Category Archives: Chickens

by | April 8, 2012 · 2:45 pm

Overdo your Easter Eggs with Oeufs aux Champignons

You may, given the season, happen to have several hard-boiled eggs literally lying around your house. Or, should you not be bunny-inclined, you may simply be in the mood for a very rich, creamy, mushroomy and bacony egg dish. This one from the Junior League of New Orleans’ 1972 Plantation Cookbook has been on holiday tables in Michelle’s family for decades.

Before the Béchamel

We modernized it a bit this time, using less bacon and cheese and more interesting mushrooms.  Still, Oeufs aux Champignons are to deviled eggs what Vegas is to your corner lottery kiosk—ramped up, camped up and oozing with excess. Leave the cream eggs, chocolate bunnies and Peeps in the basket, and give your Easter eggs the resurrection they deserve.

Happy Spring!

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by | March 3, 2012 · 11:07 am

Camille Glenn, coconut custard, chickens and coyotes

Camille Glenn is a name instantly recognized by most food-inclined Kentuckians and even by some Yankees. The caterer, cooking teacher and food writer was, as noted in the Village Voice when she died at the age of 100 a couple of years ago, an “avid promoter of local, seasonal produce long before it became fashionable.”  Glenn’s The Heritage of Southern Cooking has been one of our most-used volumes and most-given wedding gifts for decades.  Michelle recently came upon a copy of Glenn’s The Fine Art of Delectable Desserts in an antique store and thought its $4 price a worthy investment.  The book, published in the early Eighties for the benefit of the Louisville Fund for the Arts Endowment, was one of what was supposed to be a series called “The Fine Art of Cooking.”  As far as we’re aware, the only other volume (at least the only other one that Michelle’s mother owned) involved salads and soups. What happened to the other culinary fine arts seems to be lost in the mists of pre-Internet history.

When flipping through her somewhat dusty purchase, Michelle settled on the recipe for “Fancy Coconut Custard” thinking it might use up some of a strangely large store of frozen shredded coconut. Also, it would use some eggs which were being laid by nine young hens at a clip of six to eight per day and threatening to crowd everything else out of our refrigerator. The last of last summer’s peach jam was a lovely addition, the peach and coconut playing nicely under a blanket of crisp meringue.

But the custards were a bit softer than we would have liked. We decided try again with some cream and an extra egg yolk for thickness, thinking we’d added yet another way to use up eggs to our repertoire. We did not realize our egg surplus was to be short-lived.

A few weeks back we lost a hen to what Michelle thought might be a fox, glimpsed as it dashed by our back porch on its way to claim a meal. Steve calmed the survivors down, alternating comforting clucks with imitation dog barks. (As a self-taught chicken farmer, Steve has some odd methods.) The flock (minus one) gathered in the fenced yard, then calmly headed out to the nearby lawn just a few feet from our bedroom window.  Thinking the beast had been scared away (helped, no doubt, by a full belly), we sat down for a light supper, discussing plans for heightened supervision of the hens including temporary suspension of their brief late afternoon ranging privileges. Less than half an hour later, Steve rose to check on the birds, and found only piles of feathers. A frantic search of our surrounding environs turned up no chickens—just the shocking realization that what we now know to have been a pack of coyotes could successfully hunt only feet away from our home. Chagrined, sobered and a bit scared of hungry canine packs, we turned our energies to finding replacement birds. Thanks to some of our local farmers we now have six old hens and will gain 15 pullets in May. By this fall we’ll most likely return to worrying about surplus eggs, but for now we’re lucky to get one per day.

Our second round of custards, seasoned with a bit of sadness, proved that an additional yolk indeed makes a more satisfying custard. But the strawberry jam we used instead of peach proved too sweet. We will have to wait until much later this year to enjoy Camille Glenn’s recipe with both home-made peach jam and home-laid eggs.  And hopefully the local coyotes will have to wait even longer for another group supper.

FANCY COCONUT CUSTARD

(adapted from Camille Glenn’s The Fine Art of Delectable Desserts) (makes 6)

1/3 c. + 8 TB sugar, divided
4 eggs, separated
1-1/2 c. milk
1/2 c. cream
pinch salt
1 t. vanilla
2/3 c. shredded or grated coconut
6 TB peach jam (or apricot jam or currant jelly), run through food processor if chunky
 

Preheat oven to 350°.

