An Ode to Julia

In sticking with our French theme lately, we decided to pair our French onion soup with a traditional coq au vin, a la Julia Child.  This dish has multiple components, and takes some time, but it's a hearty, delicious dish, perfect for these cold winter nights.

There are two components you can prepare in advance; the mushrooms and the pearl onions.  Let's start with the mushrooms.  Just saute your sliced mushrooms in some butter and oil.  They'll first absorb the liquids in the pan, and then release them.  Once they release the liquids and start to brown, you can season with salt and pepper.  Remove them from the heat, toss in some sliced green onions, and saute for a couple more minutes.  Then you can just set them aside while you prepare the rest of the meal.

Next, let's tackle the pearl onions.  Make sure you peel off the skins, and keep them whole.  Toss them into a hot pan with some melted butter and oil.  Roll them around every few minutes so they brown as evenly as possible.

While your onions are browning, you can make your satchel of herbs.  In a piece of cheesecloth, wrap up some parsley, thyme, and a bay leaf.  Wrap it up and tie it with some twine.

Once your onions have browned, you'll add in your liquids.  The recipe calls for stock or wine, but we decided to use a combination of the two.  We went with 1/4 cup beef stock and 1/4 cup red wine.  You'll also toss in you herb satchel, and season with salt and pepper.  Then just let them saute until the onions are tender and the liquid evaporates.   Once the liquid has evaporated and absorbed into the onions, you can set them aside.

Now, on to the main event!  Start by rendering down some sliced bacon in your dutch oven.  Once they've browned slightly, remove them from the pot and throw in your chickens to brown.

We opted to use chicken thighs this time around, but you can use whatever pieces you like.  Really let them settle into the bacon fat and get a nice, golden brown.

Once your chicken is browned on both sides, add your chicken back to the pot.  At this point, you can add some cognac and flame off the alcohol.  Since we didn't have any cognac on hand, we used some of the chocolate stout that we'd used in our French onion soup.

You'll also add in the red wine, enough stock to cover your chicken, a smidge of tomato paste, some garlic, a bay leaf, and a couple sprigs of thyme.  Then just cover your pot and let it simmer until your chickens are cooked through.  If you didn't cook your mushrooms and onions in advance, this is a great time to prepare them.

When your chickens have cooked through, remove them from the pot, and get ready to prepare your gravy.  Your chickens will look purplish since they've absorbed the wine, so don't be concerned when you pull them out.

You'll want to skim some of the fat off your liquid.  No one wants a greasy gravy!  You'll also want to fish out the bay leaf and sprigs of thyme.  Let this reduce down so you have a little more than 2 cups of liquid.  You'll also want to prepare a little gravy thickener.  In this case, it's 2 parts butter, 1 part flour.

Once your little slurry is combined and your sauce has reduced, whisk your butter-flour mixture into the braising liquids.  Let it simmer and thicken to your liking.

When you're just about ready to serve, add your chickens back into the pot, along with your mushrooms and onions.  Baste your chickens in the sauce for a few minutes so they heat through again.

We whipped up some mashed potatoes to go along with our chickens.  They were a great accompaniment to the chicken and the delicious gravy.

This is the type of hearty meal that warms you from the inside, perfect for these frigid days we've been having.

Oui Love Soup!

In honor of it being National Soup Month, we rounded up a list of the soups that we've featured on the blog thus far.  So if you're experiencing some frigid weather like we are, you can opt for the warm soups.  And if you're lucky enough to be in a warmer climate, you can go for the cold soups.  Something for everyone!

Hot soups to warm you up...

* Butternut Squash Soup

* Tomato Soup

* Sizzling Rice Soup

Cold soups to cool you down...

* Chilled Pea Soup

* Gazpacho

And if those aren't enough, we're coming at ya with a hearty French onion soup to get through these winter months.  This recipe came from our friends at WellFed Hospitality Group when we attended their first Feastly dinner, a meal paying homage to Julia Child. (you can read about another Feastly meal here)

You'll want to start by thinly slicing 10 onions.  Our onions were quite large, so we only used 8.

While you're slicing your onions, you can crisp up about 1/4 cup of bacon.  Once they've crisped up, add your onions to the pot, along with about half a stick of butter.

As you can see, our stock pot was overflowing with onions.  From this stage, it will take a good 45 minutes for your onions to cook down and caramelize.  As best you can, try to toss your onions around so they all get coated in butter, and cook through.  As they cook down, they'll release a lot of water, which needs to evaporate before your onions can really caramelize.

As you can see, they cook down quite a bit, and turn a nice golden brown color.  At this point you can deglaze your pot.  The recipe calls for a splash of brandy and some white wine, but we didn't have any on hand.  Instead, we used some Boatswain Chocolate Stout that we had on hand.  The beauty of this beer is that for just $1.99, you get a 22oz. bottle of pretty decent beer.

