Grill everything: Whole chicken

Inspired by my success with grilling cut-up rabbit, and by Chicken Chimehuin recipe in Francis Mallmann's cookbook "Seven Fires", I now decided to grill a whole butterflied chicken.

The recipe calls for a 2-3/4 pound chicken - they don't make these anymore, not in North America. Last time I looked in the supermarket, the organic chickens were 6 pounds and up. That time I needed a small chicken for roasting, and I didn't specifically care for organic, so I asked to bring me a few conventional ones in a hope to find a smaller specimen. They were between 6.5 and 7 pounds!

Now, this monstrosity would be very difficult to roast evenly, and it would never grill, no way! It can be BBQ'd slowly, but this was not what I was looking for. Mallmann's idea is to recreate gaucho cooking over wood fire, and he is a big enthusiast of grilling on the verge of burning, adding flavor interest with charred patches on otherwise perfectly cooked meat. Grilling simplicity, and charred, rustic grilled meats appeal to me. I sure wanted to try this. But if I attempt to lightly charr a 6-pound dinosaur that is about 50% fat, it would be completely burned on the outside and rake of burned chicken fat long before it's enormous breasts come close to the desired temperature.

I needed a real chicken! Now, I happen to have friendly farmers who raise chickens underfoot, and they would get me one of the right size and superior quality, she would even have a name and a life story - if I called them a day before, and then drove two hours to their farm (and two hours back, if there is no traffic). I'll do it some day. But this time, I didn't plan ahead again, and I needed the chicken today.

So I did the same as I did when I needed a roster: the smallest supermarket chicken that I met recently is Trader Joe's kosher chicken, and it'll have to do this time. The smallest TJ's kosher chicken that I found was a little over 3 pounds. It's obviously the same breed as all other commercial chickens, as it shares the same traits: unbelievably huge breasts for it's size, and a lot of internal fat. Also, because of some specifics of the kosher processing, it's hairy. I mean, they cannot just plunge the bird into boiling water and then use a machine to pluck it. As a result, there are always some feathers left. So expect to spend some meditative time with the tweezers finishing the epilation job.

Anyway, with most of the fat and feathers removed, my bird was approaching the desired weight of 2-3/4 pounds.

I cut it through the breast and flattened it the best I could. The breast was still protruding, Holliwood-style. Than I made a paste of rosemary, garlic, salt, pepper, and lemon rind, and massaged it into the bird, carefully lifting the skin and spreading the mixture between the skin and the meat.

I heated the grill on full power, then reduced the heat to medium, brushed the grill with olive oil, and grilled my bird for about 15 minutes per side, bone-side first, putting out the flare-ups that occurred regularly - I thought I had cut off most of the fat, no?

The weird shape of the breast-forward chicken does create a problem: the legs were well cooked and beginning to burn long before the breast was done, so I covered them with foil for the last ten minutes of cooking.
Finally, it was done as desired: moist inside, 160 degrees, charred patches and golden-brown outside. Served with olive-parsley-garlic sauce, which is a green slurry of finely minced parsley and garlic in olive oil, as the recipe suggests (I couldn't resist doubling the garlic and adding some red wine vinegar to the sauce - it's so much like chimichurri!) and preserved lemons.

It's good, and I'll do it again. But the next time, I'll do it with a real chicken.

Chicken paprikash

My friends in Beaver Creek biodynamic winery make a chicken paprikash to die for. I know their secret ingredient, and I am going to tell you in a moment. Beaver Creek guys say it’s OK to publish their secret. It’s not going to help most of us to imitate their paprikash. In fact, those of us who have access to this secret ingredient, already know the secret, and have their own recipes to die for.


The secret ingredient in the Beaver Creek winery paprikash is the chicken. A farm-raised chicken that had natural feed, a farmyard with plenty of sunshine and green grass and a comfortable barn for residence, rich social life among other free and brave chickens, and a lifelong relationship with the cook. The guy who makes the chicken paprikash is the one who bought a few days old chick from the breeder, gave it a name, fed it, protected it from the mountain lions, killed, plucked and cleaned it, and now cooks and serves it on the same day.

