Roast Chicken

Preface: This is a long ass post (even for me) but should give you everything you ever needed to know about roasting chickens, the myriad ways to prepare and flavor them, and how to make a good stock out of them. The details are probably excessive, but if you’re bored at work or seriously want some in-depth knowledge of poultry preparation, read on, brave soul. If you find the big blocks of info mind numbing, there are summaries at the end of each section of my personal preferences. Read at your leisure.



Okay, so apparently my last post was popular enough that you guys want a recipe. I'm not really much of a recipe person only because I don't deal in precise measurements (not because I'm that awesome, more because I'm that haphazard). So I'm going to give a few basic guidelines to the utter romance that is a perfectly roasted chicken. You're going to have to feel your way through it from there. After you roast 3-4 chickens, you'll be a pro, turning out perfect chickens every time. If I've inspired you to try some fanciful cooking and stock-making at home, I want to make sure you are at least presented with all the options and know how to do them right.



When Alexander Lobrano interviewed hundreds of French chefs in his epic tour-de-force of Parisian restaurants, he asked each of them what ten dishes most defined French cuisine. Nestled at the top with beef bourguignon and bouillabaisse, was roast chicken. A true French family meal that has enjoyed popularity in the humblest of peasant homes, to the most elegant of royal courts, whole roast chicken is spectacular. But like any "national" dish there are endless interpretations of it, and countless methods of preparation. Some people will defend their recipes to the death, not unlike American barbecued ribs. But there are definitely some reliable techniques that you can use to customize chicken to your liking. Let's start with types of chickens.



Cluck Cluck



People need to respect chickens. Too long have diners consumed poorly raised chickens; mass produced, mass slaughtered and processed. Not only do these chickens suffer poor living conditions, the quality of their meat suffers as well. This can be thinly veiled by a thick, fried flour crust, but once you've had a good chicken I think you'll reconsider.

There are something like 3 chickens for each person in America. Most of these are of the aforementioned prisoner type. Now the overall happiness of a chicken throughout its lifetime might have questionable influence on its quality of taste. But free-range chickens are fed natural diets and get more exercise, so they will develop more flavor for these reasons. The emotional satisfaction of poultry aside, at least consider these more concrete reasons.



There are also heirloom birds that are raised by artisan farmers that have an extraordinary flavor. Such examples are the poulet-rouge chicken and the blue-footed chicken.



Fanciness aside, the most important things you need to consider are quality and size. I already sang the praises of organic, free-range chickens, now you'll want to get one in the "fryer" size category. Fryer chickens are anywhere between 1.5-4 lbs. (depending on market specifications) and are generally the perfect roasting birds with optimal skin-to-meat ratio. A 2.5-3.25 lb. bird will have beautifully crisp skin just as the meat is finished cooking. With poultry I don't think flash-freezing has the same quality as fresh, so I would go as fresh as possible with no obvious defects or bruises on the flesh.



My Suggestion/Preference: Buy a nice, free-range, organic chicken in the 2.5-3.25 lb range.



Early Preparation



These early steps might be a bit much for irregular home cooks, but I assure you they are worth it. You have your choice between brining and salting. I will discuss the merits of both.



Brining is essentially submerging meat in a salt solution. For a textbook definition I'll turn to Harold McGee's On Food and Cooking, which is the end-all be-all of molecular gastronomy and food science.



"Salt disrupts the structure of muscle filaments. A 3% salt solution (2 tbs per quart/30 g per liter) dissolves part of the protein structure that supports the contracting filaments, and a 5.5% solution (4 tbs per quart, 60 g per liter) party dissolves the filaments themselves. Second, interactions of salt and proteins result in greater water-holding capacity in the muscle cells, which then absorb water from the brine. (The inward movement of salt and water and disruptions of the muscle filaments into the meat also increase its absorption of aromatic molecules from any herbs and spices in the brine.) The meat's weight increases by 10% or more. When cooked the meat still loses around 20% of its weight in moisture, but this loss is counter balanced by the brine absorbed, so moisture loss is effectively cut in half. In addition, the dissolved protein filaments can't coagulate into normally dense aggregates, so the cooked meat seems more tender."



Whoo, that was a mouthful. For someone who stopped doing science at non-honors chemistry, my brain hurts but basically brining = juiciness. The only downsides will be that your chicken will be kind of waterlogged and the drippings will be quite salty. You will need to cut back on your seasoning a lot. But a brine is a wonderful thing. Figure a ratio of 20 parts water : 1 part salt and add as many flavorings as you like. Lemons, black peppercorns, herbs (rosemary, thyme), are all tried and true combinations. When it does come time to roast, make sure your chicken is very dry. You can brine for up to 2 days, you can let it dry in the fridge for one night, pat it dry with paper towels and then throw that bitch in the oven. You can't reuse a brine.



Salting is a dry method endorsed by Judy Rodgers of Zuni Cafe fame. I don't have much experience with salting chickens, but she suggests rubbing a chicken all over with salt up to 24 hours before roasting. Salt will have the similar effects of brining, but minus the water obviously. Essentially it will be a cure, drawing out some moisture but intensifying flavors (Judy Rodgers claims that after 24 hours, reverse-osmosis will occur and your chicken will reabsorb moisture). You can play around with both and pick out your preferences afterward, but I would definitely recommend doing one of these if you have the time.



My personal input? For a sublime roast chicken, a brine of 2 days with lemon/thyme/peppercorns/copious amounts of garlic, a night hanging dry in a refrigerator, and then sensually massaging dijon mustard into its loins for at least a few hours beforehand, and letting it come to hot and heavy room temperature. Oooh ... that'd be a dirty bird.



Ahem.



My Suggestion/Preference: Brine if you have the time (mua haha, nice rhymes) with citrus/garlic/pepper notes, let the chicken dry, add mustard. Seriously, I was so skeptical mustard was going to make a difference when we did it at Va Pensiero, but I found out it makes for a delicious, delicious chicken with no real overpowering mustard flavors.



