Roasted Chicken with Olives, Lemon and Garlic

So I will be the first to admit that this roast chicken recipe is more than a little labor-intensive.  It's definitely not a roast chicken recipe where you just throw the chicken into the pan and then forget about it for an hour.  Instead you have to flip the chicken a few times, reduce the heat, stir the onion-olive mixture, etc.  But I love me a good roast chicken and we hadn't made one in awhile, so I thought why not.  I had two recipes pulled to try (one by Ina Garten and this one by Susan Spicer) and the Spicer recipe won out because it didn't involve 4 plus hours of marinating time and spatchcocking a chicken.  Although I think if we had read both recipes fully we would have realized that in the end the Susan Spicer recipe was actually more labor-intensive than the other recipe.  But hey, there's nothing wrong with a labor of love.  And I love roast chicken so I'm willing to work at it a bit.

The biggest endorsement I can give of this dish is that Alex couldn't stop eating it.  Every time I turned around, he was eating more sourdough dipped in the chicken jus, or the onions that roasted alongside the chicken.  I think that he polished off the better part of a red onion and just under half of a very large loaf of sourdough all on his own.  And that was on top of the arugula salad and the chicken breast he ate.  He ate.  And ate.  And then ate some more.  Then he stated that roast chicken with arugula salad and some fresh bread is one of his favorite meals.  Yeah it the chicken takes a little effort to prepare, but it is well worth it.  The chicken breasts were flavorful and juicy.  Alex is going to eat the legs tomorrow for lunch so I can't attest to how they tasted, but I bet they were delicious as well.  And then there was the mix of onions, olives, lemon quarters, and garlic that we roasted underneath the chicken.  The onions were sweet and yet savory and totally flavorful.  Then there were the olives, which provided you with bursts of saltiness in every bite.  You can definitely taste the lemons - both in the chicken itself, and in the chicken jus underneath.  It's such a nice combination of flavors.

Recipe after the jump!

Tomato and Onion Salad with Tahini Dressing

When I started digging through the fridge for dinner what I was envisioning was a tomato-cucumber-onion salad.  Then I discovered we were out of cucumbers and I had to come up with a Plan B.  And Plan B involved this Tomato and Onion Salad with Tahini Dressing by Mark Bittman.  We had a ton of gorgeous tomatoes - including one yellow and red heirloom tomato from Whole Foods, and two beautiful ruby red tomatoes from the CSA.  We tried to take some pictures of them but none of the pictures we took really did them justice.  Oh well.  That's what happens when you cook at night in your NYC apartment with a desk lamp as lighting.

I liked this salad.  I thought it was light and fresh, and really different.  It wasn't perfect - I wish you could taste the lemon juice more, instead of mostly tasting the tahini.  And I think in the future we will seed the tomatoes a little because otherwise it's just gets a little too watery.  Alex said all he could taste was the parsley and he wants to cut down on the amount in the future, but as I've said before, I love parsley.

Recipe after the jump!

Sweet Corn, Spring Onion, and Heirloom Tomato Salad

 

What could possibly be more summery than corn, basil and heirloom tomatoes?  I literally can't think of a single thing.  Nor can I think of anything more delicious than fresh sweet corn in the summer.  Growing up we had corn growing in the backyard and every summer I would stuff my face with as much corn as I could possibly handle.  Yes, I know.  That's a wonderful mental image, but it's a fairly accurate description.  As far as I am concerned there are very few things that you can do to really improve upon sweet corn.  Simply steamed (or grilled) and spread with butter and salt it is delicious.  If you want to get creative you can make the Corn with Green Onion Oil that I made earlier in the week, or Mexican Grilled Corn (aka elote).  There are a lot of corn salad recipes out there that involve other summery combinations like avocado, lime, and black beans, or various other things.  But I wanted something simple that purely tasted of summer, so this was the recipe that I came up with, and summer is exactly what I got.  Alex got stuck making this dish for himself because I got held up at work after I swore I would make it home for dinner at 7:30 pm (oops - sorry hon, I owe you one).  And then he even took pictures for me.  Isn't he the best?  But this salad makes a perfect side dish - one that I will enjoy all summer long.  The combination of the corn, tomato, spring onions, and balsamic is a little on the sweet side, but in the freshest and most summery way possible.  I think it would be perfect served with some chicken paillards or some really nice seared sea scallops.  Yum.

