Chicken Stock

Chicken stock is definitely a kitchen staple, and something that can be made with very little effort using only leftovers and a few extra vegetables.  A very versatile ingredient, this stock forms the base of many soups (like chicken, butternut, and carrot) as well as providing a more flavorful and nourishing cooking liquid for things like potatoes and quinoa.

We start with a large pot that looks like this...

Ingredients:

• 3 average sized chicken carcasses; picked free of meat
• 3 large carrots cut into chunks
• leaves and other leftovers from a head of celery
• 2 onions, cut into quarters
• 1/2 cup vinegar

1.  Save cleaned chicken carcasses (the leftover bones, skin, etc...from roasted chicken makes excellent fodder for the stock pot) in the freezer until you have enough to make stock.  In my 16 quart stock pot, I prefer to use 3-4 carcasses, but you can always make a smaller amount of stock from a single chicken.
2. Put carcasses in a large pot and fill with cold water and vinegar.  Bring this just to a boil and reduce to a simmer for several hours, skimming any scum that rises to the surface.
3. Add vegetables to the pot and bring back to a boil.  Simmer for another 18-24 hours before straining through cheese cloth.  Place the strained stock someplace cool in order for the fat to solidify.  Remove the fat from the stock, bring to a boil again, and then prepare for your recipe or for storage.  I like to store it frozen in pint and quart sized glass jars in my deep freezer.

...and after 24-20 hours of cooking, looks like this.  Ready to strain.

Buffalo Chicken Calzones

I'm not always around to make sure that Christa has something hot, fresh, delicious, and also nutritionally solid to help keep her going through the day.  Some days I don't get to see her at all (these aren't great days), and I wanted to cook something that would store easily in the freezer and take minimal effort to convert into a hot and satisfying winter meal...something that she could just grab frozen and toss in the toaster oven in between teaching swimming lessons and skiing lessons.  What I came up with is a variant of one of our favorite types of pizza that we had made last summer, but rather than make a bunch of little fragile and messy pizzas, I opted to roll them up into sandwich sized calzones.


I whipped up a batch of my favorite pizza dough and roasted a chicken the day before I was planing on actually making these.  The dough needs to rise overnight, and I find it much easier to work with leftover chicken that has cooled down (also the whole-bird roasting process makes it taste so much better than quick cooking chicken parts).




So to start, we have some dough that has come to room temperature:

This will make about 12 individual calzones

...and also some cleaned chicken meat that is a little bit colder than room temperature:

Oh the possibilities....

Now would be a good time to put a pizza stone in the oven and turn that oven up to 500F.  It's hot, but you really need a hot oven to pull off bread.  I have seen plenty of failed breads due to a fear of the application of serious heat.  While the oven heats up and the dough is resting, combine some cayenne pepper sauce, butter, and black pepper in a small saucepan like so:

Rich and spicy...at least, it will be soon. 

Melt the butter while stirring every now and again until you have a buffalo sauce:

It really is that easy

Calzones need cheese...some kind of cheese.  For these I selected a buttermilk blue raw milk cheese:

This is entirely gratuitous....and so delicious.  Just enjoy it.

Now, it's time to actually make these calzones...mini strombolis...pizza sandwiches...whatever.  Assemble all of the ingredients:

rock and roll

Cut the dough into twelve or so small portions, depending on how large or small you would like the calzones.  I recommend going for 10, as I am making in this recipe.  Roll each ball of dough out very, very flat:

 

...and cover with toppings.  Resist the urge to pile them sky-high, or you will never be able to fold these things up and transfer them to the oven.  Show a little constraint with the filling and the results will be better for it.

that's about all this thing can hold without bursting

Fold the dough over and pinch it together in as neat or a shape as you can.  Some of these are neater than others, and while I would like to say that the messier looking ones were the first ones, I'd be lying...so I'll blame trying to do all of this while operating a camera.

it's not a tumor!

Once you have transferred the closed but yet uncooked calzones to a sheet pan that has been heavily dusted with corn meal (to prevent them from sticking to the pan and also later on in the oven), brush them lightly with oil, top with a pinch of sea salt, and then cut some small slashed in the top to allow the steam to escape (but not the cheese).

oiled and ready for heat treatment

Put the lumpy little loaves into your oven directly on the hot stone for about 10-12 minutes.  Because my goal was to make a sort of healthier option to a "hot pocket", I undercooked them ever so slightly so that they could finish browning in the toaster oven.  Let cool completely before wrapping in foil and then sealing tight in a freezer bag for cold storage.

Buffalo Chicken Calzones

• pizza dough (that's a good recipe)
• cooked chicken meat (some leftover roast chicken would be perfect)
• 1/4 c butter
• 1/4 c cayenne hot sauce
• 1/3 lb or so of a very good blue cheese
• olive oil
• salt
• corn meal

1. Take dough out of cold storage and let warm at room temperature for about two hours.  Put your pizza stone into your oven and bring the temperature up to 500F.
2. Meanwhile, combine the butter and hot sauce in a saucepan and just melt to combine.  Shred the chicken into bit size pieces and crumble the cheese likewise. 
3. Divide the dough into about ten small balls, and roll them out very flat and thin.  Top with chicken, cheese, and sauce.  Fold over and crimp.
4. Set uncooked calzones on a tray, brush lightly with olive oil and salt.  Cut slits in each calzone to let steam escape.  
5. Put the calzones in the hot oven directly onto the stone for about 10 minutes.  You should just ever so slightly undercook these if you are planning on storing them for future meals as I did here, because they will finish browning when they're in the oven or toaster oven later on.  Dust the stone with corn meal prior to laying the calzones on it to prevent sticking.