Other ingredients include the usual butter, onion, tomato, bell pepper, thyme, oregano, white wine, sour cream, and, of course, paprika.

I don’t have easy access to the secret ingredient. Some day, when I have a special occasion and plenty of time, I’ll drive 2 hours to the winery, buy one of their chickens, ask them to kill and clean it right away, rush it home, and make a paprikash almost as good as theirs. It will have the chicken’s name and the life story to go with it, and the wonderful old-world flavor. Some day…

For now, I don’t have the perfect chicken. But I have paprika. A Hungarian friend brought back a couple of kilos from a trip home a few days ago. I got two large bags – one sweet, one hot. Vibrant colors, sweet one pure crimson, hot – very bright brick-red; intoxicating smell; and as fresh as you get this side of the Atlantic. My own secret ingredient.

Our poor supermarket Rocky Jr. chicken is a cheap plastic imitation of what a chicken should be. Huge, super-fat, and almost tasteless. It’s a challenge to trim most fat from the thighs while still leaving the skin on, but it’s doable. On the bright side, each oversized thigh makes a perfect one serving.

I used fresh oregano instead of dried, out of sheer laziness: fresh grows right in front of the kitchen door, while dried is packed into my personal chef kit in the car; I would have to go get it. Oregano is one of the few herbs that have more intense scent when dried, so use more of the fresh when you have to substitute it for dried. Thyme is the other way: it loses scent with drying and storage, so a little fresh thyme goes a long way in recipes that call for dried thyme. I also used my homemade tomato sauce instead of tomato paste. There was only one cup left, and I didn’t want to freeze it.

Chicken paprikash
Serves 4

1 Tbsp olive oil
1 Tbsp butter
4 chicken thighs, skin on, bone in, trimmed of most fat
Salt, pepper
1 large onion, thinly sliced
1 red bell pepper, thinly sliced
1 cup white wine
1 cup tomato paste
1 tsp sweet paprika
½ tsp hot paprika
2-3 sprigs fresh thyme
5-6 sprigs fresh oregano
½ cup crème fraiche
1 tsp finely chopped parsley, for serving

Heat oil and butter over medium-high heat in a Dutch oven. Season chicken with salt and pepper. Cook , turning, to brown on all sides. Remove to a plate.

Reduce heat to medium. Add onions and bell pepper. Cook until soft, about 10 minutes.

Add wine, tomato paste, paprika, thyme, oregano, and chicken. Bring to boil. Reduce heat to low. Simmer slowly until chicken is very tender, about 1 hour. Add crème fraiche, warm through without boiling. Serve over rice or noodles (or, in my case, with steamed cauliflower), sprinkle with parsley.

Cooking for looks continued: grilled chicken

I did this rosemary and thyme grilled chicken breast with grilled baby portabello mushrooms, grill-roasted garlic, and mashed new potatoes as a homework for my food styling class. My idea was to use the subtle color variations of off-whites and golds to emphasize the old-world character of the dish. I even got one of my fancy plates, not used for two years, out of the chest.

It's amazing how fast the grilled foods sag if they are allowed to sit for a while at room temperature. One of the requirements for this weeks class was to experiment with keeping food "alive" under the camera. My chicken and potatoes had to be sprayed with olive oil and water several times, while I was setting up the camera and arranging the garnishes. The potatoes were cooked, chilled in an ice water bath, then mushed cold, with olive oil instead of butter, and still I had to spray them more than ones during the shooting, or they would dry. The chicken has grill marks one one side only, and was undercooked, to keep it looking fresh longer. The herbs were not a problem - they come from the garden, just keep cutting new ones and replace them. And rosemary and thyme don't wilt very fast anyway. the baby bella mushrooms and thebgarlic head were the worst: as soon as you take them off the grill, they begin to dry and wrinkle. Water and more water.

And then I messes it all up overdoing the lemon...