August 6 – August 12, 2023

Sunday:                     Roasted Tomato Crostini, Cajun Chicken w/ Peach Salsa,                                        Caprese Salad

Monday:                   Red Curry Pasta with Green Salad

Tuesday:                   Dinner on the PFC Terrace with Hilda and Tim

Wednesday:            Italian Beef Sandwiches / Romaine with Burrata

Thursday:                 Tuscan Style Roasted Chicken, Brussels Sprouts and Kale                                         Salad with Green Goddess Dressing

Friday:                       Salmon en Croute / Burrata, Tomato Salad

Saturday:                  Pizza with Frankie’s Sausage, Bell Peppers and Mushrooms

COOKING OUTDOORS 

Michael Symon, whose great shrimp salad was featured last week, has been teaching me that anything you cook indoors can be cooked outdoors.  There is the year-round advantage to this that you don’t steam or heat up the house or fill it with odors which, while they may be quite appetizing before dinner, can put you off your breakfast the next day.

There is, of course, as the Eskimos well know, a limit to the idea of outdoor cooking.  No grill can compete with 20 below.  But in spring, summer and fall, cooking outdoors is a brilliant* alternative to slaving over a hot stove or oven.  You can hear the birds, smell the flowers and in our ungulate overrun corner of Pennsylvania see the deer eating your hydrangea, the groundhogs eating your geraniums, and the rabbits eating your lettuce.  (I need a shotgun or a wolfhound.)

*Yes, I have been reading one of Jamie Oliver’s cookbooks.But getting back to Michael Symon, whose backyard is filled with flowers and herbs and who obviously employs either a wolfhound or a shotgun – the man cooks everything on a grill – he even bakes cakes on a grill.  But what he mostly cooks on a grill is meat and poultry.  And he has an absolutely brilliant* take on chicken cacciatore – his version is called “Tuscan-Style Roasted Chicken”.  We could not get enough of this dish last week and you will find you can’t get enough of, if you finally fulfill that New Year’s resolution to cook more recipes from this blog.

*I’m getting rid of the Oliver book.

If you follow the recipe faithfully, you will also get a chance to practice your chicken butchering which will save you money, earn you a star from family and friends and increase your self-esteem, unless, like me, your self-esteem has already hit 12 on a scale from 1 to 10.  I’ll just note that my first few chickens looked like they had been divellicated (look it up) by that wolfhound I’m thinking of getting.  But I can butcher a chicken quickly and prettily now – and the cost savings is real.

Tuscan Style Roast Chicken (on the grill)

(adapted from Michael Symon, ‘Symon’s Dinners Cooking Out’)

Timing:                                                     1 hour

Ingredients:                                           Serves 4

Whole chicken about 6 lbs., cut into 8 pieces*

2 beefsteak tomatoes, cut into eighths

½ cup pitted green olives (we used Castelvetrano)

3 cloves garlic, sliced (we used garlic salt)

bundle of fresh oregano tied with butcher’s twine

1 ½ cups chicken stock

4 oz. dry vermouth

2 tablespoons butter

Olive oil for cooking

Kosher salt and cracked black pepper

Torn basil leaves for serving

Prep:

*Cut the chicken into eight pieces (2 thighs, two drumsticks, 2 wings, 2 half-breasts cut into quarter breasts)

NOTE:  There are great internet videos which will help you butcher your chicken.  My favorite is the one by Jacques Pépin.  You’d be smart to remove the wishbone, as he suggests.

Start your charcoal or turn on half the burners of your gas grill.  You’ll need two heat zones – one for direct heat, one for indirect.  So, when you pour the coals into the grill – keep them to one side.

Place a large cast-iron skillet on your stove and heat it on medium-high while the coals get ready.  NOTE:  At some point, you’ll be moving that skillet to the grill.  Get two oven mitts (those skillets are heavy) and move quickly to the grill.  I. e., if it takes you more than a minute to walk through your Long Island mansion’s wolf-applianced kitchen to your outdoor grill, you will get burned.  There is, of course, little chance of that walk, since no one who has a Long Island mansion does their own cooking, except Ina Garten.

Pit the olives (or buy them pitted), cut the tomatoes into eighths.

Season the chicken well with salt and pepper on both sides of each piece.

Move the olive oil and butter, the garlic or garlic salt, the vermouth, the tomatoes and olives and chicken stock to the grill.

Cook the Chicken:

Add a film of olive oil to the skillet, and once it starts to ripple, put in the chicken pieces, skin-side down.  I couldn’t fit the wings into the skillet – you need to leave enough room for each piece to brown deeply (about 5 minutes) – and cooked them directly on the grill.  They were delicious, as cooked wings always are, even without the fancy sauces and dips that have ruined so much clothing in sports bars across America.

After 5 minutes or so, flip the chicken pieces and add the garlic or dust with garlic salt.

Deglaze with the vermouth, being careful not to pour it onto the beautifully crisped skin, then scatter in the olives and tomato pieces and the bundle of oregano.  Then add the chicken stock and season again with salt and pepper.

Now move the pan to the indirect heat side of the grill, close the lid and cook until the chicken’s internal temperature reads 160 F – about 20 minutes more or less.

 

When the chicken is cooked, remove from the heat, stir in the butter, discard the oregano, top with torn basil and serve.