Pregame Roasting Rituals



Choose your weapon. In this case, your weapon is a good pan. Disposable aluminum, weak tin pans, are no good. As we discussed in our last chapter of Panda Educational Blogging, you need something that is ovenproof and able to get some fond. I would use a 12-inch, stainless steel pan with vertical edges, also known as a sauteuse. If you have a roasting pan, all the better, but most people don't own such a luxury item in their kitchens. Something that fits the bird snugly will do, including a cast-iron skillet.

 (Presenting a bird on a cast-iron skillet also gives it a lovely rustic and peasant feel to it, don'tcha think?)

To truss or not to truss? Thomas Keller swears by it, Judy Rodgers thinks it's unnecessary. He thinks it makes the bird roast evenly and presents nicely, she thinks it's an archaic practice and she likes the way the bird gets a little toasty in the nether regions. Frankly, I don't think anyone keeps butcher's twine or wants to deal with the hassle of trussing at home so I say forgo it. But again, if you're looking to impress, the beautiful shape the bird roasts in leaves an impression. (Ruhlman claims that trussing reduces moisture loss, which I personally have no experience with. He also suggests if you don’t truss to stuff the chicken with onion, lemon and herbs to even out the heat distribution. If you’re curious enough, google how to truss a chicken and rope that baby up)



To preheat the pan or not to preheat? If you preheat the pan to the point where the bird sizzles on contact, then it won't stick as much and will brown a bit on the back. Some like the skin to stick a bit so you can add it as part of the deglazing process and create more flavor. I generally don't preheat the pan,. Again, experiment but know that either method is acceptable, no way to go wrong.



To lube or not to lube? No, I didn't regress in to a repressed sexual relationship with poultry ... again. We're talking about oil (bitch, you cookin?). Many health conscious folks would steer clear of butter and drizzle extra virgin olive oil all over the skin. Some say don't use any oil, there is enough fat in the skin to aid the browning process in itself. Well I think that any true student of French culinary technique would do it the way they did it. Lots ... o' .. butter. Unsalted, creamy sweet butter, massaged into the bird will do good things. You don't need a lot, just a bare tablespoon probably, brought to room temperature and schmeared on to the breast. And butter in itself is a holy vehicle of flavor. When it's room temperature you can mix it with herbs, shallots, spices, you name it, and all that milky-fat loveliness will find its way into your chicken.



So now you have your chicken prepared as you like it, do you give it some friends to go into the fire with? This is also optional. If you want roasted vegetables as a side dish to your chicken, go right ahead. If you add thick-cut onions, potatoes, whole garlic cloves and mushrooms they will roast alongside the chicken and absorb all the juices, giving you an immediate side dish. The garlic in fact should be completely caramelized by completion time and be sweet and spreadable on a nice hunk of peasant bread. Note that everything will kind of have a one-dimensional chicken flavor though, surprise surprise. But if you want to make a pan sauce, which is personally what I like to do, you can roast the bird alone and figure out the sides later.



My Suggestion/Preference: Snug, ovenproof, 12-inch skillet, rub with herbed butter (thyme, shallots), roast alone or with a few whole garlic gloves, and a sprig of thyme in the pan.



Guns Up, Let's Do This



You ready? You excited? It's game time, bitches. Time to do the dance! I know I've talked a lot about guys impressing girls with roast chickens, but I can't stress enough, if you have a girl coming to eat dinner with you (roast chicken is a perfect dinner for 2) tell her to be there in about 30 minutes because your kitchen is about to smell fucking ... awesome. All the single ladies, if you're trying to impress a dude with your domestic skills then that works also. I'm confident the aroma of roasting poultry will cut through any beer stained kitchen, and I quite literally lived in the king of beer stained kitchens (9:12!).



Dry your chicken. Dry it as much as possible with dry paper towels, especially if you brined it. The more excess water your chicken possesses the more it will steam as opposed to roast. Steaming is not what you want in this situation as it will deter the crisping of the skin.



Now if you brined your chicken, you don't need to add much salt. A very light sprinkle on top and a teaspoon rubbed in to the cavity. If you didn't brine or salt your chicken ahead of time (tsk, tsk) then don't be bashful with the salt. Get .. in .. there. You want to see an almost palpable crust of salt on top and a heavy dose of salt in the cavity. Pepper is always optional, but strongly suggested. Be careful though, as pepper burns. If you haven't rubbed down with dijon or whole-grain mustard yet (I recommend Roland's or Maille's), now is the time to get under the skin with it. You can also slip fresh herb leaves under the skin or thinly sliced cloves of garlic. And since I absolutely love garlic, I will be doing that. Tarragon in all its anise flavored glory is also an excellent choice.



Let your chicken come close to room temperature. It can sit out in the open for 30 min., nothing bad is going to happen, especially with all that salt up in there. If the center of your chicken is as cold as your refrigerator, about 40 degrees, then it's going to cook unevenly and dry out in the wrong places. This is a good step, trust me. (Salmonella is about 1/70,000 and is generally only ever a problem with mass-produced, factory birds)



There isn't too much leeway on oven temperature. If you bought a 2.5-3.25 lb bird it will finish in about an hour at 450 degrees. Don't be scared by the high temperature, the dark meat should just finish cooking as the skin is perfectly browned. Get a good relationship with your oven by, like all good relationships, spying on it. Use a reliable oven thermometer to find out if it's faithful or a dirty, lying whore. Kidding. About the whore thing, I would never be so harsh to my oven. And don't open it too often. I know you're curious to see the magic happen, but if you don't have a window, trust me .. it's happening. Conventional gas/electric ovens take forever to gain back heat, so try to leave it closed, unless...



