Margo's Feast

This is a great recipe for a “straw widower” – a husband left alone by a traveling wife, usually with a fridge full of incongruous ingredients – it’s quick and simple, and really fills you up. Of course it could just as easily make the main course of an impromptu dinner party. The tangy flavors go well with a nice dry white wine, but an ice cold lemonade would do just as well.

Ingredients (four servings)

• 16 oz. (about 500g) bag of hard semolina pennette (or any other pasta in a pinch)
• 2 medium onions
• 1 clove garlic
• 8 oz. (about 200-250g) hard feta cheese (both cream cheese and farmer’s cheese will work more or less, though you’ll have to add additional salt)
• 4 plum or similar tomatoes

Bring a pot of lightly salted water to a boil, add the pasta and let it cook until it is al dente – cooked but still quite firm. While it is cooking, slice the onions thinly and glaze them in a large skillet over a medium-low flame. Slice or press the garlic and add it to the onion once it begins to caramelize, then turn off the flame, being careful not to overcook the garlic. When the pasta is done, drain and place it in the pan with the onion, and crumble in the feta. If your skillet is not big enough, use a separate bowl. Mix well, until the cheese becomes creamy and coats the pasta. Serve with plum tomato wedges for color and extra zing.

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I was never big on the Sunday lunch thing. Never really warmed toward Sunday, so if I’m going to cook big and enjoy it has to be Saturday. And if it’s a snowy, windy Chicago Saturday and I’m not dragging the kids to museums, movies or other assorted activities – roasted chicken it is. Since I discovered how easy it is to roast a whole chicken a few years ago, I haven’t stopped. I’ve marinated chickens with spices, honey, Coke, homemade barbecue sauce, molasses, mustard – you name it, I’ve done it. I’ve done it Greek style with lemons, Thai with coriander and ginger, Italian with olive oil and oregano, Bulgarian stuffed with sauerkraut (yes, it’s not only a German patent) and more. The last thing you can say about roasted chicken is that it’s boring! If I had to give up meat, I think roasted chicken would be the thing I’d truly miss.

There are a few requirements for a flavorful, juicy bird. First, it better be fresh, not deep frozen. Second, buy the best you can afford – organic, free range – it really makes a difference. It has less fat, is smaller and much tastier than the monstrous mass-farmed pterodactyls stuffed with more hormones and drugs than a Tour de France cyclist. Third – stuffing soft butter mixed with salt and fresh herbs like sage or thyme under the breast skin will help to eliminate white meat dryness. I don’t use butter on top of the skin as I don’t trust my oven (I suspect the temperature inside is higher than it is supposed to be) and want to avoid burned butter solids on my perfect roasted chicken. I sprinkle it with salt and baste it with olive oil. Lemon or orange juice, honey or red paprika make the skin beautifully golden and crunchy. Sea salt flakes are best for roasting as they dissolve slower and penetrate the meat deeper than regular salt.

I always stuff something in the cavity – lemon halves, apples, quartered onion, garlic, fresh herbs – whatever I have or all of the above. They are for flavor, so I don’t bother peeling or coring them.

Last Saturday it was time to try a Georgian recipe (the country, not the state) from Nigella Lawson’s “Feast”. Georgia’s cuisine is one of my favorites – the grilled meats, pungent spices, fresh herbs and amazing red wines always fascinated me – not to mention the people’s temperament. Some dream about visiting India or Japan – I dream about Georgia.

The chicken is stuffed with rice cooked similar to pilaf – with sauteed onions and dry fruits. I didn’t have sour cherries so I used cranberries instead and added chopped fresh mint to the required parsley. I did alter the recipe a little. I doubled the amount of rice as it sounded so good and the chicken was only 2 ½ pounds (around 2 kg), able to hold only about two cups of the cooked stuffing. I also took the liberty of chopping the liver and heart in to the rice – I don’t believe that any Georgian cook would throw those out. A simple cabbage and carrot salad and chocolate cake rounded out the Saturday lunch. There were five of us and I still had chicken leftovers for school lunch.

Here’s how it’s done:

• 1 4-5½ lb chicken (2-2½ kg), preferably organic or free range
• 2 tbsp soft butter
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• salt, red paprika (optional)

For the stuffing

• 2 tbsp butter
• the fat cut from the chicken cavity (optional, but highly recommended)
• 1 small onion, chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, chopped
• ¼ cup roughly chopped dry sour cherries or cranberries
• 1 ½ cups jasmine rice (or any other white long grain rice)
• 3 cups water
• ½ cup (one handful) chopped flat leaf parsley or mix of it and fresh garden mint
• salt, black pepper

Wash and pat dry the chicken and place it in the fridge without cover until the rice is ready.

