Spork or Foon?

Broccoli and Arugula Soup

I love this soup. I often make it when I am feeling lazy and just want to throw something together quickly.  It is filling (thanks fiber-rich broccoli) and healthy, and I first discovered it when doing the GOOP detox.  I know that this detox, the newsletter, and Gwenyth Paltrow as a human being, has been the subject of much ire on the interweb, but I don't really care, because I actually loved this detox.  I didn't starve, I was often very satisfied, and I really liked the recipes that were provided. And frankly, I was able to do this after gaining seven pounds over the holidays and not only lose that weight, but lost 3 more pounds, and have kept it off ever since, despite baking and tasting constantly. I basically have introduced many more foods back into my diet, but still try to maintain the all natural, no-proccessed food way of life. Alice Waters would be proud. 

Now please excuse my while I find a way down from my soapbox. 

Bring on the baked goods!

Oh, and I sometimes like to top this soup with some cornmeal crusted shrimp (SEE!).  But don't include them if you want this to be vegan/vegetarian (obviously!)

Cornmeal Crusted Shrimp (adapted from Epicurious)

• 12 uncooked large shrimp, peeled, deveined  
• 1 3/4 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, divided
• 2 large garlic cloves, peeled, smashed

• 1 cup cornmeal
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Place shrimp, 1 1/2 tablespoons olive oil, and 3 smashed garlic cloves in large resealable plastic bag; turn to coat. Chill 2 to 3 hours, turning bag occasionally.

Stir cornmeal, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and 1/2 teaspoon pepper in medium bowl. Add shrimp; toss. Arrange in single layer on large plate.

Meanwhile, add enough vegetable oil to heavy large skillet to reach depth of 1/4 inch. Heat oil over high heat. Working in 2 batches, fry shrimp until golden brown and cooked through, about 1 1/2 minutes per side. Transfer to paper-towel-lined baking sheet and place in oven to keep warm.

Broccoli and Arugula Soup (adapted from Her GOOPiness)

1 tablespoon olive oil
3 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
1/2 yellow onion, roughly diced
1 head broccoli, cut into small florets (about 2/3 pound)
2 cups water
1 tablespoon (or more, depending on your tastes) coarse salt 
Freshly ground black pepper
3/4 cup arugula (watercress would be good, too)
2 tsp onion powder
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper (optional)
1/2 lemon (optional)
1 tsp curry powder (optional)

Heat the olive oil in a medium nonstick saucepan over medium heat. Add the garlic and onion and sauté for just a minute or until fragrant. Add the broccoli and cook for four minutes or until bright green. Add the water, salt and pepper, bring to a boil, lower the heat and cover. Cook for eight minutes or until the broccoli is just tender. Pour the soup into a blender and puree with the arugula until quite smooth. Be very careful when blending hot liquids; start slowly and work in batches if necessary. Serve the soup with a bit of fresh lemon.

TWD Rewind: Dorie's Revenge Exacting Cheesecake

Once a week, my boyfriend Jack and I get together with a few friends of ours who live in our building.  We will usually rotate cooking duties, with Chelsea and Chris (and their adorable 16 month old son, Kip, who is the smartest 16 month old child I have ever met) cooking one week and Jack and I cooking the next.  The first time, we cooked the entree and Chelsea brought with them the best chocolate mousse in the world. I'm serious. It is one of those head exploding into your brain type desserts.  And the best (worst for my diet) thing was that they left the leftovers with us!  As I am the queen of just having "bites" or only eating half of a cookie and saving the other half for the next day, I would often rise at 5:30 am and get ready to go to the gym. On my way out, I would have a spoonful of mousse.  At 5:30 in the morning. On my way to the gym.

It was so worth it.

As revenge (ok not really!), I decided to bake up Dorie's Cheesecake (click for recipe) for our next week's dinner.  I missed out when the group made this cheesecake, as I was off eating pork cracklings and gaining weight in Puerto Rico, but I heard that this cake was the cheesecake of all cheesecakes. 