Combine 1/3 c. sugar and egg yolks and beat with electric mixer.  Warm milk and cream together, then add to sugar/egg mixture along with salt and vanilla.  Mix thoroughly, then add coconut and blend well.

Pour into 6 1/2-cup-capacity ramekins or custard cups.  Put ramekins in a baking pan.  Add an inch or more of hot water to the pan, so it come up to about 1/2 the height of the containers.

Carefully place the pan on the lower shelf of the preheated oven.  Cook until a knife stuck into the custard comes out clean.  Depending on the type of containers used and how quickly they heat, this can take anywhere from 30 to 45 minutes.

Remove from oven.  Spread about 1 TB of jam on top of each custard.

Make a meringue of the egg whites beaten with 8 TB of sugar.  Swirl onto custards.  Return to oven for 8-10 minutes until browned.

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by | October 17, 2010 · 8:03 pm

Stock & eggs—the circle of life is complete.

Faithful readers may recall that before Gourmandistan left for Gascony our nation’s population declined by 18—at least in spirit. The flesh of our flock remains in freezers, awaiting our final tribute to our former chickens. Steve is eager to try coq au vin, but he’ll have to wait for a visit from his friend Bill because Michelle has no interest in tenderizing tough yard birds. She thinks the best way to use them is simply making very delicious batches of stock. The basic idea is just to roast a chicken along with assorted vegetables, then simmering (usually overnight), straining and storing in various jars and bottles until needed for the many recipes calling for “chicken stock.”  That’s it. Our big innovation is using a pasta cooker as a stockpot—the inset strainer takes most of the carcass and vegetable scraps out immediately, making a final strain that much simpler.

While “relocating” the flock made the trip to France less stressful, at home the absence has been odd. Steve, especially, found himself still rising at dawn and becoming fidgety as dark approached, his attention drawn to the chicken yard. And it was definitely weird to give someone else money for eggs, instead of the other way round. But just as Gourmandistan could not exist without cookbooks, our land also draws its identity from chickens. Six new-to-us yet fairly generic hens arrived yesterday, picked up in the early morning at the Bardstown Road Farmers Market from Matt and Mandy Corry of Schacht Farm. The hens spent the day getting acquainted with the fenced yard (except for one adventurous lady who hopped the fence and went for an extended tour of the grounds). So now Steve once again has an explanation for his early rising, occasional twitches, and reverse-vampire-esque urges to be home before sunset. We received three fresh eggs from the hens yesterday—enough for Michelle to make a sturdy Norman Apple Tart. And we look forward to a morning in late winter or early spring, when our baby chicks will arrive. Perhaps, that evening as we listen to faint peeps coming through the garage door, we’ll make egg-drop soup.

CHICKEN STOCK

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  Roast an old chicken (or any variety of chicken pieces—necks are especially good) in a roasting pan along with several quartered onions, some halved or quartered carrots, celery stalks and a halved head of garlic.  There is no need to peel the onions or garlic, though we do peel the carrots.  Depending on how fatty the chicken is, you may want to drizzle a bit of olive oil over.  Cook for 45 minutes or so, until browned.

Put the cooked chicken, vegetables and any juices in the roasting pan into a stockpot or a pasta pot with a removable liner.  Add a bay leaf, some fresh parsley, perhaps some thyme and some whole peppercorns. Fill pot with water.  Bring to a simmer, turn down really low and let cook very slowly overnight. In the morning, the house will smell really good.  Turn off the heat and let the stock cool down a bit. Remove bones, meat and vegetables.  Strain through a sieve lined with cheesecloth.  When cooled, refrigerate or freeze.

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by | August 31, 2010 · 10:53 pm

Why, Ms. Cochin—without your feathers, you’re beautiful!

Monday’s trip to and from Lancaster was much more pleasant than the last one. Reasons included a daylight drive, a sedan instead of a truck, a working radio, and a noticeable lack of squawking, feathers or fecal smells. After a sunny drive through central Kentucky, Steve indulged in a brief walk on Centre College’s campus (anyone know what happened to the little marker that was supposedly positioned at Kentucky’s geographic center?), then drove a few minutes further to pick up the birds. The Marksbury Farm folk had everything ready—the chickens nicely sealed and labeled, brought in from the big air-chilled room Steve toured Saturday and placed in the office refrigerator. Steve stowed the chickens in two coolers, iced them down at the nearby BP station, then returned home.

