DIN-NAR.

[theweaselking]

Mmmm, food.

aor's patented "America In A Pan" roast chicken, steamed artichokes with lemon and butter, steamed asparagus.

In reverse order of complexity:

Asparagus: Trim ends. Toss in steamer for five minutes. Salt, serve.

Artichokes: Trim stem to the end of the leaf cluster, put in steamer stem-down on a bed of sliced lemon. Steam 40 minutes. Serve with a dish of melted butter (splash of lemon juice optional) and a large bowl to toss leaves into.

Chicken: Stick HUGE FUCKING CHICKEN OF DEATH (seriously, the thing was 2kg! It was all they had! I will have leftovers) in a pan. Shove a quarter of a lemon (the leftovers from the artichokes) up it's ass, then fill remaining cavity with coarsely-chopped onion. Rub chicken with lots of salt, a little pepper, and a little garlic powder. Bake at 450 degrees for 55 minutes, remove from oven. If the juices aren't clear (check the pan, then test by shoving a knife into the hip joint and seeing what colour runs out) stick it back in and bake for 10 more minutes. Let stand 10 minutes, carve, serve.

Total effort required: 5 minutes of slicing and dicing artichoke, lemon, asparagus, and onion. 5 minutes, total, of working with the chicken - stuffing, rubbing, testing, carving.
Results: Perfectly tasty crisp artichokes and asparagus with a hint of lemon, tasty moist hint-of-lemon-and-onion chicken with crispy, salted skin.
Verdict: NOM.

Good cooking is *easy*, yo.

Comments

[anton-p-nym.livejournal.com]

That's awfully close to how I do my poultry, which turns out just the way my Mom made it. The biggest difference would be how I stuff the bird; put stale bread (loaf ends are fine) in a blender until roughly the consistancy of ground coffee, add diced onion, lots of pepper, and pre-mixed "poultry seasoning". Let sit in a covered bowl at room temperature for an hour to let the flavours permeate the bread crumbs, then stuff into the bird's cavity. (Pack full for chicken and turkey; pack about half-way for greasy fowl like duck.) That way the chicken only needs a salt rub, and perhaps a basting with its own juices about 10 minutes before taking it out of the oven depending upon the bird.

-- Steve also cubes and parboils some potatoes, which get added to the roasting pan about a half-hour before the bird is done to act as dirt-simple dumplings. (Even simpler if you don't bother peeling them, which adds an extra bit of flavour and maybe even some nutrition.)

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

See, that's making *stuffing*, whereas I'm not so much doing stuffing as seasoning-by-proximity.

Basting: I could have, actually. There was enough juice in the pan - but the super-crispy salted skin was amazing, and I wouldn't want to do anything to risk that.

Potatoes: Yes, I should have. Those would have been good. But I had no potatoes, and didn't think of it. I will do it for next time!

[madfishmonger.livejournal.com]

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