point of pride, a pledge to Southern tradition, a man thing. For decades Vestula Sanders’s way with the wild bird protected her large family from the ugly truth that the local wild turkeys were tough. Aunt Vestula’s buttermilk brine made the bird succulent and tasty. She herself always gave credit to the wild birds, but her nieces and nephews, who are grandchildren of a freed slave and still farming the land their father purchased in 1915, credit their aunt, and buttermilk.
FOR THE TURKEY
One 13- to 15-pound whole wild turkey
Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper
2 quarts buttermilk
3 celery stalks, finely chopped
1 medium onion, finely chopped
2 slices white bread, torn into small pieces
1 cup dry sherry
2 teaspoons sweet paprika
4 tablespoons (½ stick) unsalted butter, melted
FOR THE GRAVY
¼ cup all-purpose flour
2 cups whole milk
Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper
1. To make the turkey: The day before serving, pat the turkey dry and season with salt and pepper. Place the turkey in a baking dish and pour the buttermilk over the top. Cover and refrigerate for 12 to 24 hours, turning several times.
2. When ready to cook, place an oven rack in the lower-center position and preheat the oven to 350°F.
3. In a medium bowl, combine the celery, onion, bread, ½ cup of the sherry, and the paprika. Transfer the turkey to a shallow roasting pan and pour in the remaining ½ cup sherry. Stuff the onion mixture into the turkey cavity and tie the legs together with butcher’s twine. Brush the turkey with the melted butter.
4. Roast the turkey, breast up, for 3 to 4 hours, basting every 30 minutes, until an instant-read thermometer registers 175°F in the thighs and drumsticks and 165°F in the breast.
5. Transfer the turkey to a serving platter or carving board and let rest for 30 minutes to 1 hour. Pour off all but ¼ cup of the fat from the roasting pan (leave the drippings).
6. To make the gravy: Heat the drippings in the roasting pan over low heat. Whisk in the flour and cook for 2 minutes, until beginning to brown. Whisk in ¼ cup of the milk and scrape up any browned bits. Remove the pan from the heat and slowly whisk in the remaining milk. Return to medium heat, bring to a simmer, and cook about 5 minutes, until thick. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
7. Carve the turkey and serve with the gravy.
SERVES 14 TO 16
BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS
Lorraine Stern’s family owned a home on Beacon Hill in Boston from the early 1700s until about 1999, when, as the last surviving direct descendant, she stopped fighting the snow and moved to Miami. This recipe was as integral to life in that house as the Revere drawings and Audubon watercolors. The original called for more meat and created a decidedly British pudding-like stuffing. Small notes on the recipe show a steady lightening, the subtraction of meat and the addition of more bread, and the arrival of modern appliances to mince and chop in place of knives.
2 tablespoons (¼ stick) unsalted butter
2 medium onions, finely chopped
2 pounds bulk sweet sausage
1 carrot, peeled and coarsely chopped
1 celery stalk, coarsely chopped
1 parsnip, peeled and coarsely chopped
8 cups cooked, shelled, and peeled chestnuts
1 cup homemade beef broth or low-sodium store-bought beef broth
2 cups homemade chicken broth or low-sodium store-bought chicken broth
3 cups dry white bread crumbs
3 cups dry cornbread crumbs
1 cup chopped walnuts
1 tablespoon minced fresh parsley
1 teaspoon dried thyme
½ teaspoon dried marjoram
½ teaspoon dried sage, crumbled
½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
½ teaspoon kosher salt
1 large egg, lightly beaten
1. Melt the butter in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the onions and cook about 4 minutes, stirring occasionally, until soft. Increase the heat to high, crumble the sausage into the skillet, and cook, breaking up the meat with a wooden spoon, about 6 minutes, until no longer pink. Transfer the mixture to a large bowl.
2. Pulse the carrot, celery, and parsnip in a food processor until finely chopped. Stir the vegetables into the sausage mixture. In the food processor, process 2 cups of the chestnuts with the beef broth until a loose puree forms. Stir the puree into the sausage mixture.