"Private label"

Bagged and tagged, the chickens really have no relationship to the creatures who once roamed our yard. We may, at some point, find a particular scar or marking that identifies “Bob” or “Scabby,” but most of the birds just look like your local market selection. Before we stored them in our freezers, the birds looked wonderful—healthy skin, pink flesh, and bits of fat poking out from various places. Some are big, some are small, but all will find a place of honor and use in our kitchen this Winter. We look forward to sharing them, as we look forward to sharing more eggs from the new flock this Summer.

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by | August 29, 2010 · 10:27 pm

Good night, ladies.

One of the Bobs, with Scabby and a Faverolle in background.

Dawn on Saturday found Steve rattling by his alma mater with a truckload of sleepy, mildly-protesting chickens, on his way to Marksbury Farm Market’s new Garrard County processing facility. As we neared Gourmandistan’s temporary relocation to Gascony, it was deemed time to retire the flock. We (OK, Steve) had winnowed a few from the flock earlier this year—but after dealing with four in one day, Steve decided he was no match for nineteen.

Michelle was drowsily dragged from her bed at 4:30 a.m., assisting Steve as he grabbed the hens and placed them in a couple of cages. (The rooster went into a old cardboard cat carrier, to spare the hens certain indignities on their final journey). Blankets thrown over the still-snoozing hens, Steve set off in darkness for Lancaster, a small town in central Kentucky.

The processing had been postponed a couple of times, as Marksbury Farm is just beginning operations, and the usual start-up problems occurred. Steve, who (somewhat ashamedly) counts a giant poultry agribusiness as a former client and (in some sort of simultaneous karmic payback) was forced to take the dreaded “factory tour,” has previous experience with processing lines. He was very impressed with Marksbury Farm’s operation, which claims a “commitment to sustainable, humane, and natural production methods.” Everything seemed spotless—which, granted, may have been in part because no chicken had yet gone through the line. But unlike Steve’s Upton Sinclair Jungle-esque experience in Indiana, the workers seemed lively, motivated and excited about their new venture in more humane processing. Since yet another opening day glitch had halted the expected 7:00 a.m. start time, Steve left the chickens in a few crates alongside a few hundred more chickens scheduled for that morning. The hens seemed much calmer than the Marksbury people, who were determinedly talking of circulator pumps and V-chutes as Steve drove off toward home.

As our farmer friend Jim Fiedler says of his pigs and cattle, we feel our flock really only had “one bad day.” Many of these hens spent 4-½ years happily bug-eating, dust-bathing and generally ruining what was once our garden, delighting in daily heaps of Gourmandistan leftovers and leavings. While the younger group of Faverolles and Wyandottes never really bonded with us, “The Bobs,” “Ugly” and “Scabby” may have actually appreciated our treatment. (At least, the one Bob Steve nursed back to health with antibiotics and Band-Aids after an owl attack may have.)

It’s been quite an odd past few days in Gourmandistan. Not hearing any Chewbacca-like noises coming from the chicken yard. Seeing a larger-than-usual kitchen compost pile now that apple cores and watermelon rinds are no longer easily disposed of. And having the strange realization that nothing, absolutely nothing, is making us get up at the break of dawn, and be home by shortly after dark. This oddness won’t last. We’ve already arranged for some laying hens to keep us in a few eggs this Winter, and plan to start a new flock from baby chicks in early Spring. But for now, Gourmandistan is poultry-free—until some new birds arrive to run our lives, enjoy running our grounds, and eventually have that one bad day.

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by | August 27, 2010 · 8:52 pm

24-hour breakfast people

One of the nice things about having chickens in the backyard is that we rarely run out of eggs—which means we’re always ready for breakfast. (We’ll have fewer eggs than usual this Winter, but that’s best told in another post.) “Breakfast” isn’t necessarily a morning thing in Gourmandistan. Since we try to have Steve’s home-cured bacon around along with fresh eggs, breakfast can be the perfect answer to “What’s for dinner?,” especially if we’ve been too busy/frazzled to plan ahead. Of course, Michelle prefers that the evening meal still have some elegance, even if we’re being simple. (Steve, if left alone, will occasionally just eat a plate of scrambled—but he has trouble restraining his bachelor mentality.) One way Michelle has helped us enjoy breakfast as dinner is by deciphering The Zuni Cafe Cookbook‘s somewhat inscrutable instructions (what does “just oversaturate” mean, Judy Rodgers?) for “Fried Eggs in Bread Crumbs.” It’s a simple, tasty way to dress up a batch of eggs—and conveniently comes with its own toast.

