June 9 – June 15, 2025

Monday:               Asparagus Risotto with Shiitake Mushrooms

Tuesday:               Light Soup with Mushrooms and Shaved Beef / Parmesan Crostini

Wednesday:          Charred Pepper and Onion and Sausage Sandwiches

Thursday:             Potato Pancakes w/ Salad of Avocado, Onion, Cucumber

Friday:                 Parmesan Chicken

Saturday:              Green Pepper, Ham, Pineapple and Tomato Pizza

Sunday:                Tuscan Fried Chicken with Lemon, Smashed Cucumbers

                             and Fennel with Chili Crisp Salad.

Move Over Colonel Sanders – How Tuscan Fried Chicken Can Improve Your Life

Note: we have been slowly slipping behind in our weekly posts, so that I’m often writing to you about meals we ate two weeks ago or longer. The recent attack on our house by a giant wild cherry tree could be used as an excuse – but that would be a sign of weak character and general dissolution.  So, here we are, sending out a second post this week to get back on track. And here am I, in the kitchen, in full regalia (if you look at the breast of the chef’s jacket, you can make out “psycho chef” – a somewhat ambiguous gift given to me many years ago)

I am a sucker for fried chicken, as I think all normal human beings are.  One of the highlights of many Pittsburgh summers was the giant Fourth of July party thrown by our friends Mike and Slo where everyone brought a side dish and they supplied beer, booze and a truckload of fried chicken and a frozen dessert truck for the kids.

I have tried my hand at fried chicken from time to time, including the Nashville Hot Chicken that I crave, but I have never matched the fried chicken you can get at our local supermarket or KFC.  Until last Sunday.

I had run across a recipe in Pat Lafrieda’s cookbook, appropriately titled MEAT, with an accompanying photograph that was so appetizing, I simply had to cook it.  Lafrieda, in his turn, had gotten this recipe from Cesare Casella, an Italian chef because “this (Cesare’s fried chicken with lemon and rosemary . . . [is] the best I’ve eaten in all my restaurant travels.”  Well, I was hooked. 

I was also intrigued because this version of fried chicken doesn’t require any breading.  I could see from the photograph that the chicken was supremely crisp and the idea that you didn’t need breading, which can fall off or clump up and get in the way of enjoying the chicken, sounded great.  In Cesare’s recipe, after a quick marinade in lemon juice, you simply dredge the chicken in flour and then coat with an egg wash.  The crunch in this recipe is simply the chicken skin – a sort of holy grail for those of us who cook chicken.

But frying foods indoors in winter or on days when it’s hot enough to turn on the air-conditioning, is an issue.  The smell of chicken frying is a lovely thing (I am indebted to Kris Kristofferson for this observation), but you don’t want to smell it when you get up the next morning.  So, when we fry anything, I usually resort to a deep-fryer set up on the grilling deck.  Alas, we have a mediocre deep-fryer, with a tiny basket and a temperature control that can’t compare with the control you can exercise on a stove top, with a good thermometer and focused attention. 

However, elated and inspired by the magnificently gutsy play of J. J. Spaun, right across the river at the Oakmont Country Club during last weekend’s U. S. Open golf tournament, I threw prudence to the wind, and fried chicken to Cesare’s specifications on our stove top.  (Prudence, you’ll be happy to hear, is recovering nicely in the orthopaedic wing of our local hospital.)

As I say, you need to pay attention to do this correctly.  Also, you should not wear a decent shirt.  But the result is so resoundingly great – and served with mashed potatoes and a bright salad is as awe-inspiring as was Spaun’s 64 foot putt on the 18^th at Oakmont.  I didn’t used think that anybody could sink a putt that long at Oakmont and I didn’t used think I could cook great fried chicken.  Thank you, J. J. Spaun and Cesare Casella.

TUSCAN FRIED CHICKEN WITH LEMON AND SAGE

(adapted from Cesare Casella via Pat Lafrieda)

Timing:                                    About 2 ½ hours*

*You’ll need to marinate the chicken for 1 hour, and if you’re using a Dutch Oven, you’ll need a little more than an hour to cook one chicken.  If you’re cooking 2 chickens, add another hour and ten minutes.  You can keep the already-cooked chicken hot in a 200 F oven.  Lafrieda used 3 lb. birds, but you’re probably going to find 4.5 lbs. or a little less is the smallest at your market.  One 4 lb. chicken was enough for 3 of us, with enough left over to feed us the next night with a substantial salad.

Ingredients:                                 Feeds 4

1 4-4.5 lb. chicken cut into 8 pieces (you’ll save a lot by butchering your own chicken and you’ll probably be a little proud of the ability to do so. 

There are plenty of videos to help you learn how to do that)

2 quarts vegetable oil or a bit more (you need enough oil to come up 2” from the bottom of your pot)

1 cup all-purpose flour

4 large eggs

6 sprigs fresh thyme

6 sprigs fresh sage

6 sprigs rosemary

6 cloves garlic, crushed (we did not use)

2 tablespoons kosher salt, plus more for seasoning

½ teaspoon ground black pepper, plus more for seasoning

¼ cup plus 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice – more for seasoning

Prep:

Cut up the chicken and lay on a baking sheet and season with the salt and pepper and the lemon juice.  Cover with plastic wrap and let marinate at room temperature for one hour.

Meanwhile, Preheat oven to 200 F.

Place a wire cooling rack inside a rimmed sheet pan – if you don’t have one, the rack from a roasting pan might work.

Pour enough vegetable oil into a large pot or Dutch Oven to come up to 2 inches.  Heat the oil to 375.  (You will need a clip-on thermometer to let you monitor the temperature.  This is important, since too low a temperature will give you oily, not crisp chicken.)  Bringing the oil up to 375 can take up to ½ hour – we cooked at 360 and it worked out.

Put flour in a medium bowl, beat eggs in another medium bowl.

Cook:

Dredge the chicken pieces in the flour, then dip into the eggs and carefully slide into the pot.  Cook for 15 – 20 minutes, turning over half-way through.  Remove and set on the cooling rack and season with salt while just out of the oil.  Place the sheet pan in the oven while you cook the remaining chicken.  Monitor the temperature – the oil temperature can climb or drop.  You don’t want it to go below 325 for very long, nor above 375. 

Important:  Start with the biggest pieces – the breasts, or a breast and a thigh – and don’t overcrowd the pot.  I fried a breast and a thigh and then, separately, the other breast and thigh and finally, and separately, the drumsticks and the wings.  I let the breasts and thighs cook for about 18-20 minutes.  I let the drumsticks and wings cook for about 16 minutes, then took out the wings and cooked the drumsticks another two minutes.  Since the temperature often drops after you remove the chicken pieces, you may need to wait 5-10 minutes for the oil to come back to between 350 and 375 before frying the next batch.

When all of the chicken is cooked, add the thyme, sage, rosemary and garlic to the oil and fry until crisp – 10 or 15 seconds. [Note, we only had sage which was fine by itself.}

Remove the chicken from the oven, place on serving platter and scatter the garlic and herbs over and serve.