3. Finely chop the remaining 6 cups chestnuts and stir into the sausage mixture along with the chicken broth, bread crumbs, walnuts, parsley, thyme, marjoram, sage, pepper, salt, and egg. Cover and refrigerate until needed.
MAKES ABOUT 12 CUPS, ENOUGH TO STUFF A 20-POUND TURKEY
CORAL GABLES, FLORIDA
When she enters her kitchen at dawn on Thanksgiving, Joann Bander’s battle between her childhood tastes and the current cooking trends begins. Her Grandmother Mollie, her Aunt Goldie, and her mother beckon from her file box and from the pages of the 1950 Young Hebrew Association Cookbook. While raising her two children, she tried sausage-and-fruit stuffing, oyster stuffing, cornbread stuffing, and countless other variations, before returning to the recipe that her grandmother created when she had a little restaurant in Brockton, Massachusetts. Most of the handwritten recipes Mollie Shimelovich left behind combine Ukrainian Old Country tastes and local New England ingredients. Her stuffing is made from old-fashioned common crackers, cornflakes, and egg, enriched with sautéed onions and mushrooms. But her granddaughter has also gotten inspirations from food magazines and has been known to replace the domestic cultivated mushrooms with shiitake, oyster, and porcini varieties.
One 7.5-ounce box common crackers (also called pilot crackers)
8 cups cornflakes
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
½ pound (2 sticks) unsalted butter
8 ounces white mushrooms, finely chopped
2 large onions, finely chopped
¾ cup warm water
½ teaspoon kosher salt
½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1. In a large bowl, combine the crackers and cornflakes. Using your hands, gently crush the ingredients so that some large pieces still remain. Stir in the eggs.
2. Melt the butter in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the mushrooms and onions and cook for 10 to 12 minutes, stirring occasionally, until golden brown. Stir the vegetables, water, salt, and pepper into the cracker mixture until evenly combined. Cover and refrigerate until needed.
MAKES 8 CUPS, ENOUGH TO STUFF ONE TURKEY (12 TO 15 POUNDS)
SAN ANGELO, TEXAS
Frances Butler grew up on the family ranch and continues to preside over the dry, windy land. The lonesomeness of ranch life, she says, was offset by “group cooks” such as the annual Thanksgiving tamale making: “Wild turkey hunting has been a West Texas sport for as long as anybody remembers, and tamale-stuffed turkey may have been an early tip of the hat to the Mexican ranch hands who’ve been around for at least as long as the turkey. This recipe dates back to the early 1900s. I got it from a family whose grandmother was German but had been raised in Mexico. I make it most often in the cold months, but I’ve been known to put a tamale-stuffed turkey in the roasting pit in my time, as well. You can use commercial tamales, of course, but I like the two-day ritual of making tamales and then making the turkey. I always double or triple the tamales and freeze the extra. These days people use more barnyard turkey than they do wild. Before you go thinking that’s a sorry thing, let me tell you this. You feed your chickens or turkey some chile peppers before you decide. That spicy-sweet flavor gets into the meat and you know what they mean when they say it doesn’t get any better.”
This stuffing is also delicious in chicken and squab. Serve with high quality corn chips, salsa (pages 83 to 87), and sour cream.
4 shallots, peeled
2 garlic cloves, peeled
2 jalapeño chiles, stemmed and seeded
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, cut into 8 pieces and chilled
30 medium pork, chicken, or chile tamales (page 6), husks removed and discarded
1 cup frozen corn, thawed
One 8- to 10-pound whole turkey, giblets removed
1. Place an oven rack in the lower-center position and preheat the oven to 350°F. Set a large V-shaped roasting rack inside a shallow roasting pan.
2. Pulse the shallots, garlic, chiles, 1 teaspoon salt, and ½ teaspoon pepper in a food processor until finely chopped. With the food processor running, add the butter, one piece at time, and process until a paste forms.