You are basting. To be perfectly honest, I have no idea if basting does anything beneficial. It doesn't really reintroduce juices into your meat, it only kind of protects the skin which is not necessary in this project. It also makes the skin wet, which affects the crispiness. But I think it's sweet and fun to do. So I will baste once at the half hour mark and then leave it be. Do not baste for the last 20 minutes if you choose to do so. You don't need a turkey baster, just get a big dinner spoon, collect the juices and spoon them over. The golden, herb-flecked pan juices that run hot over the chicken breast are just ... mmm ... so sexy. (I swear I'm not a poultry fetishist)



So remember, you can set it and forget it for the most part. Throw the bitch in the center rack, and let the good times roll. You have an hour to make a side dish. Mashed potatoes, roasted potatoes, wild long-grain rice (not Asian short-grain ... that's just a bad combo in my opinion), cous cous, green beans, whatever. Just don't steal oven space from the chicken because it hatez the taterzzz when they steal heat from it. You figure out your own side dishes, but personally I like a big crusty hunk of bread and a light salad with vinaigrette.



At about the hour mark you can start checking for doneness. It should be firm, but still have a bit of give to it. I don't really have a good way to describe checking for doneness, so use an instant-read thermometer if your personal one isn't so good. You're shooting for 160ish at the thigh, but I think anything from 155-165 is acceptable. Roast one for yourself at first, and if it’s a little underdone you can finish cooking it. After doing that once or twice you’ll get an idea for what is done and what isn’t.



Pull it out, put it on a board, cover it with foil and let it sit on the stove top for at least 15 minutes. Why? WHY!?! Resting roasts and grilled meats is incredibly important! So important I should have included it in my last post about comprehensive home cook skills. Not to get too sciencey, but let me hit you with some knowledge.



Heat causes molecules and juices to move rapidly, and in this case towards the coolest location at the center of your cooked product. If you were to cut into it right now, those juices would rapidly leave the meat and leak onto your cutting board where they serve no good to anyone, unless you let your dog clean your dishes. If you let the meat rest, the temperature and the juices relax and are allowed to redistribute throughout the whole roast. There are better explanations, but basically, if you rest it, it will be juicier.



My Suggestion/Preference: Dry chicken, season, slide garlic cloves under the skin, let it come to room temp., throw in a hot oven, baste once, make side dish, let it rest for 15 minutes.



The Magic of Pan Sauce ... MAGIC PAN!



Here comes my favorite part. Making a pan sauce. It's so beautifully efficient. You are going to clean up your pan and make a delicious sauce out of every ounce that this bird had to give you. And of course it includes deglazing. Ready? Let the magic begin.



Use some kind of long wooden spoon or tongs and slide it through the chicken’s cavity to gently lift it on to a plate or board. Some juices will leak out of it, make sure you can reserve these. Now observe your pan. If you roasted it with just a few items, then remove those and note the browned bits on the surface (if you didn’t preheat the pan, there should be a lot of tasty skin stuck to the surface). Tilt the pan and spoon off all but about 2 tbls of the fat. Throw in some veggies (onions/carrots/celery) and any extra meat your chicken came with, gizzards, neck, just not the liver. You can also add the wing tips from your roasted bird for extra flavor. Let them brown heavily, you can take it far so long as it doesn’t burn.

I think you know what’s about to happen. Time to de-fucking-glaze. Get yourself a cup of dry white wine (anything but a Riesling really. For those of you at Buckingham Thanksgiving, the gravy was too sweet because Kevin gave me Riesling when I asked for anything but … sorry to put the crosshair on you, buddy) and drop it in the blazing hot pan. Start vigorously scraping up the bits with a wooden spoon. Now you’re going to let the wine reduce thoroughly, so much so that your pan starts crackling again. Now here’s where you can do two different things.

You can add a good homemade chicken stock. Now if this is your first chicken venture I guess you won’t have that yet, so you can use store bought. Or…

You can use water. It won’t be as good and you will need to thicken it more, but you’re essentially making a quick stock with water.

Either way, also add any juices your chicken has given up and reduce it thoroughly.

Now you will need to thicken it. You can either make a roux in a pan on the side, or make beurre manie. A roux is equal parts butter/flour when cooked slightly is a powerful thickening agent for liquids. Ideally you should only ever add cold liquid to hot roux, or hot liquid to cold roux to avoid lumps but it shouldn’t lump up on you too badly. A beurre manie is another option. It is essentially a roux, but instead it’s just equal parts butter/flour kneaded together at room temperature and whisked in to the liquid of choice. Whichever one you choose, add it to the pan and start whisking madly.

Once you have a smooth sauce you should taste it and adjust your seasonings. If it’s too watery you can “mount” more butter in to it, by whisking in a few knobs of butter or you can let it reduce further. If it’s too thick you can add a little water/wine/stock to it to loosen it up. You can also add fresh herbs at this point. A classic combination of chopped parsley/chives/chervil/tarragon makes a sauce called fines herbes that is spectacular.

Pour your sauce off in to a gravy boat or just ladle it all over your chicken and sides. I can’t give a good lesson on cutting up a chicken over text, so google it if you want a perfect presentation. Otherwise whatever your common sense and knife hand can accomplish is adequate for your purposes. Bon appetit.

My Suggestion/Preference: Rest your chicken and collect its juices, spoon off most of the fat and reserve, heavily brown mirepoix vegetables, deglaze with dry white wine, reduce until crackling, add stock and juices, thicken with roux, finish with chives and a squeeze of lemon juice.

It’s Not Over Til the Chicken Hits the Stockpot

Eaten your fill? Couldn’t resist and ate the whole thing? Still got leftovers to last? Whatever the case, strip your chicken of what good meat it has (I would eat the chicken butt .. crispy, fatty, juicy, oft-neglected … it is the girl with low self-esteem eager to please you) and store it in the fridge. Don’t leave your chicken carcass naked. The skin around the joints, the cartilage and spare back meat or going to be important to building your stock. You can freeze it now and wait until you have more chicken to work with, or you can make a small portion of stock right now.

If you’re using one chicken carcass make sure you have a tall, skinny pot that will minimize evaporation and fit your stock making produce snugly without excess water. As long as it is taller than it is wide, then you are good.