I often decide that it is a good idea to start baking cheesecakes at 10 at night, realizing about an hour later that it takes about 7 hours for a cheesecake to be completely cooked and cooled before I can actually cover it and put it in the refrigerator. It never fails. So I set my alarm (twice, once to take the cake out of the oven after it's 2 + hours of cooking/resting in the oven, and then again at around 4 am to put the cake in the fridge). 

It was so worth it. The crust was thick and crunchy, and I added some cinnamon to give it some extra spice.  The cheesecake was soft, sweet, tangy and creamy and I will definitely be making this again.

I decided that I wanted to top it with something seasonal, so I decided to mix another of Dorie's recipes that I missed while I was often plumping and tanning in PR - the French Pear Tart, chosen by Dorie herself.  I poached the pears, diced them and served them on the side with this caramel sauce (which, I have discovered, is the caramel sauce to end all caramel sauces. This will forever be my go-to caramel recipe. It is what caramel should be - rich and creamy, with a deeply complex flavor). 

Chelsea and Chris loved it. And as revenge, I left it there for them to eat all week!

A HA!

OK, but I really think that I was the one that lost out. 

Sigh.

Self-Frosted Nutella Cupcakes

You make some cupcake batter. You take a tablespoon of Nutella and swirl it in. You pop it in the oven.

You have the best cupcake in the history of man.

Self-Frosted Nutella Cupcakes (adapted from Baking Bites)

10 tbsp(140 grams) butter, softened

3/4 cup white sugar

3 eggs

1/2 tsp vanilla

1 3/4 cups  sifted all purpose flour

1/4 tsp salt

2 tsp baking powder

Nutella

Preheat oven to 325F. Line 12 muffin tins with paper liners.

Cream together butter and sugar until light, 2 minutes. Add in eggs one at a time, until fully incorporated. Don’t worry if the batter doesn’t look smooth. Add vanilla. Stir in flour, salt and baking powder until batter is uniform and no flour remains.

Using an ice cream scoop, fill each muffin liner with batter. They should be 3/4 full, if you’re not using a scoop. Top each cake with 1 tbsp Nutella. Swirl Nutella in with a toothpick, making sure to fold a bit of batter up over the nutella.

Bake for 20 minutes.

Remove to a wire rack to cool completely.

Makes 12.

Alice Waters - Roast Chicken - No Drinks Needed.

As you may or may not have read a few days ago, I made (read: molested) a roast chicken straight from the Le Cordon Bleu Culinary School Lesson Plan.  Though moist and juicy, the skin on this chicken left something to be desired.

I compared it to Alice Water's Roasted Chicken, which, in true Alice Water's fashion, is much less of a hassle to make, focusing only on a few ingredients and minimal fussing (read: molesting).  The result was a moist chicken with crispy skin that bursted with the flavors of thyme, rosemary, and garlic.  This is, in my mind, what every roasted chicken should taste like. There was not a bite that was not packed with juices and flavors.

But I still can't figure out why this skin was so crisp, yet the other fell so limp and flat. I didn't buy this chicken a drink, either.

(By the way, if you don't own this book, I highly recommend it.  Some of the best meals I have ever eaten have come from this book, and all rarely contain more than 5 or 6 ingredients and are not fussy recipes, yet are full of flavor and are completely satisfying.)

Recipe - Adapted from Alice Waters - The Art of Simple Food

1 chicken weighing 3 1/2 to 4 lbs.

Several sprigs fresh thyme

Several sprigs fresh rosemary

3 cloves garlic, sliced thick

salt and freshly ground pepper

oil for the pan

Remove the giblets from the cavity of 1 chicken weighing 3 1/2 to 4 lbs.

Remove the pads of fat inside the chicken. Tuck the wing tips up and under to keep them from burning. Season, 1 or 2 days in advance, if possible.  Sprinkle inside and out with salt and freshly ground black pepper.

