Apparently there are certain dishes which you’re not supposed to use when ‘entertaining.’ I’ve got several cookbooks which caution that certain recipes aren’t for guests. Well, I wasn’t aware of this distinction until recently and I’ve been serving non-guestworthy foods to my guests for a long time, shockingly no one has ever called me out on it.
The following recipe is for such a dish, an unassuming chicken soup, brightened up with a good bit of marjoram. I made it a few weeks ago for company, and my friend Clark suggested that I make it the subject of one of our video episodes.
You’re going to need:
2 skin-on chicken breasts
2 chicken thighs
3 small onions, chopped (I leave some sliced into bigger pieces as well)
3 carrots (or parsnips, if you prefer) sliced into discs, or chopped, depending on your preference
4 ribs of celery, chopped
2-4 medium potatoes
a couple of handfuls of green beans, trimmed
a few sprigs fresh marjoram
crushed red pepper
salt and pepper
broth or water and soup base
juice of half a lemon (optional)
Pat dry the chicken and sprinkle with some crushed red pepper. Sear it, skin side down, in a hot pan with a little bit of olive oil, until the skin is crisp and the fat has rendered from it. While it’s cooking, season generously with salt and pepper. Flip the breasts and cook for a few more minutes until the juices run clear when pierced, then remove onto a clean plate and cover loosely.
To the rendered chicken fat, add the chopped celery, the onions and the carrots, and stir well. Sprinkle with a bit of salt. As the veggies start to release their liquids, grab a wooden spoon, and scrape the bits of chicken off the side of the pan. When the onions becomes translucent, add the potatoes and enough water or broth to cover. I like to include a bit of chicken soup base, makes the soup taste richer, just watch out not to make it too salty.
Bring the soup to a boil. Stir. Taste, adjust the seasoning. Let it simmer until the potatoes are completely tender and can be smooshed against the side of the pot easily. Add in the green beans. While they cook, chop or shred the chicken and add it to the pot. Continue to simmer until the green beans are just tender. Add in the marjoram, tearing the leaves off the stems and bruising them slightly. Taste and adjust the seasoning. Squeeze in a bit of lemon juice if you like. Serve with some crusty bread. Enjoy.
Taste: clean, strong chicken flavor, herbal, fresh from the lemon, slightly earthy from the paprika, buttery from the potatoes, sweet and rich from the carrots
It’s not in my nature to slow-cook food, I’m too spur of the moment and I like to fiddle with my food too much, but every once in a while, it’s nice to be able stick something in a pot and let it do its thing for a few hours.
Slow cooking leaves the food incredibly juicy and tender, and because it usually requires a tightly sealed vessel - you can’t afford to loose moisture otherwise your food will dry out or burn - this method effectively concentrates flavor and preserves more of the nutritional value of the food. Cooking things over the course of a few hours also has the added bonus of gradually steeping your whole house in luscious aromas, drawing the occupants to peer longingly through the oven door like a troupe of slightly sad zombies.
I used a clay pot, but you can probably use a crock pot if that’s what you have, or a dutch oven with a tightly sealed lid, what you don’t want to use is a clay cooker that has a shallow bottom and a domed lid, because that wont hold all the juices.
The recipe is deceptively simple, it requires basic ingredients, very little preparation, the only hard to find ingredient is time. You will need:
1 whole small to medium sized chicken (it needs to fit in your pot and leave room for the veggies)
a few springs of fresh thyme
1 sprig of rosemary
4-5 sage leaves
1 lemon
sweet paprika
2-3 medium potatoes, or same amount of yams, or butternut squash chunks
2 large carrots, or parsnips
2 medium white onions, sliced into petals, or a handful of pearl onions peeled
Rinse and pat dry the chicken, season generously with salt and pepper inside and out. Pierce the lemon so that the juices can infuse the chicken while it cooks, and place it inside the cavity along with the fresh herbs. Place the onions, carrots and potatoes at the bottom of the pot and season with salt and pepper and the paprika. Place the chicken on top, breast side down. Add the butter on top of the chicken. Close the lid tightly.