Add enough cold water to just cover your chicken (cold because hot water carries more impurities from the pipes, hence its sometime cloudy nature). Set it on medium to low heat and walk away. For the most part. Check on it here and there, but don’t stir it, only tinker with the heat if necessary. It should barely simmer with bubbles lazily rising to the surface intermittently. It should not, I repeat NOT boil. Boiling is a violent process and draws out fat and impurities from the chicken, and then emulsifies them in to the liquid where they are hard to get rid of. If you are simmering gently then those impurities will rise to the surface in a scummy cloud where they can be easily skimmed off. Skimming is not essential for home cooks, but if you have the time, why not?

You can let it cook for up to 12 hours, but generally 3-4 for one chicken body is more than enough. In the last hour or two of cooking throw in your aromatics. Throw in 2 onions, a carrot (peeled) and a few ribs of celery all roughly chopped. I like to split a whole head of garlic, remove the excess paper and drop it in also. A handful of peppercorns cracked with the bottom of a saute pan, and any tough herb stems you might have are also good. Generally you don’t add salt to stocks, for reasons I will discuss later.

Taste your stock often. You will learn how the flavor develops from hour to hour. It won’t really taste like much, just like a very light chicken broth because there is no salt. Once all the aromatics have given up their flavor, the stock should have much more body and potency. Strain it and cool it rapidly. You can let it sit out, but all health departments will note that this is the optimum time for bacterial growth. It’s generally not really a problem, but if you like to play it safe then pour your stock in to several separate containers, and then place them in an ice/water bath in your sink. Once they are cool you can then move them to your freezer. You can throw your stock straight in to the freezer or cooler, but they will be very hot and heat up your fridge considerably.

My Suggestion/Preference: Start with cold water, gently simmer chicken carcass for 5-6 hours, add aromatics in the last 2 hours of cooking, strain once to remove obvious solids, strain second time through cloth or coffee filter to purify, chill and freeze.

The Versatility! Oh, the Versatility!

As we have discussed before, stock is a foundation of culinary technique from where you can go to any place and any height . If you’re so inclined, beef stock and veal stock can take you even further, but they are less economical for a home cook as they tend to not have tons of cow bones lying around. But chicken stock will be more than enough to not just elevate your cooking, but transform it. As long as you are aware of a few simple techniques and have the bravery to experiment, you can do some magical things.

Reduction is the first thing. Chicken stock on its own doesn’t have a ton of flavor. It should have a clean, distinct flavor, but not a powerful one, not like a good chicken soup would. Reduction is the means by which you can intensify the flavor without adding excess salt (which many store-bought brands do). Pour in a pint or more of chicken stock in to a pot, set it on medium high-heat and watch the water bubble away. Make sure it doesn’t scorch and when it reaches a thick, satiny consistency, you can whisk in a knob of butter and add some salt/pepper. It will be rich, flavorful and have a wonderful mouth feel. The French test for the right consistency is when it coats the back of a spoon. This state is called nape. Dip in a metal spoon and observe the sauce coating the back. You should be able to run a finger through it, leaving a clean streak on the back of the spoon. That’s when it’s ready. Put it on anything, grilled chicken, grilled asaparagus, any sauteed vegetables, it’s all good.

As I’ve talked about before, well-made stocks have a lot of collagen/gelatin stolen from fresh chicken bones. Connective tissue, cartilage and skin around the joints are the best for giving up this stuff. As a sauce reduces, the water leaves and intensifies the concentration of collagen/gelatin and makes your sauce thick and satiny. They are literally long strands of proteins that are suspended far apart in a unreduced stock, but when the water leaves they come together and tangle each other up. But when you take out water, everything else gets magnified as well. Any salt, impurities and undesirable flavors will present more boldly in a reduced stock, so it is important that you have the cleanest ingredients in mind when making one and season after reducing.

You can customize it to your liking.
-Add fresh herbs and lemon juice for a light, refreshing sauce on grilled chicken.
-Add tomato paste, molasses, brown sugar, apple cider vinegar, chili powder, paprika for a shotgun BBQ sauce.
-Add chili powder, paprika, garlic, cayenne, dried ancho chiles for a taco seasoning sauce.
-Add butter, garlic, parmesan cheese and chili flake for a smooth and simple pasta sauce.
-Add soy sauce, mirin, Sichuan peppercorns, rice wine vinegar for an Asian inspired stir-fry sauce or glaze.

It is a blank canvas on which you can paint a beautiful picture (bahahaha ... lame sentence).

You can freeze any of those customizations in ice cube trays and when you need a little bit to enhance a sauce, just throw in a cube or so.

You can start a plethora of soups. Use your leftover chicken to make an extraordinary chicken noodle soup. You can make a great cream of tomato soup as well. I could go on and on but I will let your own curiosity and the power of Google to take you there.

And you can make onion pasta.

Caramelized onions, tomato fondue, pancetta, fresh herbs, butter and parmesan cheese are all it takes, Paul. And Ted.

Hope that covers everything. Sure as hell is long enough. Happy roasting.

EP #6

From Mediocre to Splendiferous

For those of you who are curious, no I have not embarked upon my epic homemade BLT yet. I'll keep you posted when I do, hopefully with pictures. I know I seem to be multimedially-challenged (it's a word), but hopefully I can make that happen.

But I do want to talk about cooking at home. I've lived with over 25 different people in big college houses. I've seen hopeless cooks whose ineptitude is more a result of their lack of confidence than their actual culinary skill. I've seen pretty decent home cooks who manage to scrape together some interesting dishes, despite what ingredients are available to college students, and what their diets often require (carbs upon carbs). My point is that after working in a professional kitchen for some time now, and making employee meals more than just often, I think I've learned enough about food efficiency, practical cooking and convenience of time to give you home cooks some really helpful tips. Yeah, that's right, bitches. Buckle up, it's Food Network educational time with your host, Eric Panda.

In my experience this is how college students manage their groceries.

1) They seldomly go to the store (once every 1-2 weeks), but when they do they stockpile like Skynet is about to set us up the bomb.