3. In a large bowl, crumble the tamales and using a fork, stir in the corn. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
4. Pat the turkey dry. Using metal skewers or toothpicks, secure the neck skin to the back of the turkey, then tuck the turkey’s wings behind its back.
5. Stuff the tamale mixture into the turkey’s cavity and tie the legs together with butcher’s twine. Place the turkey in the prepared rack, breast up, and rub with the butter mixture. Cover the turkey loosely with foil and roast for 1 hour, basting with pan drippings every 20 minutes.
6. Uncover and roast for 30 to 45 minutes, until the skin is well browned and an instant-read thermometer registers 175°F in the thighs and drumsticks and 165°F in the breast and stuffing.
7. Transfer the turkey to a serving platter or carving board and let rest for 30 minutes to 1 hour.
8. Carve the turkey and serve with the tamale stuffing.
SERVES 10 TO 12
ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI
Max C. Starkloff, M.D., the health commissioner of St. Louis, was a serious cook, as was his son, Gene B. Starkloff, M.D. When Gene Starkloff heard that his father’s sister, Irma von Starkloff Rombauer, was writing a cookbook, he was appalled. “But Aunt Irma can’t cook!” he exclaimed, and his father agreed. Their descendants do not remember when this conversation took place, but they do know that Aunt Irma’s cookbook, The Joy of Cooking, has sold more than 19 million copies. They also remember this turkey, which was usually served with apple or mango chutney, plum sauce, whole-grain mustard flavored with maple syrup, or Aunt Irma’s Cumberland sauce.
2 gallons apple cider
2 cups kosher salt
10 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed
One 13- to 15-pound whole turkey
1 bunch fresh sage, rosemary, or thyme, or a combination
1. The day before serving, heat 1 quart of the cider and the salt in medium saucepan over medium heat, stirring constantly, until the salt has dissolved. Set aside to cool to room temperature.
2. In a container large enough to hold the turkey and brine, combine the cider-salt mixture, the remaining cider, and the garlic. Stuff the turkey cavity with the herbs and tie the legs together with butcher’s twine. Place the turkey in the brine and weight with a plate to keep submerged. Cover and refrigerate for 8 to 12 hours.
3. When ready to cook, remove the turkey from the brine, rinse well under cold running water, drain well, and pat dry. Transfer half of the brine to a large disposable aluminum roasting pan and reserve the remaining brine. Place 3 cups of apple or hickory wood chips in water to soak.
4. Heat one side of a charcoal grill to high. Add 1 ½ cups of the wood chips to the coals. Place a disposable aluminum pan on the hotter side of the grill and the turkey on the cooler side, breast up. Close the lid vents, cover the grill, and cook for 45 minutes. (If you have a grill thermometer, it should read 350°F to 400°F.)
5. Add another 1 ½ cups of wood chips to the coals and pour the reserved brine into the roasting pan, to replace the brine that has cooked away. Rotate the turkey 180° and cook for 45 minutes more, until deeply browned. (If the wing tips or breast darken too rapidly, cover them with foil.)
6. While the turkey is on the grill, place the oven rack to the lower-center position and preheat the oven to 325°F. Set a roasting rack in a shallow roasting pan.
7. Transfer the turkey to the prepared rack, place in the oven, and roast for 20 to 40 minutes, until an instant-read thermometer registers 175°F in the thighs and drumsticks and 165°F in the breast.
8. Transfer the turkey to a serving platter or carving board and let rest for 30 minutes to 1 hour.
9. Carve the turkey and serve.
SERVES 14 TO 16
SANFORD, NORTH CAROLINA
Adescendant of Scots who received land grants from King George III to settle North Carolina, Janet Trent grew up just outside of Raleigh. North Carolina is the country’s second-largest producer of turkeys—39 million birds are raised a year, creating a state farm income of more than half a billion dollars. Ms. Trent, like most folks, ate roast Thanksgiving turkey growing up, but when she was in her thirties she deep-fried her first turkey, and over the last sixteen years, she has developed her own seasoning rub. In 1996, her mother received a flyer tucked into her utility bill promoting the North Carolina Poultry Federation’s deep-fried turkey contest. Ms. Trent entered and was one of five winners—and from then on her deep-fried turkey became a Thanksgiving tradition for her family.