You don't see yolks this color in supermarket eggs.

FRIED EGGS in BREAD CRUMBS

(adapted, only slightly, from Judy Rodgers’ The Zuni Cafe Cookbook)

For 1 serving:

3 TB. bread crumbs
Salt & pepper
About 2 TB. olive oil
Coarsely chopped fresh rosemary
2 eggs
About 1 tsp. sherry vinegar

Season the crumbs with salt, pepper and rosemary, then drizzle some of the oil over (“to just oversaturate them,” whatever that means).

Place the crumbs in a nonstick skillet over medium heat.  Warm the crumbs through, tossing.

Make a couple of indentations in the crumbs, and pour remaining olive oil into them.  Crack eggs into the indentations.  Cook the eggs as you like.  (We prefer over medium.)  Plate eggs and crumbs, and drizzle vinegar over.

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by | May 15, 2010 · 9:45 pm

Because sometimes you get the carrot.

Friday night, Gourmandistan served chicken and dumplings for dinner, along with a little watercress salad. The salad we threw together in a trice—Michelle’s high leaf-selection standards were the biggest delay. The chicken and dumplings? Getting that dish together took a bit over a year.

We started with several baby chicks, which grew into heritage French Houdan hens running around the yard with the rest of the flock. Actually, these Houdans spent much of their time running from the rest of the flock, pecked bare-backed and bald by their nasty and brutish coop mates, and by each other. In early Spring Steve tried to reduce the numbers of our flock by letting the chickens roam free, but even the dopey Houdans (complete with tasty-looking patches of bare chicken flesh on display) proved resistant to hawks, owls and coyotes. Once her flower beds were re-mulched, Michelle demanded the hens be confined to their fenced yard—and Steve was forced to take reduction into his own hands. Michelle’s father helped dispatch the Houdans (along with another, ancient, Red Cap hen), and Steve spent Monday morning plucking and cleaning, then putting the birds in brine. Wednesday night, we made stock from the Red Cap.

Because Michelle wanted to treat the Houdans with respect, and “honor” their place at our table, she felt the best way would be to make chicken and dumplings. So on Thursday, starting in the early afternoon, we began to prepare. Steve butchered the carcasses (more in the pejorative sense—though he may be able to behead, pluck and clean on a par with any poor Tyson worker, beautiful cuts of meat are apparently beyond him). Michelle began to prepare the vegetables and cook the meat (a four-hour process), and mix a roux for the next round of cooking.

Steve thought the house smelled heavenly, while Michelle kept on cooking. Friday afternoon, Michelle made dumplings, using chives and parsley from our herb garden outside.

Finally, everything was in the pot together—broth, chicken, vegetables, dumplings. And yes, it was very much worth the effort. That delightful meal was the goal dangling before us at every step, from plunking dumpling dough into a bubbling pot all the way back to plodding out to the coop on a winter morning. And this time, we got to eat it.

CHICKEN AND DUMPLINGS

Cut two small hens in pieces, and brown them, along with a quartered onion, in a little bit of olive oil in a large pot.  Cover with water.  Add several stalks of celery, a carrot and some parsley.  Bring nearly to a boil, then simmer for several hours until chicken is done.

Remove chicken, etc. from stock and set aside.  When chicken is cool, remove meat from bones, shredding.  Set aside.

Strain stock through cheesecloth.

Make Thomas Keller’s chicken soup, as described in one of our prior posts, but double the amount of roux to make the broth thicker.  Instead of asparagus, we added steamed sugar snap peas and some sweet red pepper, diced and sautéed in a small amount of butter.

Then make dumplings (these adapted from The Cook’s Illustrated Complete Book of Poultry):

2 c. all purpose flour
1 TB baking powder
3/4 tsp. salt
3 TB unsalted butter
1 c. milk

Mix dry ingredients in medium bowl.  Add chopped herbs if desired.  Heat butter and milk to simmer.  Add to dry ingredients.  Mix with a fork until mixture just comes together, much like biscuit dough. Roll dough out on floured wax paper to 1/2 to 1/4 inch thickness. Cut dough into strips, measuring about 2 inches long and 1/2 inch across.

Lay formed dumplings on broth, over medium high heat.  Cover and simmer for approximately 10 minutes.


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