2) They buy simple, non-intimidating ingredients and plan to use them to their fullest. Meaning ground beef, onions and garlic get showcased in almost every meal (not really a bad thing).

3) Convenience is king. The most important thing about a college student meal is not that it be impressive and delicious, but that it be tasty enough and nourishing.

It is my belief that with some very basic culinary knowledge you could turn your home cooking from mediocre to splendiferous. I'll break it down in to several main points.

COLOR

In all cooking, with all ingredients, color = flavor. What do I mean by color? I mean that golden brown patina that perfectly sauteed vegetables get, or that dark brown crust that meat gets when it's blasted with heat. I think this is probably the biggest problem with novice cooks. They are scared of really turning up the heat and getting the proper color on their food. Grey food = listless, flavorless, boring. No matter how wonderful your jarred sauce is, it will fall flat on an unmarked piece of meat (I don't care if it's Chaka's Mmm-mmm Sauce either, Scott).

The textbook definition is kinda like this. There's something called a Maillard Reaction, and it's a fancy, complicated process that occurs when food interacts with heat. Natural sugars in the food caramelizes, browning occurs, flavors develop, yada yada. I don't know the details, but I know things need color to taste good. So let me take the most common college meal and show you how to make it better.

Spaghetti with Meat Sauce

I've seen almost everybody throw a cold pound of ground beef in to a pan, start stirring it madly, and letting it stew in its own fat. The beef sticks in random places, it clumps, it turns gray .. blech. It's harder to brown ground beef because of all the surface area present, but that doesn't mean it doesn't benefit from it. Next time, dice an onion and heat up your oil until it shimmers. Throw them in and let them saute for a few minutes, until they get a slight coloration themselves. You should ideally use a steel pan, but if you have non-stick that's fine. I say use a steel pan because then you will get fond. Fond is French for foundation. When you saute something, the high heat forces liquid out of the food and on to the hot steel surface. The water evaporates and all that is left are the solid sugars and proteins on the pan surface. Those brown crispy bits that you see sometimes? Culinary gold. So if you have a steel pan and it is hot enough, and you give your onions some time, you will start to get some fond.

Next, you will deglaze your pan. Deglazing is pretty much my favorite thing ever. You take something acidic (wine, apple juice, vinegar, beer, literally anything acidic) and pour it in to the hot pan. The liquid should sizzle violently, but it will magically clean all the fond off the bottom of your pan. What it actually does is break all that flavor off the pan and introduce it into the liquid. It's beautifully efficient. It cleans, it conserves all flavors, it bolsters your sauce, it does everything but please you sexually. So what that means is after you saute your beef and onions on high heat (and you dropped in your garlic just as your beef was finishing, right? Because garlic burns quickly, and burned garlic ruins a dish instantly), drain off the fat, drop in a scant half cup of dry white wine to clean up all that delicious crispiness. Scrape around with a wooden spoon to make sure you got everything. I assure you, it's surprisingly fun.

Then just add your tomato sauce, some dried herbs (oregano, basil, bay leaf ... all good. I know almost none of you keep fresh herbs, so dried is okay), and let that baby simmer. Tomato sauce is not hard to make, it's just hard to make spectacular. Simmer for a while, the longer the better. Just make sure you watch it and stir often. Tomato sauce is sugary and will scorch very quickly, leaving the bottom of your pan covered in a black carbon sheet that is not tasty nor easy to remove. If it's too acidic you can add a little milk or butter to mollify the tang. If you find this a consistent problem (maybe your tomatoes aren't perfectly ripe yet), saute carrots along with your onions. The natural sweetness of the carrots will help balance the flavor profile. If you like your sauce on the sweeter side, you can do this always. If it's too watery, let it reduce. All that steam rising out of your sauce is just water, and as it leaves, the flavors concentrate. Let it reduce to a consistency you like. If you like chunky tomato sauce, leave it be. If you like smooth, puree it in a blender and then add it to the browned beef. I promise you, your tomato sauces will start becoming more robust in flavor and texture. As long as you season properly.

SEASONING

Seasoning is not throwing Old Bay or generic BBQ spices on to your food. Seasoning food in the traditional sense means adding salt and pepper. The biggest difference between restaurant and home cooks is the amount of salt used. Salt develops all flavors, and you need much more than you think to perfectly season food. But alas, this is probably one of the hardest skills to develop. I am having trouble with it myself working on the pasta station. The key is to constantly taste, to be bold, use kosher salt. Add in increments until something tastes to your liking. Once you actually can taste the salt, that's when you've gone too far. It will be a little bit of trial and error, but when cookbooks tell you to "Season to taste," that's what they mean.

Now for those of you who have sodium related blood pressure issues, I would say be careful. Otherwise if you have no genetic disposition towards a poor sodium-blood pressure relationship, have two healthy kidneys, and drink enough water every day, adding more salt will not do any harm to you. I promise you, I've researched this. Jiwon, you'll be just fine as you have the most overactive kidneys and bladder I've ever seen. 10 bathroom breaks on the New York-Chicago road trip!? TEN!?! I digress...

Pepper is important too. It's not hot in the traditional sense, but it makes flavors pop and is essential to developing a proper flavor profile. Fresh-ground black pepper is ideal. You can always season food at the table, but really you get the best results when you season perfectly before you plate.

Some other helpful tips; it's almost impossible to over-salt a big cut of meat. A good steak needs nothing more than a beautiful char from a rocket-hot pan, and a very generous helping of salt/pepper. True French culinarians will even brush the steak with a little clarified butter as it finishes. If you have a date to impress, I suggest you sneak it in. Makes a world of difference.

DINNER REMIXES

Now you've run out of Easy Mac, tomato sauce, and Hamburger Helper (which I have a deep guilty pleasure for by the way) and you want to keep meals interesting. Having one of those cookbooks from such TV personalities like Rachael Ray, and Robin Miller may help you stretch 2-3 meals out of one, but where would your self-respect be then? JK! Lolz! Use em if you like.