To prevent burns from spattering oil, most cooks wear oven mitts or gloves, long sleeves, heavy shoes, and even safety glasses. They deep-fry outdoors, never leave the pot unattended, and always keep a fire extinguisher handy. Having two people lower and raise the turkey makes the job easier. Ms. Trent’s husband designed and built a special extension hook that allows her to lower the bird into the boiling oil from a safe distance.
¼ cup kosher salt
1½ tablespoons onion powder
1½ tablespoons garlic powder
1½ tablespoons freshly ground black pepper
1½ tablespoons freshly ground white pepper
1 tablespoon dried basil
1½ tablespoons sweet paprika
1½ teaspoons cayenne pepper
1 teaspoon ground bay leaves
1 teaspoon filé powder
One 10- to 12-pound whole turkey
4 to 5 gallons peanut oil, for frying
Cayenne Cornbread Dressing (recipe follows), for serving
1. The day before serving, in a medium bowl, stir together the salt, onion powder, garlic powder, black and white peppers, basil, paprika, cayenne, bay leaves, and filé. Pat the turkey dry and rub the interior and exterior with the salt rub. Place the bird in a shallow roasting pan, cover, and refrigerator overnight.
2. When ready to cook, heat the oil in a 7- to 10-gallon turkey fryer over medium-high heat until a deep-frying thermometer registers 375°F. Pat the turkey dry, and place in the fryer basket or on the turkey rack, neck down. Slowly and carefully lower the turkey into the oil. (The level of the oil will rise with the weight of the turkey, and the oil will bubble from moisture.) Immediately check the temperature and adjust the heat so the temperature remains at 350°F. Cook for 35 to 45 minutes, until an instant-read thermometer registers 175°F in the thighs and drumsticks and 165°F in the breast.
3. Carefully remove the turkey from the fryer and let drain for a few minutes. Transfer to a serving platter or carving board and let rest for 30 minutes to 1 hour.
4. Carve the turkey and serve with the dressing.
SERVES 12 TO 14
FOR THE CORNBREAD
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups stone-ground cornmeal
¼ cup sugar
2 tablespoons baking powder
1 teaspoon kosher salt
3 cups buttermilk
6 tablespoons (¾ stick) unsalted butter, melted
5 large eggs, lightly beaten
FOR THE DRESSING
½ pound (2 sticks) unsalted butter
1 medium onion, finely chopped
8 scallions, green and white parts, finely chopped
1 cup finely chopped fresh parsley
½ cup chopped fresh basil
6 garlic cloves, minced
1 tablespoon kosher salt
4 teaspoons dried oregano
2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper
2 teaspoons cayenne pepper
2 teaspoons onion powder
2 teaspoons dried thyme
2 cups homemade chicken broth or low-sodium store-bought chicken broth
2 cups evaporated milk
7 large eggs, lightly beaten
1. To make the cornbread: Place an oven rack in the center position and preheat the oven to 375°F. Grease a 13 x 9-inch baking pan.
2. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, cornmeal, sugar, baking powder, and salt. In a medium bowl, whisk together the buttermilk, melted butter, and eggs. Gently whisk the egg mixture into the flour mixture until combined. Pour the batter into the prepared pan. Bake about 55 minutes, until golden brown and a toothpick in the center comes out clean.
3. Let the cornbread cool completely, then crumble into small pieces.
4. To make the dressing: Preheat the oven to 350°F. In a large skillet, melt the butter over medium heat. Stir in the onion, scallions, parsley, basil, and garlic and cook about 4 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the onion is soft. Stir in the salt, oregano, pepper, cayenne, onion powder, and thyme and cook about 1 minute, until aromatic.