Once you've deglazed your pot, add in 2 quarts of beef stock and some thyme.  To help give it a richer flavor, we also used some veal demi glace.  Let this simmer and reduce for about 20 minutes.

One of my favorite things about French onion soup is the bubbly covering of cheese that covers the bowl.  Since we don't own any of the little crocks like restaurants have, we had to improvise.  We picked up a nice loaf of French bread and toasted some slices, each topped with a little pile of gruyere cheese.  Once the cheese had melted, they were nice little croutons to float on top of our soups.  We also sprinkled some cheese directly into the soup and let it melt in.

Although caramelizing onions takes a while, the end product is well worth it.  You're entire house/apartment will end up smelling like caramelized onions (even my bath towel picked up the scent!), but it's a delicious, hearty soup that will get you through the cold winter months.

Quack & Vac

We didn't wait very long to break the vacuum sealer and immersion circulator out of their packaging to give them a whirl.  It was just too hard to resist!

We picked up a couple duck breasts for our initial test drive.  This was perfect for our test run because we've made this dish pretty successfully in the past (despite the occasional duck fat spill from substandard bags breaking).  We started by scoring the skin, and seasoning them with salt and pepper.  We also threw a couple sprigs of thyme and rosemary into the bag for additional flavor.  

Once everything was in the bag, we sealed it up.  I don't know why we waited so long to get a vacuum sealer, because this little machine is so magical.  Just slide the bag's open end into the machine, close and lock the lid, press a button, and in less than 10 seconds, you have a vacuum sealed pouch.  It couldn't be simpler! Not only will it come in handy for sous vide cooking, but it will help us better preserve our various ingredients.

We clamped out immersion circulator to the side of our stock pot, which was filled with water, and placed our ducks into the pot.  Several sources online recommended cooking duck breasts at 135 degrees for 2 hours, so that's what we went with.  We programmed our circulator, and within 5 minutes, it was up to temperature.  We popped in our duck and covered it with some aluminium foil and we were good to go.

After 2 hours, the alarm sounded, and it was time to pull out our duck breasts.  We wanted to crisp up the skins, so we took them out of the pouch, and placed them skin-side down in a hot pan.  The fat rendered out even more, and the skin was perfectly crisp.

We pulled them out of the pan, and let them rest for about 5 minutes.  You don't want to lose all those juices when you slice into it!

Cherries are a popular compliment to duck, but we didn't have any on hand.  What we did have was some extra cranberry sauce.  We just added a little butter and brown sugar, and we had a slightly tart and slightly sweet sauce!  As a side dish, we whipped up one of our favorites, the kale-sunchoke farro hash.

Sous vide is such an easy technique that leaves you with perfectly cooked meat every time.  With our new toys, it's going to be so much easier to play around with different meats, root veggies, and even eggs.

It's Pie Style Jack II: The Em"pie"re Strikes Back!

If you're like us, you've probably spent the week after Thanksgiving eating nothing but leftover turkey and side dishes.  In an effort to not just recreate our Thanksgiving dinner plates, we got creative and turned our leftovers into turkey pot pies!

We started by quartering a few potatoes and peeling a few leftover carrots, and popping them into the oven to roast them for about 15 minutes.  Since they typically have a longer cook time, roasting them first helps minimize the time your pot pies need to be in the oven.  Plus, it gives them a nice roasty flavor.

While those are roasting, you can make your dough to top your pies.  We kept it simple by combining 1 cup of flour with 1 cup of chilled butter, and a splash of vodka.  Try not to overmix the dough, as you want the butter to stay as cold as possible.  Once our dough came together, we wrapped it in some plastic wrap, and stuck it in the freezer to get it cold again.  This will help give you a nice, flaky crust.  If you're making your dough in advance, you can just keep your dough in the fridge.

Once the dough was chilling, we started building our pies.  We chopped up some fresh onion, and dropped them into our little bowls.  Then, each bowl got a healthy spoonful of our leftover green bean casserole.

Then we chopped up some turkey meat, and added those to each bowl.  At this point, the potatoes and carrots were also done, so we chopped those into smaller pieces and tossed them in the bowls as well.

The one thing that was missing was a bit of a gravy.  So we added in a few spoonfuls of our turkey stock, as well as a splash of milk.  Then give everything a little toss and turn in the bowl so it's all mixed up and coated in the stock and milk.

Then, just role out your dough, cut it into circles wide enough to top your bowls.  Make sure you cut slits in the top to so the steam can escape (clearly the 2 on the right were our first crusts).  You also want to beat an egg and brush each crust with the egg wash.  This will give you a nice, golden brown crust.

Be sure to place your pies on a baking sheet to catch any gravy that may spill out of your pies.  Pop them into a 350 degree oven for about 15 minutes, or until your crusts are cooked through, and golden brown.

