Roast Chicken Dinner

I am a big fan of roast whole chicken. Growing up in a Chinese family, whole chicken were always steamed so when I went to boarding school in England, I had roast chicken for the first time and I immediately fell in love with it. The best roast chicken dinner I have ever had was with the Constantine's in their grandmother's sun room on a beautiful Sunday afternoon before returning to school that evening at Eastbourne, England. I distinctly remembered their grandmother started preparing the food that morning so I smelled it when I woke up and the wonderful meal was served with their best china. The roast chicken was accompanied by roasted potatoes, fresh brussel sprouts, carrots, and a smooth and light gravy. I remembered gobbling a huge plate full of food like a growing teenager and asking for seconds because I know it'll be a long time before I have food like this again once I am back in school.

A meal like that I am sure took grandmother Constantine years to perfect. I have only started to do roast dinners in my mid-20s so I still have years to work on replicating that memorable meal. But I have come close, and the results were not bad. Last Sunday, I took a recipe with mustard vinaigrette from Epicurious for the chicken. I used my favorite Yukon Gold potatoes from Farmer's Market for roasted potatoes, and bacon-garlic brussel sprouts. Here's some photos of the three elements:

I wished I put the chicken in the oven longer with lower temperature but I ran out of time.
It was 375 degrees for 1.5 hours.

I par boiled the potatoes first, then toss the potatoes with the roast chicken juice.
Put them in the oven in 450 degrees for 15-20 minutes.

Chopped bacon and garlic, then sauteed the brussel sprouts in the bacon grease.
Added a little bit of chicken juice for extra flavor.

And the final product....simply comforting and delicious!!

Salad of no boundaries

I love salads!!! It's a such a versatile dish. There are salads without lettuce, with lettuce, salad mixed with many different things (cobb), salad with just one main ingredient (potato). You can make salad as an appetizer, main course, side dish, lunch, dinner, or take it to a pot luck. I dare say you can chop up whatever you have in your vegetable drawer, mix it with a dressing and call it a salad.

That's exactly what I made the other day. I made a salad to accompany our main dish...the ever-so-satisfying hamburger helper. Yes, it's not gourmet but I added onions, garlic, crimini mushrooms and a few splashes of white wine. It was deeelicioius and as gourmet hamburger helper can get. Then I also made a salad. I had some red leaf lettuce, washed it and spun dry with a salad spinner (a must-have for everyone!). The rest of the ingredients were whatever I had in my fridge:

high-octan purple carrots from farmer's market
red bell peppers
chopped snapped peas from my garden
rosted beets
kelp (gives it a crunchy texture, plus it’s super healthy stuff)
chopped red onions
crumbled Castello blue cheese

For dressing, I have this balsamic spritzer bottle...great invention and I added some extra walnut oil. Okay...if you never had walnut oil before, this stuff is soooo good for you and is especially good with salads. It's a bit pricey but you may be able to get a bottle for $10 from grocery stores. The best walnut oil I've tried and bought is La Nogalera. If you love salad and want to wow your guests with your salads, invest in a bottle. A good simple, oil and vinegar dressing is extremely easy to make and you probably have all the stuff you need at home to do it. The key to good dressing is to become familiar with the taste that you like and the consistency. The basic French dressing or vinaigrette will include:

Walnut oil, 2-3 tablespoons
Olive oil, 1 tablespoon or less
Red wine vinegar, a few drops
Lemon juice, a wedge, optional
Garlic, 1 small clove, minced, or garlic powder
Dijon mustard, 1 teaspoon
Water, a few drops
Mix all, press in the garlic when mix, salt & pepper to taste

Going back to the salad. Basically, it has no boundaries what it should or should not be in it. If you have chopped boiled eggs, put it in. Add some pine nuts or pecans, make it crunchy. Textile is important in a salad and it can bring out the flavors of other ingredients. If you don't have time to chop up everything, make it simple. Tear some fresh lettuce, cut up some fresh, organic carrots, maybe a few red onion strips, and toss it with a basic French dressing. Simple and perfect.

For my leafy salads, these are must-have:

Salad spinner

La Nogalera walnut oil

A decent wooden salad bowl

Here’s the salad I made tonight….I sautéed the left over (raw) ground beef I have with chunky chopped mushrooms, onions and garlic. Then added a fried egg on top. I would’ve cooked the egg less, allowing the egg yolk to be more raw so that when it’s ready to eat, the egg yolk will mix with the meat and salad, creating a creamy dressing. I’ve seen that done a lot in gourmet restaurants and on Top Chef. Plus it makes the salad look more colorful and interesting.


Tasty!

Trip down memory lane

Here's some homey, wonderful, memorable meals of our creation...

St. Patrick's Day


Thanksgiving 2008 - East Meets West

Nate's special Bacon-Wrapped Scallops

A steak ending - Nate's special marinate

For the record

To those who know me, they know I am a foodie and I talk a lot about food. But only a handful of them knows that I am also a home chef. Yep, I really chef it up at home, occasionally producing some fancy meals that are right on par with gourmet restaurants.

My kitchen - is TINY! So my mis-en-place (new word, thanks for Kitchen Confidential by Tony Bourdain, my soul mate) is limited but I am proud to have things like a good knife (Wustoff), truffle oil, fresh herbs from my kitchen garden, 10+ different kinds of spices, and an excellent (but slow) sous-chef - Nathan, my boyfriend in-residence. We have cooked Thanksgiving dinner for 10, 5-course Christmas dinner for 4, and some really really delicious gourmet meals on a nightly basis.

I have kept a recipe book that hopefully one day, I will pass it down to my grandchildren. But I am going high-tech - posting recipes/creations/masterpiece of a thing I love the most - food.

Bon Appetite!