amateur meat preparation

Coq au Vin, or really ambitious and somewhat disappointing adventures in amateur meat preparation. Also: how to break down a whole chicken into pieces

Posted by Margot | Filed under:
Oct 30 2009

mmmm frenchy

I wouldn't normally cook two chickens in back to back weeks, but last month I ordered two chickens from a local farm with a stand at the farmer's market and then basically forgot all about it. The day after I roasted Larry, I got a call letting me know they'd killed my birds and I could pick them up Saturday. We were still working on Larry's leftovers, so I decided to do something other than simple roasting with at least one of the local birds.* I'd been wanting to try Coq au Vin, the "classic" French treatment for old roosters, and even though my just-butchered birds were relatively small, young chickens, I decided to give it a go. many, many hours earlier

The reason "classic" gets scare quotes is that there's some debate about whether Coq au Vin is actually the ancient, peasant dish it's often alleged to be or something more modern. The most compelling evidence on the side of "ancient": the ingredients and methods are typical of many other age-old European cooking traditions—it's basically a fricassee in wine with mirepoix (onions+carrots+celery), mushrooms, herbs, and some salt pork or bacon. There are also dozens of regional variations based on different varietals of grapes and mushrooms. For example, in the Alsace region, there's a recipe for cooking roosters that uses Riesling, morels, and cream (the epicurious version is here). Additionally, since it's basically a time and labor-intensive way of salvaging a tough piece of meat, it seems to exemplify the ideals of frugality and resourcefulness associated with old, "peasant" traditions.

But those traditions are often invented rather than discovered. What makes Coq au Vin questionable is that despite the long history of French culinary publications, the first written reference to "Coq au Vin" doesn't show up until 1913. A decade later, when the first recipe for "Coq au Vin" appeared in print, it presented the idea as a truly novel. According to the Oxford Companion to Food, aside from the cockscomb, which was prized as a garnish, the cock was historically regarded as indigestible.

Whether or not it's ancient, it's certainly a "classic" in that it's become part of the popular canon of French cuisine, on par with other dishes like ratatouille and coquilles St. Jacques, if not quite as iconic as the baguette. In The Next Iron Chef Season 2 Episode 2 earlier this month, Coq au Vin was one of the "classic inspirations" contestants had to use as the basis for an elimination challenge (along with things like boulliabaisse, pasta puttanesca, and Greek dolmas). Although its modern popularity is a little ironic, given the difficulty most cooks would have securing the titular rooster, it's easy to see why it would be a winning flavor combination. What wouldn't be delicious after marinating overnight and then simmering long and slow in a lot of wine infused with the richness of mushrooms, bacon, garlic, mirepoix, and fresh thyme? I'm almost tempted to try it with an old belt or pair of worn out shoes.

That gets at the main reason I was ultimately dissatisfied with the results: it was tasty enough, but the chicken is basically expendable. As a meal, it was no better than this mushroom bourguignon and way, way more time consuming. It's not that it's hard, but it just doesn't quite seem worth it. So unless I happen into some old rooster meat, I'll stick to roasting my chickens—which is not only easier, but tastes better and takes advantage of their juicy, tender, young meat better.

*I will never get over the delightful double-entendreness of birds and women, and because I am intellectually thirteen, I will never give a chicken a classically feminine name. The idea of a "bird named Larry" just tickles me on so many stupid levels. I named this one "Biff."

Recipe and pictures below the jumpRead more

Simple Roast Chicken, or more adventures in amateur meat preparation

Posted by Margot | Filed under:
Oct 8 2009

I named this one Larry

This was my fourth or fifth roast chicken—I've tried it Thomas Keller's way with almost no seasoning and no added fat, just lots of salt to dry out the skin so it stays crispy,  "Peruvian-style," which is covered in a pungent mixture of garlic, cumin, cayenne, smoked paprika, oil and vinegar, and a one-lemon version of Marcella Hazan's "Chicken with Two Lemons." They're all pretty great, but rather than pick a favorite I seem to be settling into a combination of all three of those along with techniques and tips and techniques I've picked up from so many random places I can't remember where and give them proper credit.