Seriously though, there are a few simple ways to stretch meals out, and they just need one basic ingredient and a little bold creativity. Let me read you this excerpt from Michael Ruhlman's, Ratio.

"If there's one preparation that separates a great home cook's food from a good home cook's food, it's stock. Stock is the ingredient that most distinguishes restaurant cooking from home cooking. Stocks are simply infused water, but they're a preparation that couldn't be more valuable to the home cook."

From the big man himself. Stock is intimidating to most home cooks, but it really shouldn't be. It's incredibly simple and can be made in small quantities. You can do nearly anything with them. A good way to start is to roast a chicken once a week. Roasting a chicken is such a simple and delectable dish, I wish I made them more myself. Rub salt/pepper all over a bird, in the cavity and on the skin. I like to rub dijon mustard under the skin everywhere up to 2 days in advance. Put some vegetables down in a pan, onions, carrots, celery, potatoes, mushrooms, whatever, put the bird on top, roast for about an hour at 450. Take it out and let it rest for 15 minutes, boom ... done. A fantastic dish that can be stretched endlessly and you don't even need to have good butchering skills.

Eat what you like of the chicken with rice or potatoes, then pull off all the good meat still on the carcass. Then you can use this carcass to make stock. Throw it in cold water with onions/carrots/celery/garlic/peppercorns, and heat it up. No salt and heat it gently. It should never boil, it should barely simmer. You don't even need to stir it, just set it on medium-low heat for 2-3 hours. Your kitchen will smell delicious and in just a few hours you'll have a gallon or so of culinary gold (I realize I used that term already ... I wanted to use it again). Just make sure you strain it through a fine mesh strainer. Ideally you strain it through a cheesecloth or handkerchief and a chinois, but a mesh strainer will suffice for a home cook. Thomas Keller at The French Laundry will have his cooks strain a stock 20 times through a chinois lined with cheesecloth to make it perfect. Obviously, unnecessary for your purposes but you get the point.

Now what do you do with it? ANYTHING! Stocks have collagen/gelatin in them that are gently extracted by the water. So when you reduce them (down to about a 1/3 of their volume) you have a thick, velvety sauce ready to go. Whisk in a little butter, salt/pepper, herbs of your choice and put it on anything. It's delicious.

Pull the chicken off the carcass, add it to a pan with your stock, add chili powder/paprika/cumin/garlic and a squeeze of lime juice. Best chicken tacos you've ever had, I promise.

Add whatever spices or herbs you want to it and reduce it and it will be a good sauce. Use it as gravy for mashed potatoes, cook broccoli or bok choy in it, add butter/parmesan cheese/lemon juice/parsley and toss pasta in it, cook rice in it, make soup out of it. Millions of soups use chicken stock as a base. It is an incredibly versatile ingredient.

You can use store-bought stock. I'd prefer you use store-bought vs. nothing at all, but a note of caution when you reduce store-bought stock nothing really happens because there isn't a lot of collagen/gelatin in it. But the important thing is that stock will enhance flavors whereas water will rob flavors. Water is a solvent, but this same property allows you to infuse it with chickeny goodness.

Don't be intimidated by stock, it really is very simple and will do wonders for your home cooking if you are willing to experiment a little bit. It will also freeze for several months without any ill effect.

Okay that's all for now, folks. Be bold. A little home cooking practice will take you far. I hope some of you dudes can impress some ladies with your new-found knowledge.

EP #6

The Process of Improvement

I don't like learning.

Okay that's too definitive of a statement. I don't like struggling to learn things. Not to toot my own horn, but the first thing I really learned was music and it came to me pretty easily. Classical music and schoolwork until high school was generally very easy (as I'm sure most of you Northwestern nerds also experienced), and I never really bothered to learn anything else (except the art of pwning n00bs .. which being Asian, also came pretty easily).

So it seems something of karmic justice that the two things I'm most passionate about would cause me great difficulty. Ultimate, pretty clearly was going to be difficult, given my portly past and lack of athletic training. But cooking was a wild card. What did the movie Ratatouille teach me? Anyone can cook! But I'm not sure that's totally true.

Don't get me wrong, anyone can cook, but to cook well in a professional kitchen takes a lot of good fundamental training and dedication. A common statement chefs like to tell their cooks to inspire greater work is, "Showing up is not enough," meaning just showing up to a kitchen and scraping by on your station is not helping anyone. You have to internally turn up your focus, you have to want to strive for perfection in everything you do, you can't take shortcuts.

And I do try to get everything just right, and it frustrates me that I can't. But I think I'm coming to a point where I'm realizing that I will make mistakes in my quest for flawless cooking technique. It's going to take a combination of a personal quest for knowledge and the helpful teachings of my fellow cooks alongside a lot of kitchen hours to get there though. It's going to take mental endurance and stubborn determination, because improvement is difficult to see internally, and when you care so much, failure can really takes it toll on you.

But sometimes, things just click and give you hope. I notice this in sports as well as with cooking. For instance,

I've probably thrown a frisbee over 50,000 times in my life (I actually tried to calculate this with Chris .. it's somewhere in that ballpark probably). I would say 60% of those were forehands, and 37% were backhands, and 3% were miscellaneous throws. My strongest throw is probably my forehand and forehand hucks because of this. Improving your big throws are hard though. I remember when I was just starting out that even a mild wind would frustrate a true flight pattern. I could get a disc to go 60+ yards but it would bend in at a bad angle, and take too much force of motion.

Then one day (I actually remember this) I went to toss with Colin on Deering Meadow. The hucks were just ON for some reason. Released with a slight I/O angle, flat flight pattern, tailing gently inwards after 65ish yards to hit the receiver in stride. All my throws that day were like this. I had achieved a perfect huck. All of a sudden I just got it. Felt the disc slipping tightly off my middle finger, and moving smoothly outwards. Now obviously my hucks aren't always that nice (especially now that I'm out of shape), but I understood the mechanics of it now and could replicate a "perfect huck" with at least 90% or better consistency.

