Fall into Winter

Wine: Anglim 2003 Grenache Vista Creek Vineyard

We had a transitional dinner. Our last Persimmon and Pomegranate salad of the season. We used goat cheese in it that we purchased at the Cheese Store of Silverlake. Combined with arugula and Saba it was a delicious salad. Next year we make it again for the month or so that Persimmons and Pomegranates are in season.

For the main course we made a great warm cold night dish. It was Chicken Roasted with lots of Garlic and Onions and potatoes. Under the skin was stuffed breadcrumbs, preserved lemons we had previously prepared and lots of butter.
The recipe was from the New York Times and can be found here.

THE CHEF: LAURENT TOURONDEL; A Bird With a Secret Under Its Skin

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By DANA BOWEN (NYT) 1463 words
Published: February 23, 2005

IT was as good and lazy a day off as Laurent Tourondel could have wished for.
His cellphone was dead. The land line in his Harlem apartment went unanswered. And in his living room, his cousins, just in from his hometown of Montluçon, France, were zoning out to a cheesy show on French cable.


Mr. Tourondel, the chef of BLT Steak and BLT Fish, unpacked groceries in his kitchen, a sun-flooded workspace dominated not by an industrial stove or Sub-Zero refrigerator but a candy-apple-red 1950's-era Lambretta motor scooter and abstract food art.

''When I'm tired of eating in restaurants, I make this,'' he said, shuffling around in casual clothes and black leather loafers. ''Something normal.''

Normal, to this chef publicly celebrated for steak and fish, is roasted chicken, with bread pudding for dessert.

The chicken, stuffed with a piney mix of preserved lemons and rosemary, has been on the menu at BLT Steak since Day 1. It is seldom ordered. ''People come to eat meat,'' he reasoned, and so the chicken that does not sell is reborn as ''family meal,'' the preshift dinner communally devoured by line cooks, servers, hosts, bartenders, coat checkers and the chef.

He scoffs at the notion that chicken is boring and frees a plump Perdue oven roaster from its plastic wrap. At the restaurant he uses organic Amish birds, but at home, come on, he shrugs: ''It's what you get in the neighborhood. It's fine.''

Besides, preserved lemons improve just about anything, he said, reaching in the back of his refrigerator for a Mason jar of citrus swimming in spice-strewn, saffron-colored brine. These were homemade, but at the restaurant he uses Kalustyan's black-sesame-speckled version.

Fishing out a shriveled lemon, stained red and smelling of star anise and cumin, he declared its affinity for vinaigrettes. ''With fish it's really amazing,'' he added.

He washed the chicken, patted it dry and snipped off the wings -- '' the best part to eat, actually,'' he said -- setting them aside. His fingers stretched under the skin, separating it from the breast meat.

He grabbed some butter, which he had placed on the stove to warm over the pilot light. He wanted it ''soft but solid, so that the stuffing can stay under the skin.''

With a spoon he mashed the butter with minced preserved lemon and rosemary and some store-bought bread crumbs. When everything clumped together into a solid paste, he shoved handfuls of it under the skin.

Mr. Tourondel said he does not think of stuffing the way most Americans do. ''It's better than stuffing the inside,'' he argued, patting down the paste. ''It's actually in contact with the meat.'' The butter melts into the breast, bringing the flavor with it.

He opened a bag of organic fingerling potatoes and washed them.

''In America it's organic this, organic that, because it actually tastes better than the regular product,'' he said, slicing them in half into a huge cast iron roasting pan. ''In France we just use good products.''

A head of garlic got a rough chop, onions were sliced, and all of it was tossed with olive oil and more rosemary between his fingers. For looks, he tied up the chicken, weaving six feet of twine around a tucked-in neck and clenched legs. He placed the chicken in the pan on top of the wings with the vegetables nestled around it and slid it all into a hot oven. He was onto the bread pudding in a beat.

''So easy,'' he said. ''So fattening,'' he added. But the first time he made it, with standard custard, it was also ''so boring.''

Living in Harlem has its culinary advantages. ''I actually went to the supermarket and saw all the Goya products,'' he said. ''Very cool actually.'' The coconut milk reminded him of a coconut custard he had tried at a cuchifrito spot around the corner on 116th Street. He bought a can, added it to the cream and relished its subtle tropical notes, which he underscored with a jigger of rum.