The basic formula is lots of garlic, lemon zest, rosemary, salt, and pepper tucked underneath the skin with the whole zested lemon and a few extra cloves of garlic shoved into the cavity. I truss it—no stitching, I just tie up the legs so it stays together—and rain kosher salt all over the skin. Then I roast it in a pre-heated cast iron pot at 425F for 20 min breast-up, 20 min breast-down, and 20 min breast-up or until the internal temperature is between 145-150F. I let it rest 15-20 min before carving, and usually serve it with a green salad.

nice, polite dinner portionWe typically carve off the breasts and drumsticks and eat them like polite adults, with a knife and fork, but when we finish with that, we inevitably start picking at the remains with our fingers. After a few minutes of that, we abandon all propriety and flip the body over to dig out the oysters and lick the juices dripping down our hands and wrists, making little guttural noises. When's the last time a boneless, skinless chicken breast made you do that?

after the carnage--the little spoons about 1/3 of the way down from the top are where the oysters wereA day or two later, after using the leftover meat in salads or sandwiches or omelets or quesadillas, I simmer the carcass for 4-6 hours with a bunch of vegetable peelings I accumulate in a zip-top bag in the freezer, along with a clove or two of fresh garlic, a couple of carrots and celery stalks if I have them around, and some thyme and bay leaves. That yields about two quarts of pretty amazing chicken stock. When we're out of stock, it's time to buy another chicken.

Details and pictures of the process after the jump:Read more

Maple-brined Roast Pork Tenderloin, or adventures in amateur meat preparation

Posted by Margot | Filed under:
Sep 28 2009

low lighting apparently makes food look like it comes from the 70s

I stopped eating meat when I went to college. I also changed my name. Both were pretty obviously acts of adolescent self-definition coinciding with the start of a new life chapter, which I basically knew even at the time, although of course I had other justifications. If you'd asked me then whether or not I thought the changes would be permanent, I'm sure I would have given vegetarianism better odds than "Margot." My parents still called me Stephanie, all my friends from high school still called me Stephanie, and even some of my new friends, on learning that "Margot" was a semi-adaptation of my middle name "Mariko," were insisting on using the Japanese version, as if my identification as if "Margot" was a sad capitulation to Western Culture that they were going to prove to me I didn't have to make. Plus, there was no good reason for me to change my name; Stephanie wasn't really that objectionable. Vegetarianism, on the other hand, seemed like a moral or socially responsible choice, and unlike the name change, it didn't require anyone else to change their behavior.

I didn't really consider the likelihood that if I just kept introducing myself as "Margot" to everyone I met for years, eventually the majority of the people I interacted with would think of that as my name—and, perhaps more importantly on the self-definition front, I would too. Which is precisely what has happened. Nor did I realize just how complicated the ethical implications of meat-eating were or give much thought to the idea that my vegetarianism would actually require people to change their behavior—that in fact, it might occasionally be a social imposition. And unless I somehow remained as autonomous as most college freshmen are, it would eventually me to either find a vegetarian to share cooking and eating duties with or require pretty behavioral changes on the part of any omnivore who I might cook for or who might cook for me on a regular basis.

So a decade later, my name is Margot, and I'm an omnivore.

But I've only started cooking and eating meat again in the last couple of years, and for most of that I was a pescetarian, so I'm really still a beginner at cooking meat. This was my first attempt at doing something, anything with pork tenderloin. I decided to brine it, because Alton Brown says that's helps keep lean cuts like loin moist. As for the actual cooking, I decided to roast it because there's a lot to be said for the ease and convenience of recipes that involve just throwing a piece of meat the oven for a long time so you can get on with doing other things. The various recipes books I consulted all suggested a blast of high heat to brown the outside and then long slow heat to cook the inside evenly, so that's what I did.

like for real, this picture belongs in a 40-yr-old cookbook. i promise it was more appetizing in person.I didn't get any Maillard reaction going on (which is what causes browning on the exterior) even thought the oven was preheated to 500F for half an hour. Maillard frequently escapes me. But other than, it was pretty delicious. You could taste the maple syrup, and it was perfectly pink and juicy and salty. I only had ground allspice, so I took it down from 1.5 T to 1 t. but I think that was still a little too much, so in the future I'd either get my hands on some whole allspice or cut it to 1/2 t. ground.

Served it with a quick colcannon-like dish I made by steaming unpeeled new potatoes whole while I chopped and then sautéed some cabbage and leeks in butter. When the potatoes were tender, I added them to the buttery cabbage and leeks with a generous splash of milk and some salt and pepper.

Pork recipe and instructions after the jump. Read more