That brief ultimate tangent was to describe to you the moment I had in the kitchen the other day. The thing I like to practice most are basic knife skills. Cutting vegetables, butchering meat, doing those with precision and speed is something I aspire to. I basically want Hung Huynh-like skill with ze blades. But I can be impatient with learning, as I mentioned before. When you cut an onion (or anything really) you want the blade to rest against your knuckles on your offhand. You make a repetitive chopping motion with your knife hand, and you guide the movement with your offhand. I can chop things quickly, but the cuts are not perfectly uniform because my guiding hand is off. I could do each action independently, but not together. I had similar difficulty with chickens, not finding the perfect spot where the joint naturally separates, instead slicing through the whole damn joint and causing unnecessary blood and damage.

Well, the Mexicans told me rather late in to prep that I had to make employee meal this past Saturday. Thankfully I could use a few chickens, but that meant I had about 10 minutes to break down five chickens and do something with them. Chuy was so kind to offer to make rice. Plain rice.

This is the closest I've come to doing a Top Chef Quickfire Challenge. I run to the walk-in and start pulling out shit. I run to the dry goods storage and start pulling things together. I throw the chickens down on the board, put on some gloves, steel my boning knife and kind of pray that this goes well. Thankfully, it's an employee meal so it doesn't have to be perfect, in fact the Mexicans suggest I roughly chop the chickens up. But I refuse, I am breaking down a chicken the proper way. For some reason I'm finding all the right joints, the cuts are pretty damn clean and I'm moving pretty fast. No extraneous blood on the board. The smartass American cook is asking me when the meal will be out by. I say 4:30. He goes "Alriiiiiiiight..." Shut your face, I'm busy. Don't be such a hater.

Before I know it the chickens are quite beautifully (at least for me) broken down in to about 10 pieces per bird, and sitting in a bowl. Alright, now what do I do with them? I get 2 red onions, 2 yellow onions, a couple of old tomatoes, and some Yukon gold potatoes. I start chopping like a mad man. An epiphany or something happens. My guiding hand is moving the knife along perfectly, the slices are probably 97% uniform. Toss those in a bowl with oil and dried oregano, throw it down on a sheet tray. Next, chickens. I go to the spice rack and start pouring shit in a bowl. Spanish paprika, cumin, ground coriander, cayenne pepper, oregano, barbecue seasoning (yeah I know, I picked that up and was like, what?! Okay...) and salt/pepper. I rub down all the chickens, throw it on top of the veg and bake in the oven. I'm worried they might be over spiced, but I hope for the best.

Chicken is done at 4:34. So I'm a little off. Whatever. Put it out and I'm really eager to try it. I snipe a leg and take a bite. Heyyyyy! This is pretty damn good!

I wait to see what the others think. I'm like a sorority girl on a date, I am dying for a compliment.

"The chicken is good, guey."
"Maybe you should make family meal always."

Oh my god. I would open myself sexually to you right now if you want. Now I understand how compliments work!

Later my Chef comes up to me to talk to me about the new antipasti menu, my pet project which I"ll discuss later, and goes.

"Hey .... good chicken."

YOU LOVE ME! I KNEW IT! I KNEW IT ALONG, YOU ACTUALLY LIKE ME! SEE! I HAVE A SENSE OF TASTE!

Man, I was on a roll that day. Things just seemed to click. I hope I don't go back on Wednesday only to find that this was a fluke, but alas who knows? It was a little forward in the spice profile, next time I would've added a touch of honey and a few lemons to add a rich, sweet component and a fresh, acidic brightness to keep the flavors distinct. I wanted to prove I could do Asian food, but I ran out of time. Sweet and sour chicken is to Asian food, as McDonald's chicken nuggets is to American food. I could rock that. And indulge in all the guilt-ridden deliciousness with glee.

My next project will be a home-cooking adventure. Yeah, you heard right, I am going to cook at home and do a damned good job of it. And not bitch too much about washing the dishes. I'm thinking a Ruhlman-esque challenge of making a BLT, my style.

Braised pork belly (sofrito, salt/pepper, chipotle pepper, cayenne and coca cola)
Pickled fennel shavings
Butter lettuce (is that even in season? Probably not ... winter sucks)
Tomato jam combined with the reduced braising liquid (which should have coca-cola-ey goodness)
And last but not least ... a solid, homemade mayonnaise on a good, crusty bread (ciabatta or fresh baguette probably) to texturally contrast the fall-apart goodness of the pork belly.

Input? Tomatoes are horrendously out of season so using canned tomatoes and making a fondue/jam out of it seems to be the best idea. I am hungry just thinking about it. I hope I get to have my own sandwich shop some day. Nothing better than a sandwich and some fresh-fried potato chips.

I digress ... a lot. Love and peace,

EP #6

Restaurant Lifers

Happy New Year. Belated. Very belated.

The holiday season for restaurant workers is the true grind of the year. Every friggin' holiday of every color and creed assaults you violently, almost everybody else has plenty of free time to go out and eat dinner, and then you contend with the universal celebration that is New Year's Eve. The hours are punishing and the long stretches of prep work seem to blur the clock away.

Basically, that was me making excuses as to why I haven't written in a long time.

But I have thought about it! I swear! I've got all sorts of developments and things to talk about that I would love to share with those who still read me. And I've got the time to write about it now, because frankly the most important development is that now the restaurants have come to an abrupt halt in business.