Recipe after the jump!

Caramelized Onions

NYC is a city full of gourmet burgers and burger snobs.  There is the Black Label Burger at Minetta Tavern - a $26 La Frieda burger (made from a mix of dry-aged ribeye, brisket, and skirt steak) that is drizzled with clarified butter and topped with caramelized onions.  Then there are various other burgers that are less expensive, but are equally popular - like the Shack Stack at Shake Shack (a cheeseburger topped with a fried, cheese-stuffed portobello mushroom cap) and the burger at Spotted Pig (topped with Roquefort cheese and served with some of the best shoestring fries I have ever tasted).  And for those of us who want to cook fancy burgers at home, there are Wagyu (American Kobe beef) burger patties for sale at Fairway, and you can buy several different La Frieda burger blends online at Fresh Direct.  Also, some butchers have their own burger patties made with skirt steak, short rib, etc.  For these burgers I picked up some fancy burger patties from our local butcher, as well as some TomCat Bakery brioche burger buns and some aged extra-sharp cheddar.  Yum.  When you have burgers and buns this nice, you really need very little embellishment to make them delicious.  One of my favorite toppings for burgers at the moment is a healthy dollop of caramelized onions.  Don't get me wrong - kimchi and Korean BBQ sauce make for a mean burger, as does fresh prosciutto, mozzarella and basil, but if you're going for a more standard cheeseburger then caramelized onions are definitely the way to go.

I took this recipe from Ina Garten's Barefoot Contessa Back to Basics cookbook.  I liked that these caramelized onions didn't call for the addition of sugar (unlike some other recipes I have used in the past).  I wanted our onions to be both sweet and savory, rather than the overly sweet caramelized onions that can result with the addition of too much sugar.  I was also intrigued by the addition of sherry vinegar and fresh thyme in her recipe.  If you're looking for onions the consistency and sweetness of a chutney, these aren't your caramelized onions, but if you're looking for a nice, unique burger topping then by all means give them a shot.

Recipe after the jump!

Cornbread with Caramelized Onions, Apples and Cheddar

I know that I have mentioned my love of Momofuku Milk Bar several times on this blog.  Their soft serve flavors are amazing (if a little weird at times), and their cornflake chocolate chip marshmallow cookies are absolutely out of this world.  Speaking of their soft serve flavors, right now they have cream cheese frosting soft serve.  It is delicious topped with their carrot cake crumble or the cornflake crunch.  Run, don't walk there, if you love cream cheese frosting because it's fantastic.  Anyway, along with their cookies and ice cream, they have daily bread specials that are quite good.  A few months ago I had their cornbread, which inspired me to create this recipe.  In the past I kept my cornbread quite simple - with fresh (or frozen) corn and some cheese thrown in for good measure.  Oh and scallions from time to time as well.  This is my first attempt at a really out there cornbread.  I can't take all of the credit since I got the idea from Milk Bar, but I think I deserve at least a little credit for coming up with a pretty delicious and interesting cornbread.

Because I love buttermilk in baked goods (it makes them so moist and faintly tangy), I made this a buttermilk cornbread recipe.  I also like my cornbread on the sweeter side but because I was already adding caramelized onions and sauteed apples, I didn't want to add any sugar.  Instead I threw in some honey.  While I thought about throwing in a teaspoon or two of fresh thyme, I decided against it in the end.  Maybe in the future I will experiment with thyme in the cornbread, but this time I really wanted to taste the interplay between the cheddar, the apples and the caramelized onions.  This definitely isn't your grandmother's cornbread - it is far too funky (in a good way) for that.  The best way I can think of to describe it is to say that it is deeply rich and savory.  And incredibly moist.  If that sounds appealing to you, then give it a try!

Recipe after the jump!