Category Archives: Game hens. poussins

Chicken braised in milk.

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Always on the lookout for a new taste experience, while checking out favorite blogs and  websites, I found a recipe that I just had to try:  chicken braised in milk from Jamie Oliver’s website.  I’ve made pork braised in milk (a recipe from one of Marcella Hazan’s cookbooks) and it was scrumptious!  Reading the recipe for “Chicken in Milk” I was intrigued by the seasoning–sage, garlic, cinnamon, and lemon.  Not a combination that I had thought, but considering the source I thought it worth a try.  Not wanting a whole chicken, I decided to try it with my favorite chicken parts–thighs.  It seemed like another great dish to test out the petit brasier.  I even found a friend willing to test the results with me.

Since I had about half the weight in thighs of the chicken called for in the recipe, I went halves on the seasonings as well.  What I learned was that chicken parts were okay, but maybe not the way to go with this recipe, and that halves on the seasoning was too big a cut.  The flavor combination was a success–it was somewhat earthy, and “round” and balanced, but I think I need to try it again with more than half the amounts of seasoning. We both felt that it could have been more highly seasoned, but it was a recipe that definitely goes into my “keepers” file.  Work on modifying it as a one-person meal is going to continue.

This was one of the times that I broke a rule that I usually follow:  make the recipe just “as is” before you try modifying it; so it’s back to the kitchen with this one–probably going to have to invite friends and do a whole chicken before I try cutting it down again;  I need  to know  what it would be like as intended so that I know how to modify the seasoning.  It’s not always easy to modify a recipe for single-serving cooking, but it’s a worthwhile endeavor.

Now that the holidays are past and things are settling down a bit, I think I’ll give it another try–my friends are used to me having a “food crisis”–and usually willing to participate.  I think it would be a good time to check out a bottle of good white Burgundy wine as well.    Since I’ve been considering this, I nabbed a couple of Cornish game hens on one of my trips through the grocery store, thinking that this might work as a single serving adaptation.  You can expect updates on this to follow–the full recipe and adaptations for one or two servings. If you need (or want) to serve four, it’s a recipe worth making!

The microwave in my kitchen

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I guess I’m not really fond of many small appliances or kitchen gadgets.  There seem to be a lot that just take up drawer space or counter space and don’t work that well.   In many ways the microwave has mostly been just a “gadget” in my kitchen.  Most of the microwave recipes that I found were just not that good: edible, but that’s about it. Many of the early cookbooks that I looked at seemed to suggest that anything could be cooked well in the microwave.  Admittedly, I’ve not looked at a lot of newer ones because they seemed so uncritical about what does or does not cook well in the microwave.  So for me it was for melting chocolate, making popcorn, heating a cup of water….

I’ve revised my opinion slightly after finding the Microwave Gourmet cookbook by Barbara Kafka.  This author is a traditionally trained chef, and approached the microwave in a very skeptical frame of mind, and that has produced a useful microwave cookbook.  There is no hesitation in saying what NOT to cook in the microwave.

One of the really useful features of this book  is a dictionary where you can look things you might want to know about cooking in the microwave, and find times, suggested container sizes in which to cook it.  I’ve use this more than almost any other part of the book, except possibly the information on how to arrange foods in containers in order to have them cook properly.

I’ve tried the microwave risotto, and it’s not bad for times when you don’t want to spend the time standing by the stove stirring for 25 minutes or so.  (I’m anxious to compare the results of this with the Cook’s Illustrated simplified risotto.)

The most-used recipe in that book for me is the one for quick chicken broth or stock.  I’m mostly a stove-top or oven stock maker, but this is great when you don’t have canned stock or want some really good broth for soup.  Here is the recipe:

Use bones (carcass from the roast chicken, or necks, backs, wings, or giblets (except liver).  You can collect these in the freezer until you have enough, or if you’re lucky, you can buy backs cheaply and make this whenever you need to.

  • 2 pounds chicken
  • 4 cups water

For 4 cups, place the bones and water in a 2-quart dish and cover tightly with microwave plastic wrap.  Cook at 100% for 30 minutes.  (Cook 40 minutes for broth that will jell.)

For 2 cups, use 1 pound bones, and 2 cups water.  Cook for 20 minutes.

This cookbook has directions for making  the classic stocks and broths in the microwave–including vegetable and fish/seafood broths.  Although I’m sure I will not give up the stove-top or oven long, slow preparation of stock I think that I’ll turn to the microwave more frequently, especially in hot weather.  I’ve not done a side-by-side tasting of each method, but this is certainly better than canned!

I’ve also cooked chicken in the microwave according to instructions in this book and been pleased with the results.  I use chicken thighs instead of breasts, but instructions/times can be found in the Dictionary section of this cookbook.  An unexpected benefit of cooking the chicken this way  is some very good strong broth; just enough to make one good  serving of chicken soup.  To me the texture of the chicken is a bit different when done in the microwave– more chewy, but not tough, or disagreeable at all (I actually like that “chew”).  I expect that I’ll be using the microwave more often to cook chicken now.

More on duck with fresh fig sauce

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This duck with fresh fig sauce is such wonderful treat that I’m experimenting with ways to do this for one, or maybe two people.  I’ve always made stock from the leftover duck carcass and put that in the freezer.

I have also made the duck-fig bouillon to just short of the final reduction and put some in the freezer, with the figs (no idea how they will fare) to see if I can adapt this recipe to be done with pan-seared duck breasts, which seem to be readily available from the supermarket.  I want to be able to taste the bouillon from the freezer with some made with just the frozen duck stock and fresh figs to see how it has held up to the freezing.

I have enough friends who like duck that I can do a whole roast duck occasionally, and have the carcass to make stock so it’s always on hand from the freezer; however, if you don’t want to do the whole duck or the two-duck recipe, you can obtain duck-veal demi-glace from D’Artagnan and that would certainly be a good starting point from which to begin.  I have used this  product before in making cassoulet and was very pleased with it.

I’ll be reporting on the results of this experiment soon as the weather is cooling off and more robust food begins to appeal–and the last of the figs on the tree are ripening.