The crust was buttery and really flaky, almost like a biscuit.  It was the perfect topper for our pot pies, and a great way to repurpose our leftovers.

To Brine, or Not to Brine?

I grew up always having a smoked turkey for Thanksgiving, which was easy to do when we lived in California.  After moving back east, colder weather came into play, and usually put a damper on our smoking plans, which is exactly what happened this year.  With about a week to go until the big day and a projected temperature of only 38 degrees, smoking the turkey just wasn't in the cards, and we resorted to oven roasting the bird.

Many people will recommend brining the turkey, to help retain moisture, particularly in the breast meat.  Wet brines are fine and good, but they require a lot of space in your fridge, and can leave your meat with a slightly mushy texture.  Instead, we tried a dry brine, which we found here.  One perk to dry brining is that you can apply the brine while your turkey is still frozen!  This was a huge time saver for us, since it took about 3.5 days for our turkey to completely defrost.

First, you'll want to get your brine ready.  As the recipe suggests, you want about 1 tbsp. of salt for every 5lbs. of turkey.  We had a 16.6lb. turkey, so we used a little more than 3 tbsp. salt.  Because we still wanted to try and get a smokey flavor, we used 2 tbsp. of applewood smoked salt, and 1 tbsp. kosher salt.  In addition to the salt, we added in some smoked paprika, again for some smokiness, along with some chopped thyme, rosemary, sage, and juniper berries, which we crushed in our mortar and pestle.

Now it's time to rub it all over your turkey!  Since our turkey still had to defrost, we placed him in a brining bag.  That way it would collect the water, and it'd be easy to dispose once Thanksgiving day came.  Before rubbing your salt mixture on the bird, be sure to pat him dry with paper towel to get rid of any excess moisture.  Also make sure that any gizzards and organs have been removed from the cavity.  Sprinkle a bit of your salt & spice mixture in the cavity too.  Then you'll want to use about 1 tbsp on the breasts, and 1 tbsp on each leg/wing/thigh.  If your turkey is defrosted already, be sure to get in all the crevices.

Once you've rubbed him down, you can seal up the bag.  Try to get as much air out of the bag as possible.  It can be a little tough, so it's best to have an extra set of hands to help you do this.

Now you can just pop your bird into the refrigerator, breast side up, for 3 days, and let the salt work its magic.  If you remember, give your turkey a little massage each day.  We massaged ours through the bag, just to keep our hands clean.

After the 3rd day, you'll want to remove him from the bag, and refrigerate him for at least 8 hours, uncovered.  We first put the brine on our turkey on Monday, so Wedensday night, before we went to bed, we took him out of the bag, gave him one last massage, and let him sit overnight, uncovered, in the fridge.

At least 1 hour before you're ready to cook your bird, be sure to take him out of the fridge, and let him start to warm up.  We also gave him an additional dusting of my Grandpa's secret rub, the one he'd use on his smoked turkeys.  As when roasting a chicken, we prepared some aromatics to put in the cavity to add a bit of flavor, and also keep the breast moist.  We stuck to traditional ingredients here, roughly chopping up some carrots, onion, celery, and lemon, and making a bundle of rosemary, sage and thyme.


We stuffed what we could into the cavity, and the rest went into the bottom of the roasting pan, so we'd get some added flavor to the pan drippings, in case we wanted to make gravy later.  Also make sure to tie the legs together, closing up the cavity as much as you can.  This will also help prevent the meat from drying out.

Now you're ready to roast!  Heat up your oven to 425 degrees, and place your bird, breast side down, on your roasting rack.  I know this is atypical, but trust us, it works!  We also brushed some softened butter onto the skin of the turkey to help it brown.  When you're oven comes to temperature, throw your bird in for 30 minutes.  This will help get the bottom nice and brown.

After 30 minutes, pull your bird out of the oven and flip him over.  Remember that the pan and bird are extremely hot.  Be sure to have oven mitts or dish towels handy to help you flip the bird without burning yourself.  While you're trying to flip the bird, you'll also want to lower the oven temperature to 325 degrees.  Give him another coat of butter, and pop him back in the oven until a thermometer, stuck into the thickest part of the thigh, reads 160 degrees.

For us, it took about 2.5hrs. more.  Most will say that poultry needs to be cooked to an internal temperature of 165 degrees, but we knew that if we pulled him out when he reached 160 degrees, the carry-over cooking would bring him up to 165.

Be sure to let him rest for at least 30 minutes before you start carving into him.  While he's resting, you can give him a foil tent to keep him warm, and you can now use the oven to cook your side dishes, like our green bean casserole.

The dry brining method was a success!  The breast stayed nice and moist, and the smoked salt we used added a subtle smokiness to the meat.  It was a great alternative to actually smoking the turkey.