Rocket Hot Ovens, Roast Chicken and Why I Brine (Part II)

Now, as I was saying...

With that in mind, a number of months ago, I started looking into recipes and techniques for roasting chicken. As usual, I (virtually) consulted my favorites: Alton Brown, Julia Child, Jacques Pepin, the Frugal Gourmet, and the America’s Test Kitchen folks. Then I came upon the writings of Barbara Kafka, who apparently was the ‘Roasting Guru’ of the Nineties, and revolutionized the home-roasting game with her high-temperature technique. It also snagged her a Julia Child Cookbook Award.

How high? I mean high, as in the absolute temperature your oven can reach: 500 degrees. As Alton Brown says, rocket hot. So hot it will burn anything left in your unclean oven (yes it is, trust me), causing the entire kitchen (and/or apartment) to fill with smoke, have you opening up the windows, cranking up the AC and fan, and running around in panic, since you set off the smoke detector (again), and it’s ridiculously loud and obnoxious sounding, making your skull vibrate with every shriek. It’ll make you wonder if it’s all worth it, and if you’re gonna get a blackened brick of poultry in return when it’s all done.

However, the benefits (not including a delicious chicken) will quickly make you change your viewpoint. Once you plug in the thermometer and put the chicken in the oven, that’s it. You just walk away. No basting, no cooking rack, no trussing, no butter under the skin (though I like to give it a rubdown over-the-shirt).

Just leave it alone until the thermometer beeps at 160. And it comes out all golden, with yummy, crackly skin, with (pre-gravy) drippings that Scarface could’ve sold as a sidecar to his usual in the 80s. In fact, I would go as far as saying that the cooking process, post-prep, is kinda boring… aside from all the smoky excitement as described before.

And so we begin; Let's light this candle!

Oven: crank it up all the way -- it's gonna take awhile to get to critical mass. Preheat the oven to 500 degrees – usually as far as the dial will go. Now's the time when one of your two (you do have two right? an innie and and outie?) thermometers will come into play. The oven's gotta be at 500 degrees, or damn close, and I mean the oven, not just the air in the oven. So put the pedal to the metal, and give her time to get up to ramming speed.

It’s very important to allow enough time for this, as you want to make sure the oven gets to this level, and will hold it there. I usually give it about an hour to get to launch speed, which will leave plenty of time to prep the chicken and go back to whatever else you'd like to be doing, like playing with your Nofriendo Wii or reading snarky blogs. You'll have like 59 minutes. Seriously, it's that wonderfully simple. Now's the time to get your culinary legos together as well:

• 4 to 6 pound whole chicken
• 1/2 cup of thyme
• 1/2 cup of rosemary
• 1 lemon, juice reserved
• 2 tbls (unsalted) butter
• 1 cup white wine
• Past-their-prime celery and/or carrots
• Kosher (or sea, not table) Salt n' (fresh ground) Pepper
• What else you got around the house that might work? Any veggies past-their-prime will serve as a great napping mat for the chicken and future gravy base with the celery and carrots. Smashed garlic cloves? Definitely. Mushrooms? Sure. Chunks of onion? Check. Or none of these. Garlic is nice though.
  

adapted from Barbara Kafka's Roasting: A Simple Art

For the brine:

• Approximately 1/2 cup kosher salt
• Handful of peppercorns (smash 'em a bit if you like)

adapted by my scientific trial-and-error method

What else do you have around? A few of the savory bits will be plenty. How about a bit of thyme? A bay leaf or two? Tune to taste -- just make sure the solution is salty. Like hella salty.

Anyway, grab a stockpot that will hold the submerged chicken, and fill it about 1/4 way with cold water. Bring it to a simmer, and dissolve the salt, peppercorns and whatever else you got. I also like to drop a few smashed garlic cloves in the mix. Once the salt is dissolved, take the pot off the stove, and allow it to cool. It will be disgustingly salty, but that's okay. We're going to dilute it. Drop as many ice cubes as you can, while maintaining a decent salinity to taste. Get about as many in as you think will cool the brine as well as melt and submerge the chicken when we put it in. Now, it's very important that we need to get this thing ice cold, else we fall victim to icky bacteria. This is NOT an option. Has this happened yet? No?

Stop right there then. Get it very very cold, and then come back.

Okay, we're there? Excellent. Now, place the chicken into the stockpot, make sure it sinks, and add some ice to the top to keep it cold for awhile. Periodically, return to check the bird and add more ice. Yeah, I know it's reducing the salinity of the mixture. Hopefully you won't have to add too much ice.



If you're really enterprising, freeze some water in some water bottles, and you can use that. I just always fear mixing them up sometime and drinking them.

Please note that the picture above is of the chicken "relaxing prior to performance". Chicken was actually submerged in the salty depths of the stockpot for the duration of the brining time.

So why brine? Pull up a pillow my child, and let me explain about the scientific miracles of what you may already know, deep in your mind, from long ago.

To be continued...

Rocket Hot Ovens, Roast Chicken and Why I Brine (Part I)

Have you ever roasted a chicken? I’m talking about a whole roasted chicken, like the kind you can get at the hundreds of rotisserie places in NYC?