Put a few sprigs of thyme and rosemary under the skin of the breast and thighs and within the cavity. Add a few thick slices of garlic clove under the skin.

Cover loosely and refrigerate.  At least 1 hour before cooking, remove and place in a lightly oiled pan, breast side up.  Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.  Roast for 20 minutes, turn the bird breast side down, and cook for another 20 minutes.  The turn the breast side up again and roast until done, another 10 to 20 minutes.  Let rest for 15 to 20 minutes before carving.

TWD: Caramel Crunch Bars aka How My Head Can Explode Into My Brain.

I almost peed my pants in excitement when I saw that Whitney of What's Left on the Table (click for recipe) chose Caramel Crunch Bars pick this week.

This is my kind of snack.  I love anything with toffee and chocolate. Or caramel and chocolate. Or peanut butter and chocolate.  Or chocolate and chocolate.  

You catch my drift.

The best part was that I was able to combine this with ice cream. I would eat ice cream 12 times a day if my body could withstand it.  I rarely ever indulge full-fat ice cream, though. I usually will eat frozen yogurt. My favorite? Tasti-d-lite.  When I lived in Manhattan, I would eat a small, 4 oz serving of Tasti D Lite every single day. None of this PinkBerry tart yogurt crap. I like my frozen yogurt to taste like Ice cream! Not yogurt! It was only 10 calories an ounce (at the time. It is now 20 calories an ounce. Watch it, Tasti!  My hips don't lie!). Soft, rich and creamy, there are over 100 flavors, but only 4-6 selected flavors a day, where two of them are always chocolate and vanilla.  Whenever I go home, I go out of my way to get Tasti-D-Lite. I plan my trips around the store's operating hours. I do my research as to what store was serving which flavors.  It’s borderline pathetic.  Ok, it’s full-out pathetic. But it’s 20 calorie an ounce frozen yogurt that tastes better than the real thing!!! I dream about the day that I move back to NYC (only 6 more months!) and am once again reunited with my one true love, Tasti-d-Lite (sorry, boyfriend).

I wanted to make my own version of a creamy, rich, luxurious ice cream to go with these caramel crunch bars.  I came upon this recipe by David Lebovitz.  Salted Butter Caramel Ice Cream.  Hmmm. Salted butter? 1 cup of heavy cream? 4 egg yolks?  20 calorie and ounce yogurt this is not. Did that stop me from making it/eating it?

No.  You want to know why? Because after making it, my head almost exploded in my brain. That’s how good it is. That my head can actually go inside my brain and explode.  Amazingly creamy. Luxe. Salty and sweet. And the best part is that after two days in my freezer, it is not hard as a rock. It is still as creamy as the first day. Which is dangerous, because I was only going to allow myself to eat it on Saturday, but I hear a small voice beckoning me from my freezer.

Eat me. Eaaaaaat me. In a cone. In a dish. You can’t resist my silky goodness! 

But this post is not about the ice cream (it totally is).  This post is about these caramel crunch bars (ice cream). My thoughts?  They were pretty good. Not mind blowing like I was hoping. But very good.  The coffee flavor in the shortbread base was a nice, subtle addition. It had a great crunch to it.   And as an ice cream sandwich? 

Well, you could have a sock sandwich and still have it taste good if there is ice cream as the filling.

Click here for Dave Lebovitz’s Salted Butter Caramel Ice Cream.

And click here for more TWD shortbread! 

Bread Baking Brouhaha - Five Grain Bread with Walnuts

Well, I have joined another baking group.  I have become a member of the Bread Baking Buddies, hosted by Tanna of My Kitchen in Half Cups.  I figure that I'd hit it off with Tanna, being that we have almost the same name (minus the "e").  It is fate!