Preheat the oven to 425°F (220°C)

For the stuffing, melt the butter and chicken fat in a pot, add the onion and garlic and saute over medium heat until soft, 10-15  minutes. Add the dry fruit and rice (and chopped liver and heart if using) and mix well until the grains are glisten from the fat. Pour the water, add salt and cover the pot. Turn down the heat to a simmer and cook for about 15 minutes or until all the water is absorbed. Try for seasoning, add salt if needed. Add freshly ground black pepper and the chopped herbs and mix with a fork.

Stuff as much rice as possible in the cavity and secure the opening with cocktail sticks. Mix the soft butter with ¼ tsp salt and massage between the breasts and the skin. To do that place the chicken with the cavity opening towards you, push your fingers lightly between the skin and the breast, being careful not to tear the skin. When you separate those, take some of the butter and slide it under the skin. Repeat until all the butter is gone. Salt the chicken generously, baste it with the olive oil all over and, if you wish, sprinkle with red paprika. Place breasts up in a roasting pan just big enough to hold the chicken. The oven rack should be positioned in the middle. Roast for 1½ hour. Check by piercing the space between the leg and the body. If the juices run clear the bird is done. The skin is crispy and golden, the stuffing is absolutely delicious and nobody will ever tell you that roasted chicken is boring.

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After using them in salads, and roasting, and stewing them, I was still left with several colorful peppers from my last trip to the farmers market at Lincoln Square. With only a day until my next expedition I had to utilize the leftovers, and stuffing them sounded like a good idea. This is also the only way my kids will touch them, so stuffed peppers it was. This dish is a regular feature in my mother’s kitchen and though it may be a little old fashioned, I love cooking them. Like vegetable casserole, stuffed peppers are even better the next day, when the juices from the meat and the peppers have time to mingle. The same goes for stuffed grape or cabbage leaves.

I mostly use a mix of beef and pork minced meat, but if you are porkophobe go just for the cow. I’ve made them with chicken breast, but that never really worked for me – too dry, too flat. The meat choice is important. I use lean beef without antibiotics and hormones from Trader Joe’s and fresh rosy pork mince from the corner Polish deli (Poles really know their pork). If you have a butcher nearby where you can have the meat minced to order that’s the best deal. I would go for a pork shoulder and beef roast. The shoulder has just the right amount of marbled fat to make the stuffing tasty and juicy and you don’t need to use a lot of oil.

The tomatoes add an extra acidity to the whole mix and the carrot – sweetness. You can play with the spices – for a more Middle Eastern experience you can add ¼ tsp cinnamon and ½ tsp powdered cumin seeds. You can substitute cilantro (coriander) for the flat Italian parsley or fresh thyme for the dried sage. As for the rice – don’t worry that there is no extra water added to the stuffing – it will cook just fine soaking up the meat and tomato juices.

The stuffing will also work for stuffing tomatoes, zucchini or eggplants. Sometimes I mix my vegetables for a more dramatic effect.

The stuffed peppers I made today were supposed to last until tomorrow. They didn’t. Next time I should plan better and make more than 12!

Stuffed sweet peppers

• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 3 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 carrot, grated
• ½ cup jasmine rice (or any white long grain rice)
• 1 pound minced lean beef
• 1 pound minced pork
• 2 big plum tomatoes, cut in half and the flesh grated (or 4-6 Roma tomatoes)
• 1 tsp dry sage
• ½ tsp smoked Spanish paprika (or regular sweet paprika)
• salt, black pepper
• 1 handful flat Italian parsley, chopped
• 2 tbsp olive oil, divided
• 1 cup water
• 1 big plum tomato, flesh grated (optional)
• 8 bell peppers or 12 long sweet banana or Mediterranean peppers, the tops cut and deseeded

Heat 1 tbsp olive oil in a big frying pan and saute the onion, garlic and carrot for 4-5 minutes. Add rice and stir for a minute. Add the minced meat, season with salt and pepper, the sage and smoked paprika, and cook for a few minutes mixing well and breaking up the meat lumps that will form. When the meat starts to brown, add the grated tomatoes and cook until juices reduce by half, another 5-7 minutes. Turn off the heat, check the seasoning and add the parsley.

Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C), with the rack positioned in the middle. Sprinkle the insides of the cleaned peppers with some salt and spoon in the stuffing, carefully forcing it in if using the long variety (I use the spoon handle to push the meat mix to the end). Place them tightly in a broad baking pan, big enough to hold the peppers. They don’t need extra space in between as they’ll shrink a little during the cooking. Pour the water on the bottom, sprinkle with salt and the second tbsp olive oil, cover loosely with heavy duty aluminum foil and cook for 30 minutes. Uncover and cook for another 30 minutes or until the peppers are soft and slightly browned. Turn off the oven, cover with the foil again and leave in for 15-20 minutes before serving. You can spoon some thick Greek style yogurt on the plate and dig in.

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