If you are using a clay pot, make a paste from a bit flour and water and apply it around the rim of the lid to seal in the moisture as much as possible. Place the pot in the oven (do not preheat) and set the temperature to 250°F. Cook it for at least 2-3 hours, I left it in for 4 and it turned out amazing.
The chicken will be falling off the bone when done, so be careful when pulling it out. Plate it with a few of the veggies and pour over some of the gravy from the pot. Sprinkle a bit of chopped parsley on top of everything before serving with a crusty piece of bread.
note:Your flavorings can be whatever you like. The key is to use hardy herbs that will hold up through the long cooking process. Sliced ginger, lemongrass, some Thai basil, and a few kaffir lime leaves will work beautifully with your chicken. If you go this route I’d also substitute some whole peeled shallots for the onions because they have a more delicate flavor. For a more earthy version, put a couple of fresh limes (halved) inside the chicken, along with a few peppercorns and some bay leaves and dust cumin generously over everything finishing it with chopped cilantro to serve.
Taste: Sweet and earthy from the beets, a bit of bitterness from the greens, herbal, acidic and buttery from the dressing, pungent from the fresh garlic, the chicken lends a saltiness and richness and keeps the flavors grounded.
You can use canned beets for this, though somewhere down the line I’m sure I’ll roast some and see the contrast. So you need:
some goat-milk yogurt; some sour cream or Greek-style yogurt
fresh dillweed and parsley (you can also throw in mint if you like it)
garlic (fresh, not powdered)
fresh lemon juice
red wine vinegar
a good fruity olive oil
fresh mesclun mix with some spinach thrown in
you’ll also need salt, pepper, and paprika hot or sweet, as you like.
Pat dry the chicken breasts and trim off any fat, season well with salt and pepper, pressing the salt into the meat, preheat a small skillet, (not nonstick) and put a tiny bit of oil and let it get nice a hot, then put the chicken breasts in, (you can go about the rest of the recipe at that point, just keep an eye on them), you want them to get nice and seared on both sides, then deglaze with some chicken broth if you have it handy, or just water, white wine would probably work nicely as well. Reduce the heat and cover to cook the chicken the rest of the way through. You can check this but cutting into the chicken, once the meat is close to done, but still not fully opaque, remove the lid and let the liquid reduce, then set aside and let it cool down a bit.
For the dressing, you mince the garlic, fine as you can, whisk together the sour cream (or yogurt), garlic, yogurt and some olive oil, pepper and salt to taste, finely chop the herbs and add them into the mix, taste it and see if it needs more salt or pepper, or something else I haven’t thought of. Let that sit at least for 30 mins so everything can meld.
Put the chickpeas in a bowl and mush them just a bit with a fork so they aren’t all whole, salt, pepper, red wine vinegar to taste and olive oil, add some more finely chopped parsley, let that sit as well.
Arrange your greens in your serving bowls, top with the chickpeas, then top withe the chopped beets and drizzle the yogurt dressing liberally over. Chop up the chicken and while it’s still hot season with the paprika more more pepper if you like, arrange it on top of the salad, try to get it over the beets and the chickpeas, which wont wilt from the heat like the fresh salad will, drizzle some of the reduction from the pan over the chicken, and eat.
When you eat something and it feels and tastes rich and luscious and you sort of want to swirl your tongue along the roof of your mouth to get the full intensity of the flavor, that’s umami.Umami is the fifth taste, it’s less obvious and more difficult to capture than the other four. Foods rich in umami have a satisfying, almost addictive quality, foods lacking it taste watery, thin. When you are cooking something and you find that something is missing, but you can’t quite put your finger on what, likely you’re missing some umami. A bit of parmesan, some ground up anchovies, some tomato or a dash of soy sauce - depending on which cuisine you’re dealing with - will usually do the trick.
To me, it’s more than just a reference to a chemical compound, it describes the enjoyment of food on a carnal and sensual level where you are delving deeply into the flavor, allowing yourself to properly enjoy it, for it’s own sake. It means to distill the essence of your main ingredient and capture it’s core. It means cooking out of love, for people you care about. It means eating what you like, and discovering new things that surprise you and tickle your palate.
Taste: Chickeny, bursting with umami, herbal flavor from the marjoram, slightly lemony and caramely from the onions.
The instructional video for how to make this soup is here.
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