I always say that cooking is my first love, and baking is my mistress in which I have a passionate affair.  Well, if that rings true, then bread baking is like my bitter ex who keeps calling me in the middle of the night and hanging up and keying my car.  Bread baking and I do not get along, which is why I wanted to join this group.  I want all three of my loves to co-exist peacefully, a kind of culinary "Big Love" if you will.  And I hope I will.

For my first foray into this polyamorous world was a Five Grain Bread with Walnuts.  This bread is chock-full of healthy grains and heart-healthy walnuts.  I noticed that some of the bakers said that the flavor was light on the walnuts, so I increased the amount to two cups of chopped walnuts, and I am glad I did, as the flavor really came through!

My boyfriend (who would now like to not be the anonymous "boyfriend" but instead be referred to by his name, Jack) went out of town for the weekend, and I wanted him to return to an apartment filled with the smells of freshly baked bread. My mom used to bake bread when I was younger, and there is nothing like the warm scent that fills the air as the bread bakes in the oven.  I remember standing on my tippy-toes at the counter as my mother would carefully lift the bread out of the oven and place it on a rack to cool.  I would place my small hand just over the warm loaf and let the heat penetrate my skin as I breathed in deeply to take in the aroma, waiting patiently for the moment when my mother would bring the bread knife to the loaf. I would listen for the cracking sound as the knife cut through the crust and sawed out perfect slices of warm bread. I would eat the bread plain, as I wanted to taste the pure flavor and relish in its warmth, with the contrasting hard and soft textures of the crust and dough meshing perfectly in each bite.

OK, that's a lie. I don't remember my mother baking bread at all. I know she did, and I know it was good, but I didn't really have those memories. I just remember her rum-raisin ice cream, which, to this day, brings Hagen Daas Ice cream to shame. It's awesome. I've just been reading a memoirs about Ruth Reichl and Jaques Pepin, and they always have these amazing descriptions of their memories of food, so I want to make my own memories, dammit!  What if I want to write a memoir one day???

OK, I won't go all James Frey or Holocaust-Survivor-Who-Fell-in-Love-With-the-Woman-With-the-Apples -Although-It-Never-Really-Happened. I don't need Oprah reaming me out on national television.

Anyway, I carefully followed this recipe using my stand mixer.  The dough was extremely wet and sticky, so I decided to take it out and add more flour, kneading by hand.  When the dough was smooth and no longer sticky, I set it in a Pyrex bowl and let it rise. After an hour it was as high as the ceiling! I was so excited. I split the dough again and let it rise again - one in a loaf pan, the other in a round Pyrex dish. Again, it rose! I was thrilled! "This bread thing may actually work out!", I thought.  I sliced patterns into the dough and it deflated immediately, taking with it, my dreams of perfect bread.

Regardless, I placed the bread in the oven and waited. After 35 minutes, I removed the bread from oven and tried to remove it from pan.  The loaf came out easily, but the color was rather gray and dull. It wasn't looking good.  I then tried taking out the rounded loaf.  This is what happened.

Not looking so good, at all.

I soldiered on, hoping that the loaf would still make it through the battle. Ten more minutes in the oven. I said a small prayer.

Jack returned from his trip, walking into the apartment as I was photographing my bread. "Did you make that?" he asked, incredulously.  "Yes," I replied, hesitantly. 

"Can I try it?" 

I slowly handed him a slice of bread, watching intently as he bit down.  His eyes opened wide. "Baby!" he exclaimed.

"Really???" I asked, surprised.

"Baby, you should be proud of yourself! This is so good! Baking a cake is easy (umm, ok?), but you actually made bread!"

I did! I did make bread!  And it was good!

I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

Pane ai Cinque Cereali con Nod
Five~Grain Bread with Walnuts

Adapted from The Italian Baker Carol Field

.