I don't know anything about economics other than that our current economy has a big boo-boo and that is affecting the restaurant business. My buddy Rob fails to divulge any details, despite his closeness to Lord-General Bernanke. White tablecloth restaurants are hit especially hard. Only the biggest and the best are comfortably afloat, and many of us are treading water, dangerously close to going under. For instance, today, Thursday the 7th? The weather in Chicago blows, Va Pensiero has 4 covers on the books that will likely cancel due to the snow storm. The executive order is given; we close for the day. I wish they could have told me that before I took the train all the way to Evanston, but alas I figured out some work to do. In fact I'm thankful I can put in a few hours, cooking and cleaning at a relaxing pace and earning a little money, because a lot of us are getting our hours cut down. I'm the lowliest toad spawn on the food chain, by all means I should be getting cut first, but thankfully I am still getting time on the clock. (For certain reasons I'll talk about in the future)

And when we do work? Well the pace is certainly different. The four days leading up to New Year's Eve was a mad buzz of activity. Getting in at 11 AM, prepping your station for dinner service as fast as humanly possible, and then immediately switching focus to prepping the tasting dinner for NYE. Curtain call at 530 PM, dinner service through 10 PM, any free time during service devoted to more prep, more organization, clean up and break down, head home around 11 PM. Lather. Rinse. Repeat. New Year's Eve itself? 10 AM - 130 AM, the single craziest day of work in my life.

But now, it's downright lethargic. We're averaging 15-25 covers a night, and I'm at a point I can handle that with ease, almost boredom. That leaves a lot of time for idle chatter. My espanol has improved exponentially. Well at least my kitchen Mexican (After "learning" Spanish in school for quite some time, I've come to the conclusion that the Mexican dialect is it's own language). It's difficult to have any conversations of substance with my broken Spanish, but it gives you a pretty good idea of what kind of people restaurant work attracts.

But it isn't fair to make a conclusive statement, because despite all stereotypes of restaurant workers, I've already found that we are a diverse group of people. Chuy, our sous chef defies any preconceptions you might have about cooks. Not only can he work circles around the saute station, but I've discovered he's one of the most wholesome people I've ever met. He crossed the border at 17 and has been working in kitchens in Chicagoland ever since, starting at dishwasher, like so many other immigrants from his country, and moving on up. Though I've found not all make a natural progression up the culinary ladder. They really have to have a genuine curiosity and aggressive drive to want to learn French culinary technique in the English language. He owns a house, married his childhood sweetheart, takes care of his family of 7 siblings who are now all in the Chicago area, and has 3 children of his own. Every morning he gets up at 730 to walk his two oldest kids to school, making sure they don't get tied up with the wrong crowd and ensuring them a safe journey. He doesn't really drink, only on holidays where he says he often has "too many cervezas," and his only real vices are gambling small sums on Manny Pacquiao (not a bad bet honestly, the man is a monster) and his hometown soccer team, Chivas. Oh and he loves Chinese food and is disappointed I'm so bad at making it. (If he would just order some soy sauce and ginger from the purveyors, we'd be in business)

He's a very fatherly figure to me. He's never really gotten angry with me, and he's always there to give me advice. He, more than anyone, is responsible for my culinary education and is almost painfully observant, noticing my slightest errors. This is the best situation I could have hoped for. His culinary technique isn't perfect. He learned with an emphasis on speed of action, rather than precision of completion, if that makes sense. He often can't explain why something should be done this way, but he's very confident that it should be done that way (and he's right). But I always feared the stereotypical kitchen with the angry chef at the helm. In fact I was expecting it early in my career, but thankfully it hasn't happened yet. I'm sure I will encounter it at some point, but hopefully I will have the skill and confidence to weather the verbal abuse. For now, Chuy is an excellent and appreciated mentor.

But not all are quite so kind or squeaky clean as he. The sushi chef at Blu was a true anomaly. I'm still not totally sure how to spell or pronounce his name, but I think it was Cheten Nepali (It's Tibetan). We all just called him "Tee." He hated me at first because I was hired over the attractive waitress with no serving skills or experience. He was out to get me even though I had extensive knowledge about sushi, Japanese and a genuine interest in restaurants. But as he scrutinized my work as a server he finally came over to the other side, realizing my enthusiasm and knowledge was doing the restaurant a lot of good. Then he would teach me a bit about sushi, about fish, about cooking, but unfortunately his English was almost unintelligible to me. I came to like Tee a lot, and was sad to see him leave after we shared our last cigarette in the alley between Blu Sushi Lounge and Flattop. But he was a very unpredictable person, and I found it was because that cranberry juice he perpetually enjoyed at his station turned out to be sake and cranberry juice. (The pink hue was suspicious.) He follows the pattern I've seen in many sushi chefs over the years. Many of the ones my mom hired had an ingrained tradition from Japan of sipping sake while working with sushi. It's just a part of the trade in many circles, I don't blame or judge him for it. But he remains one of the more bizarre and darker characters I've encountered in my career.

Which brings me to my closing point. Tee left rather abruptly after Blu Sushi Lounge switched hands to a new owner, not liking the new guy's management style. And just like that, someone you spend hours working and hoofing it out with is gone from your life, likely forever. I can be a nostalgic and sentimental person, and I don't like the idea of "never again," whether it be friends, lovers or coworkers. It hurts me deeply no matter how shallow the connection. But that is the reality of the restaurant business. It is transient at best, employees coming and going like the wind, serving their own interests, because after all, it's just a job and your skills are applicable almost anywhere. People you come to like for their eccentricity leave, and fresh faces take their place.

This new guy at Va Pensiero is a very fresh installment in to the kitchen. He is the first American line cook I've ever worked with. Born and bred in Evanston, he also was in to music but somehow found his way to Kendall College and gained a sharp interest in food. It's refreshing for me to be able to talk to someone who chose this profession as a lifestyle, as opposed to being forced to rely on it as a means of earning a living. I talk to him about all the restaurants he's worked in, Quince in Evanston, Spiaggia in Chicago (wonderful Italian restaurant that the Obamas went to for Valentine's Day... but he didn't cook for them). We talk about what kind of food we like, he gives me some tips on cooking, gives me insight in to American fine dining. Generally we've had a good relationship so far, us being almost the same age. Our favorite subject of discussion?

"Hey, have you ever been to Hot Doug's?"
"Dude ... please. He opens up again on the 5th. You game?"

I can tell that we are gonna be friends.

EP #6