OLD STANDARDS UPDATED

 

Old Standards Updated

           Most cooks have kitchen shelves full of cookbooks and folders of new recipes yet to be tried. We are constantly urged to explore new cuisines of the world with their flavors and sometimes exotic ingredients. Unless one is a professional cook/chef, other considerations come to mind in having to put everyday meals on the table, such as time and ease of preparation and the extra bonus, that the dish that might serve as a backbone for several meals.

          There is nothing like roast chicken to fill all those considerations. I have known people who do not enjoy cooking, but the one thing they have mastered is roast chicken, because of these qualities. If you are on a budget, it even has the virtue of being thrifty. However, recently I came up with an update to my long time favorite ‘lemon roasted chicken. It required very little in new ingredients, but the results were an exceptionally moist and tasty bird.

                                             Miso-roasted Chicken

          Rinse and pat dry a four-pound whole chicken, reserving giblets for soup to be cooked later. Rub inside and the breast under the skin with some coarse salt and brush the skin overall with fresh lemon juice. Put several slices of lemon in the bird’s cavity and place it on a rack in a roasting pan. Preheat oven to 350 degrees on the roast setting.

1)    In a small bowl mix: 2 tablespoons melted butter, lemon juice and white miso paste each with ¼ cup chicken broth. Set aside also ¾ cup of chicken broth mixed with 2 tablespoons lemon.

2)    Brush chicken with the miso-mix overall and place in the oven set to roast for 1 hour 30 minutes. After30 minutes brush with more miso-mix and then every 20 minutes with miso-mix and pan drippings. Once the bird is fairly dark, switch to basting with the lemony-chicken broth and drippings.

3)    Remove the chicken to a plate and allow to rest while you are making the gravy, since that is one of the required components for roast chicken, at least at our house.

4)    Place the roasting pan on a burner after removing the rack and on low heat stir in 2 ½  tablespoons flour in the drippings mixing in thoroughly. Slowly add the lemony chicken broth scraping up browned bits with constant stirring to prevent formation of lumps. Stir in the remaining miso-mix and enough water to the desired consistency for the gravy. Adjust salt and pepper seasonings and stir in 1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar.

5)    Serve the miso-roasted chicken with mashed potatoes, the gravy and vegetable or salad of your choice. Leftover chicken and gravy makes an excellent lunch over toast and the carcass and giblets are an excellent base for soup.

This is the time of the year every farmers market and fruit stand is bursting with mounds of apples of colorful and mouthwatering variety neatly arranged in an assortment of baskets. A juicy crisp apple is a refreshing treat, but apples baked in a fragrant desert insinuate by aroma and promise true comfort food. The next recipe is an update of a quick desert I devised many years ago.

                   Cinnamon-Apple Flatbread

Line a 9x13 inch pan with parchment paper and pre-heat oven to bake at 350 degrees. Unroll the dough of a package of Crescent Dough from the Deli case in your market and spread out flat on the pan to closely fit in a long rectangle, which is going to be slightly smaller than the pan. Push the seams together with your fingers to seal.

1)    Prepare the topping by blending together ½ cup sugar with 1 teaspoon of cinnamon and ¼ teaspoon nutmeg.

2)    Pare and quarter 3 large firm apples such as Cortland, Pink Lady or Braeburn. Drop the quarters in 3 cups of water acidified with 1 tablespoon lemon juice to prevent discoloration.

3)    Drain the water, pat the apple quarters dry and slice each quarter in 4-5 slices. Arrange the slices in 3 parallel rows lengthwise, slightly overlapping the slices on each other. Drizzle with 1 tablespoon lemon juice and brush with 2 tablespoons melted butter. Sprinkle the sugar topping evenly over the apples.

4)    Bake for 30 minutes; some of the sugar will caramelize along the edges. Serve this fragrant desert warm or cold cut in squares. The cake keeps well for a day, but will get softer on standing.

As each crisp day of autumn blends in the early evening twilight we look to food that comforts with familiar flavors, but updating those flavors can be intriguing and fun.

 (I. Winicov Harrington lives in coastal Maine and is the author of “How to Eat Healthy and Well for Less than $5.00 a Day: the Smart-Frugal Food Plan”; website: www.winicov-harrington.com)