Makes 2 9 X 5-inch loaves

2 cups walnut pieces

3 3/4 teaspoons active dry yeast or 1 1/2 small cakes (27 grams) fresh yeast

¼ cup warm water

3 cups water, room temperature

3 3/4 cups (500 grams) unbleached all-purpose flour

1 ¼ cups (125 grams) oat flour or finely ground rolled oats

1 cup plus 2 tablespoons (125 grams) rye flour

1 cup less 1 tablespoon (125 grams) whole-wheat flour

¾ cup (125 grams) brown rice flour

1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon (20 grams) salt

Toast the walnuts for 10 minutes in a 400° F oven; then chop in a food processor fitted with the steel blade or with a sharp knife to the size of a fat rice kernel. Do not grind them finely.

BY HAND:
Stir the yeast into the warm water in a large mixing bowl; let stand until creamy, about 10 minutes. Stir in 3 cups water. Mix the walnuts, flours, and salt and stir 2 cups at a time into the dissolved yeast, stirring vigorously with a wooden spoon or rubber spatula. The dough should come together easily. Knead on a floured surface, sprinkling with additional all-purpose flour as needed, until firm, elastic, and no longer sticky, 8 to 10 minutes.

BY MIXER:
Stir the yeast into the warm water in a mixer bowl; let stand until creamy, about 10 minutes. Stir in 3 cups water. Stir in the flours, walnuts, and salt with the paddle. Mix until the dough comes together. Change to the dough hook and knead for 3 to 4 minutes at medium speed until firm and elastic but still slightly sticky. Finish kneading briefly by hand on a surface floured with all-purpose flour.

BY PROCESSOR:
Make sure your food processor can handle the volume of this dough. Even when done in 2 batches, there will be 4 cups flour to be processed. Stir the yeast into the warm water in a small bowl; let stand until creamy, about 10 minutes. Place the flours and salt in a food processor fitted with the dough blade and process with several pulses to sift. With the machine running, pour the dissolved yeast and 3 cups cold water through the feed tube as quickly as the flours can absorb it; process until the dough gathers into a ball. Process 40 seconds longer to knead. Knead in the walnuts by hand on a surface floured with all-purpose flour.

First Rise.

Place the dough in a lightly oiled bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and let rise until doubled, about 1 hour.

Shaping and Second Rise.

Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface. The dough should be moist, firm, and noticeably elastic, if slightly sticky. Cut the dough in half and shape each half into an oval loaf to fit a loaf pan. Place the loaves in the oiled pans (preferably glass), cover with a heavy towel, and let rise until truly doubled and fully above the tops of the pans, 1 to 1 ¼ hours.

Baking.

Heat oven to 400° F. Slash a pattern in the top of the loaves. One baker in Milan cuts the shape of a stalk of grain on the top; elsewhere bakers make 3 parallel slashes. Bake 40 to 45 minutes; bake the last 5 to 10 minutes out of the pans on a baking stone or baking sheet to brown the bottoms and sides. Cool completely on a rack.

Pepper Fork and Salt Spoon

What is almost as good as a spork (or foon)?  These pepper forks and salt spoons. 

WANT!

Petits Pois a` la Francais - Spring Peas with Lettuce, Chervil, and Onions

The Poulet Roti was accompanied by Petits Pois a` la Francaise (Spring Peas with Lettuce, Chervil, and Onions).

According to the book, peas should be small and squeaky fresh (seriously, that sounds like an adjective from the heyday of Run DMC or Will Smith - pre Fresh Prince of Bel Air and "Gettin' Jiggy Wit It"), then simmered with pearl onions, lettuce, and chervil (I used parsley).  Here, you cook 3 cups of peas with 5 tbsp butter, a chiffonade of lettuce, and the chervil (parsley), tied into a bouquet with kitchen twine (or my method, strewn about and needing to be fished out at the end while you curse yourself for being lazy and telling yourself you should have just tied it up in the first place) with water, a tbsp of sugar, and salt for 15 minutes.