5. Add the broth, bring to a simmer, and cook about 5 minutes. Stir in the crumbled cornbread until well combined. Remove the pan from the heat and stir in the evaporated milk and eggs. Return the skillet to low heat and cook, stirring constantly, about 2 minutes. Transfer stuffing to a large baking dish, cover with foil, and bake 30 minutes. Remove the foil and bake 15 minutes, until the top is browned.
SERVES 12 TO 14
HOMEPLACE, LOUISIANA
Ruth Fertel, a biologist and former thoroughbred horse trainer who turned a corner steakhouse into an international empire, was a “force of nature,” says her son, the writer and professor Randy Fertel. This “force” acquired hurricane velocity around the holidays. Her turkey stuffing, unlike the Yankee version, has a peppery bite—and more oysters than stale bread.
3 loaves French bread, cut into 1-inch cubes (about 12 cups)
1 gallon oysters with liquid
1¼ pounds (5 sticks) unsalted butter
1 pound hot sausage, casing removed and minced
1 pound smoked sausage, minced
4 celery stalks, finely chopped
3 medium onions, finely chopped
1 green bell pepper, stemmed, seeded, and finely chopped
1 red bell pepper, stemmed, seeded, and finely chopped
12 garlic cloves, minced
12 chicken bouillon cubes
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
Red pepper flakes
12 large eggs, lightly beaten
1. Several days before serving, spread the bread cubes out on two baking sheets and let dry at room temperature.
2. Place an oven rack in the center position and preheat the oven to 350°F.
3. Strain the oysters over a large saucepan. Heat the oyster liquor over high heat until almost boiling. Stir in the oysters and cook for 1 to 2 minutes, until the edges begin to curl. Strain the oysters and reserve the liquid. Set the oysters aside to cool to room slightly, then coarsely chop.
4. Melt 1 stick of the butter in a large Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Crumble in the hot sausage and add the smoked sausage and cook, stirring frequently to break up the hot sausage, for 6 to 8 minutes, until just beginning to brown. Stir in the celery, onions, bell peppers, and garlic and cook about 8 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the vegetables are soft. Stir in the oysters, the reserved liquid, and the bouillon cubes. Bring mixture to a simmer and cook about 5 minutes. Season with salt, pepper, and pepper flakes to taste. Stir in the bread cubes, 2 cups at a time, until enough bread has been added to absorb the liquid but the mixture remains moist.
5. Melt the remaining 4 sticks butter in a small saucepan, then stir into the stuffing with the eggs. Transfer stuffing to a large baking dish, cover with foil, and bake for 1 hour. Remove the foil and bake about 15 minutes more, until stuffing is brown. Serve.
SERVES 18 TO 20
LA JOLLA, CALIFORNIA
Asia scholar Susan Shirk went to Japan as an exchange student after high school and fell in love with the place. “I always felt bad for the other scholars,” she says, because “Asian food is great—better than the rest of the world.” Living in Hong Kong in the 1970s, she joined Chinese housewives in cooking lessons sponsored by the gas company. The experience was fun but she knew that elaborate dishes such as duck feet in licorice sauce were not recipes she’d make at home. Home cooking, she says, should be simple and tasty. Her version of mapo doufu is a good example. She acquired the recipe thirty years ago when doing research in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province.
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 tablespoon grated fresh ginger
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 pound ground turkey
¼ cup mapo doufu sauce
¼ cup water
1 small head napa cabbage, coarsely chopped
One 14-ounce block tofu, cut into 1-inch cubes
1. Heat the oil in a wok or large skillet over high heat. Add the ginger and garlic and cook for 30 seconds to 1 minute, stirring constantly, until aromatic. Add the turkey and cook, stirring constantly, for 3 to 5 minutes, until no longer pink.
2. Stir in the sauce and water until combined. Add the cabbage, 1 handful at a time, and cook about 3 minutes, until tender but still crunchy. Gently stir in the tofu and cook about 3 minutes, until warmed through. Serve.
SERVES 4