As I’ve mentioned before, I grew up around this town, and one of the big takeout trends of the late 80s/90s was barbecued chicken, so I ate a lot of the stuff during my childhood. Strangely enough, I realized that with as many turkeys I’ve made over the years, and various types of chicken parts (breasts, wings, etc.) I’ve prepared, I’d never really roasted a whole chicken. It just never came up, and it was inconvenient. I mean, why do up the whole chicken when you can prepare parts with less mess and carving? I saw the only benefit to cooking a whole chicken to be the pageantry of carving (which is dramatic and cool with a turkey, if you’ve got moves), and that wasn’t worth it to me.

That said, I have heard/read that there are a few “marques” of being a great chef. It’s said that the way he/she roasts a simple chicken (or makes an omelet) is indicative of talent, taking the everyday into the sublime. Sounded like a challenge.

To be continued... Stay tuned.

BREAKING: H&H Bagels SEIZED by Tax Man

This just in.. via via Eater.com..
"Just came back from H&H Bagels, W. 80th & Broadway. At 10:15 am an official was posting a 'property seized for lack of payment of taxes' sign...bagels were piled high inside, employees inside, but store was closed by officials."

Eater's call to the main office confirms that not just one but both locations (the second is on West 46th St. -- great for roadtrip gifts) were shut down and they have "no idea" when they'll open again, but they're hoping to have it all smoothed out by this afternoon.

(via Eater.com)

Second Avenue Deli and Jewish Soul Food

2^nd Avenue Deli serves what I believe is overall, the finest Jewish soul food in New York City, and that’s saying a lot. Of course, there are some things that I prefer at Katz’s (hot dogs, knishes) and at Carnegie (cheesecake), but 2^nd Avenue does it overall the best, and in a better setting. Except that it’s always hot and stuffy inside, no matter when I’ve been. When they closed down for a few years after the Lebenwohls lost their Lower East Side lease, I mourned the loss of my childhood, a NYC institution, and some of the best pastrami I’ve ever had. Fortunately, they returned a bit over a year ago, and while they’re not on 2^nd Avenue anymore, the food’s just as good. It’s also now a generation cleaner than its old digs, and Katz’s (shabby but loved) for that matter. I’ve ordered the same exact items for the past 30 or so years…

As always, the amuse bouche is some pickles, cucumber and tomato. Some garlic and dill sours, along with some sauerkraut. New in this incarnation is the offering of gribenes, which are like Jewish pork rinds. Being Jewish, however, they're made from chicken, as opposed to pig.

Next follows some of the best matzoh ball soup in the City, which is poured into the bowl at the table. 2^nd Avenue goes the ‘monster ball’ route, which I would normally advise against, but they somehow dodge the overly-dense belly bomber consequences.

What’s next? Knish time. Not as good as Yonah Schimmel’s, but ALWAYS round, NEVER square. Square knishes (like Gabila’s) are for baseball games.

Ahh, the stuffed derma. Most people of my generation are disgusted stuffed derma (or, kishka), but I praise it (and devour it) as one of the shining examples of the Jews taking what was around (usually the less-desired parts of the animal) and making it delicious, in accordance with some sort of ritual. Derma is made to cook for a long time, so it doesn’t have to be messed around with on the Sabbath. I love it.

And now for the Main Event:

Pastrami on Rye. None of that ‘lean cut’, thank you. That’s like stripping the fat ribbon off of prosciutto.

Oh, and I always have a Dr. Brown’s Cream Soda. I don’t like soda, and I never drink soda, aside from this yummy stuff.

Shake Shack

Bistro Burger

Ah, the Corner Bistro. I've been eating here since I was a wee lad, and they've had their ups and downs. When I was just a young producer at Fox News Channel, we used to come here after getting out of work at midnight or so, to grab a Bistro Burger and six or eight McSorleys on draught. Back in the day, you could smoke there, and we'd do that too while we'd while away the hours until late at night drinking beer and eating massive amounts of cow, topped with cheese and pig. I was also 23, so consistent caloric assaults such as those wouldn't cause permanent damage.

It's been awhile since I've dined there, as it's gotten ridiculously crowded as word of the Bistro has spread, and I don't have as many late-night burgers and beers as I used to.

Anyway, I was offered the chance to meet some friends-of-friends there for dinner, so I jumped at the chance.

Yeah, the line was looooong, and you're always getting jostled, but if you're with people (n.b. I hate waiting for someone on line, and then your companion shows late, leaving you to bear the brunt of the wait time... grrr...), it's not so bad. A few McSorley's Darks later, it was vaguely enjoyable.

I got my regular: Bistro Burger (featuring cheese and bacon), rare, everything on it, and fries. Yum. I looked forward to a reunion with a cherished, lately absent old friend. Soon after we sat down, our orders were taken, and the waiting game began.

Unfortunately, I don't feel like it's was good as it used to be... the meat doesn't taste as high-quality, and they only appear to be able to prepare them mooing or well-done. Fortunately, I like my meat to be just introduced to the flame ("how do you do, Mr. Fire?"), and received it that way -- I'm not fun to be around when I've received a well-done burger. Overall, though, it was still a decent hamburger experience. Fries were still really good though.