Whenever you want a hot cheesy pocket of goodness, just pop one of these straight from the freezer into a 375F oven or toaster oven until it is slightly more toasted and heated through.  Enjoy, whether making them for yourself or the one that you love.

-J

Roast Chicken

There's something about a whole roasted chicken that ultimately is just so much more than the sum of any of its parts.  Sure, we cook the breasts (boneless and skinless if we're not interested in pleasing the palate), chicken thighs/legs, and of course one of our favorite meaty snacks: buffalo wings.  However, when a whole bird with all of the bones and skin and connective tissue is allowed to come to perfection in a hot fragrant oven, something almost magical has happened.  The best part of all is that it really takes very little effort on the part of the cook to do this right. 

Pouring the cold brine over the raw chickens the night before

I like to plan in advance for roasting whole birds, as I am a proponent of brining overnight.  To do so, clean your chickens and remove any organs from the cavity.  Place them in a nonreactive vessel (glass or stainless work well enough for this) that is large enough to completely submerge them.

The brining fluid that I use is simply a base of 1/2c of coarse salt for every 2 cups of water, along with an acid component.  For these chickens, I added some lime slices and apple cider vinegar (about 3 tablespoons) along a generous pinch of whole peppercorns.  Into the fridge they went for about 10 hours.

Once the process of brining is complete, simply remove them from the water solution (which you should discard) and them pat the skin of the chickens dry.  It's important that the skin be very dry before you proceed, so I toweled off the birds and then let them sit uncovered in the fridge for another two hours to finish evaporating any liquid on the surface of the skin.

Butter and herbs blended together

During this time, I began to make a flavored butter rub to apply to the chickens.  To do so, I simply took a large pat of pastured Irish butter and melted it in a makeshift double boiler consisting of a small glass bowl within a larger bowl full of boiling water.  To the melted butter I stirred in dried herbes de provence, coarsely ground black pepper, and some grey sea salt.  I set this aside while preparing the assembly of the birds for roasting.

Everything laid out and ready to begin

Buttered up and stuffed...ready for the oven

I turned the oven on to 450 F and then set about prepping the birds.  I lined a large roasting pan with foil to make cleanup a bit easier, and then proceeded to loosely stuff cilantro into the body cavity of the chickens and brush the melted herb butter all over the skins.  The skin should be dry in order to facilitate the adhesion of the butter mixture, which will stick quite nicely when it solidifies on contact with the cold skin of the chickens.  The herbs inside should not be packed tightly, but rather left loose enough to allow heat to circulate freely while providing delicious aromatic flavors to the chicken.  Cilantro is what I chose here because I had it on hand, but rosemary is another classic herb that lends itself very well to this purpose.  The contents of the body cavity will be discarded when the chicken is done, either way,. but they will impart lots of flavor to the meat of the chicken while they steam inside of it.


Pop the birds into the 450 degree oven for 10 to 15 minutes.  This initial high temperature will help to brown the nicely oiled dry skin.  After that, turn the temperature down to 350 and continue to roast for 20 minutes per pound.  As these birds weighed about 4 lbs each, they stayed in the oven for 80 minutes until the meat thermometer registered 165F in the thickest part of the chicken.

This method doesn't require any foil shielding or flipping (trying to roll a hot bird over right out of the oven is a hassle that I never want to deal with again).  The skin crisps up right away and seals in the moisture of the meat.  When you remove them from the oven, be sure to let the chickens rest for at least 20 minutes lest all of those juices run right out when you start to carve them. 

The smell doesn't make the resting period any easier.

While you can certainly enjoy a roast chicken for dinner as-is with a side, I like to reserve the meat for other dishes that I would like to put chicken in (like soup and pizzas).  Whatever you do, I would highly recommend saving the carcasses to make stock with!  We'll talk more about all of those things in a future post, though.

Roast Chicken

1. Clean the chicken.
2. Brine the chicken overnight in a solution of 1/2 cup coarse salt, 2 cups water, lime slices, apple cider vinegar, and peppercorns.
3. Remove the chickens from the solution, discard liquid, and pat dry. Let the bird uncovered in the fridge sit for about 2 hours to allow excess moisture to evaporate.
4. When the chicken is almost ready, melt butter and stir in dried herbes de provence, coarsely ground black pepper, and some grey sea salt. Set aside.
5. Preheat oven to 450º.
6. Stuff the bird with cilantro and coat generously with the butter mixture.
7. Bake for 10-15 minutes, until browned.
8. Bake at 350º for 20 minutes per pound. Internal temperature should reach at least 165º.
9. Remove from oven and let sit for 20 minutes.
10. Discard cilantro.
11. Serve or prepare as desired, reserving carcass for stock.