These are not the gross, soggy, floppy, smushy, vomit inducing peas of your mother, my friends.  These peas are incredible. Tender. Buttery. Sweet. I went back for seconds. And thirds. I only imagined, after watching this week's episode of Top Chef, in which Carla (My girl! She's crazy and I love her! And she represents DC! And although I'm not a proud DCer, I do live here, and it's sometimes cool, but I desperately miss NY, but seriously, Carla is nuts and loveable and if I ever see her on the street, I'm going to send her some of my love.) cooks roasted squab and peas for Jaques Pepin (can we say jealous?), where the judges swooned over the "pure perfection" of her peas.

I could only imagine that these were the peas that Carla made. Ever since I had this meal, I have craved these peas. 

I am excited by PEAS! What is my life coming to?  Is this what it means to get old?

***I also have to note that this meal was supposed to be finished up with Salade des Fruits - Fresh Fruit Salad with Cointreau - which consists of oranges, peaches, apples, pears, pineapple, bananas, lemon juice, sugar, Cointreau, kiwi, and strawberries.  After we hulled a 1/2 a pint of strawberries, skinned a peach, cored apples and pears and let them soak in Cointreau and sugar, my boyfriend decided to salt the fruit.  Now, I don't know about you, but I don't like salty fruit. Call me crazy.  But my boyfriend, being the optimist that he is, tried to convince himself that it still tasted ok. It didn't. After his third bite, he came to his senses and promptly threw out the saltfruit. 

Concombre a` la Menthe - Cucumber Salad with Mint

To me, there are few things better in life than a fresh cucumber.  Crunchy and juicy (and virtually calorie free), they are the perfect food to nibble on. So what's a great way to French-i-fy them?  Toss them in salt, yogurt, and mint, of course.

The French typically salt their cucumbers before serving them in salads, which draws out the natural moisture and heightens the taste. 

The salt definitely heightened the taste. It took away that fresh flavor, but added something I have never experienced when having cucumber, which, lets face it, can be very one note.  My boyfriend and I took two pounds of peeled cucumbers, placed them in a colander, tossed them with salt, and let them drain for 30 minutes.  We then prepared a dressing of 3/4 cup plain yogurt, red wine vinegar, ground pepper, and mint leaves (cut into a chiffonade, naturally. I think I'm going to name my first born Chiffonade. But only if I'm a celebrity. Otherwise, it would be weird.) Then, after the cucumbers have sufficiently drained, we patted them dry and tossed them with the dressing, and let them stand for 20 minutes. 

These were good, and definitely an interesting way to spice up some cucumbers. But I think I'd prefer my cucumbers as I usually eat them. Like a corn dog. 

I seriously don't know where I just got that from, but that's the image I get. They kind of are like healthy corn dogs, minus the stick and batter and mystery meat. Straight up. No? Really? No?

Poulet Roti - Roast Chicken

Inspired by Shari of Whisk: A Food Blog, I joined Whisk Wednesdays, a group made up of several fantastically wonderful, passionate women, cooking their way through Le Cordon Bleu at Home in order to save, oh, I guess $27,000 - roughly the cost of attending culinary school. So, for $20 (@$#%! I paid $50! Stupid sales that happen after I buy things), we are able to get an abridged culinary school education.

Unfortunately, I have not been able to keep up with these most dedicated women by cooking each Wednesday.  Therefore, I am working my way through the book in honor of Shari and the fellow women, but slightly out of the order in which they are doing it, and in the order in which the book was printed. 

I have to note that my boyfriend (who also is an avid cook, and whom I can thank for getting me into cooking, and who will be my sous chef while we work our way through the book) got in an argument as to the "correct way" to work through the book. I wanted to follow the outline that Shari has on her page, where she starts with knife skills, then to garnishes, doughs, and so on and so forth and follows in the natural order of which, I believe, culinary schools follow.  He wants to do it in the way the book is printed - in three parts, ranging from basic to advanced techniques.  

He won. 

I'm a bit bitter, because the girl is always supposed to win.  If you knew my boyfriend, though, you'd see that it is impossible to win in an argument with him.  It doesn't help that he is borderline brilliant, and usually right on any topic that is brought up.  And I'm glad that he doesn't keep up with reading this blog (ahem, as much as he should) unless I remind him, so he won't see that I wrote that. And I won't bother him this week about reading my posts.

Chapter One it is. I guess that the people at Le Cordon Bleu feel that roasting a chicken is, by far, the easiest cooking method there is.  I mean, you throw a chicken in a roasting pan and call it a day, right? 

Wrong.  "Not all chickens are equal in France".  Oh, really?  It seems that in France, there is some type of poultry elitism takes place, and birds from Bresse, near Lyon, are the highest priced, with free-range chickens from Perigord and the Loire Valley coming in a close second.  Well, I'm going to have to tell the French that the fine makers of Pepperidge Farm chicken, sold in the poultry aisle for ten bucks, are fantastically tender, and I won't have to do any plucking myself, thankyouverymuch.

Ingredients

5-pound chicken, giblets removed

Salt and freshly ground pepper

1 garlic clove, peeled

1 bay leaf

Several sprigs fresh thyme or 1/2 tsp dried

2 tbsp unsalted butter, softened

1 tbsp vegetable oil.

Start off by rinsing the chicken and then patting it dry. Then, season the cavity with salt and pepper and add the garlic and herbs. Then, truss the chicken. I followed the diagram very carefully.  What seems like a very easy process is actually, quite annoying.  I felt like a child trying to tie her shoe for the first time.  Bunny ear, through the loop...

After the saddest trussing job known to man, in which my boyfriend and I had to use extra twine to tie the twine that was already tied together so that it would be pulled taut (that sentence made no sense and I have no interest in trying to make sense of it, since I don't understand it myself), we proceeded rub the chicken down with butter. I mean, rub it down.  What we did to that chicken was illegal in 38 states. That butter never seemed to end. It just lasted and lasted. After 10 minutes of molesting this poor bird carcass with butter, I then had to rub it down with oil. 

The poor chicken never knew what was coming.

The chicken then roasted for an hour on 425 degree heat - 20 minutes on one side, 20 minutes on another side, then add some water, and roast until the juices run clear when pierced, 20 minutes longer.  

After removing the chicken from the pan, I finally got to cook a jus, basically a fancy French word (and seriously, what French word isn't fancy?) for juice, by cooking the particles on the top of the pan with the fat and juices in the pan. No "Gravy Master" here (sorry, Dad)! Just fat in juice! 

It's kind of like the episode of Friends where Joey drinks the fat. 

(And yes, I talk about Friends a lot. It's a great show, and a lot of life's lessons can be applied to an episode of Friends.)  

I grabbed my butcher's knife, which I have yet to use since purchasing my set of knives several months ago. My heart always skips a beat whenever I accidentally pull the butcher knife from the block, as those knives are scary. Like, "if I accidentally drop this, I'm going to sever my foot at the ankle" scary. Like "don't even enter the kitchen while this is in my hand" scary.  But I took an odd fascination with it this time around, as it was going to be put to use. So I butchered the chicken.  Literally.  This lesson obviously did not teach me how to carve a chicken.  I swung away like John McEnroe on the tennis court (not really), with the poor, massacred chicken, my tennis ball.

The final outcome? Very tender. Very, very juicy.  The jus was the most delicious jus (lets just call a spade a spade here - it is gravy) I have ever had. 

But the skin was not crispy. At all. In fact, it was very limp (can you tell from the picture? Don't lie, you totally can). It was tasty, but limp. 

I actually have roasted a chicken Alice Waters style (which I will write about later in the week as a comparison), and the skin was perfectly crisp and delicious.   But I actually can't tell the difference as to why the Alice Waters chicken skin was so crisp, but this was so limp? Alice's chicken was just lightly brushed with oil.  Was it the butter molestation? The smathering down of vegetable oil?  

Was it the chicken's revenge on me for not at least buying it a drink first?