Earlier that day he layered thin challah slices, which reminded him of brioche, in his grandmother's old terrine and another odd little earthenware crock. ''You can use anything,'' he said of the pans, and poured the boozy mix of eggs, sugar, cream and coconut milk over the top. He baked it in a bain-marie, and now was torching the sugar-sprinkled top.

When you're standing downwind of a roasting chicken -- particularly one slathered with citrusy saffron butter -- it can seem an eternity before it is done. The chef paced, opened the oven every so often, basted the bird and sprinkled on more salt. The skin bubbled into a crackly burnished sheath; the potatoes were tinged yellow with preserved lemon juice.

''Even if it looks like your potatoes are not cooked, take out the chicken,'' he said, stabbing a knife between the thigh and breast. ''So long as it doesn't run pink, it's done.''

He moved the bird to a platter, and the vegetables went under the broiler to caramelize. ''See this,'' he said, pointing to an onion curled crisp and brown, ''that's what you want, just before it burns.'' He scooped the potatoes onto the platter with the chicken and started carving.

''My grandmother used to make it on Sunday, in a charcoal oven,'' Mr. Tourondel recalled as he worked. ''You could smell it from outside.''

His grandmother, Louisette Tourondel, is never too far from his kitchen discourses. But a few weeks after this meal Mr. Tourondel abruptly returned to France to share her last days. She is survived by a lifetime of recipes, and so many people's enjoyment of them, in New York and in France.

Roast Chicken with Preserved Lemons
Adapted from Laurent Tourondel
Time: 1 hour 45 minutes

1 6 1/2- to 7-pound chicken
6 ounces (1 1/2 sticks) soft butter
2 tablespoons chopped fresh rosemary
3 tablespoons finely diced onions, plus 2 large onions, sliced
1/4 cup finely diced preserved lemons (available at Middle Eastern markets and specialty food stores)
1/2 cup fresh bread crumbs
Salt and pepper
3 pounds unpeeled fingerling potatoes, cut in two lengthwise
8 large garlic cloves, peeled and halved
1/4 cup olive oil.

1. Heat oven to 375 degrees. Using a cleaver, chop wings from chicken at joint closest to breast; reserve.
2. In a medium mixing bowl, combine butter, one tablespoon rosemary, diced onions, lemons and bread crumbs to form a thick paste. Using your fingers, separate skin from breast of chicken, and slather mixture under skin about 1/2 inch thick. Sprinkle skin liberally with salt.
3. Place wings in a roasting pan, and place chicken on top. In a large mixing bowl, combine remaining rosemary, the potatoes, garlic, sliced onions, olive oil, and salt and pepper to taste. Toss to mix well and add to pan around chicken. Roast, occasionally basting chicken and tossing potatoes, until juices run clear when chicken is pierced with a knife at joint of leg, about 1 1/2 hours. Carve and serve each portion with some seasoned skin and potatoes and onions.
Yield: 6 servings.

Coconut Bread Pudding
Adapted from Laurent Tourondel
Time: 45 minutes plus one hour's resting

6 large eggs
1 1/8 cups sugar, more for topping dish
2 cups heavy cream
1 13 1/2-ounce can coconut milk
2 tablespoons dark rum
10 slices challah or sliced brioche, 1/3.-inch thick.

1. In bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a whisk attachment, combine eggs and 1 1/8 cups sugar. Mix until smooth. In a small pan, bring cream to a boil. With mixer running at medium-low speed, slowly add hot cream. Add coconut milk and rum, and mix again just until smooth. Allow mixture to rest at room temperature for one hour.
2. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Fill a kettle with water and place over high heat to bring to a boil. In an 8 1/2-by-12-inch baking dish, arrange challah slices so they overlap in two columns. Pour custard evenly over top, and press down lightly with a spatula. Place dish in a large, deep pan, like a roasting pan. Carefully pour in boiling water so that it comes about halfway up the sides of baking dish. Bake until custard is set but not too firm, 30 to 35 minutes.
3. Sprinkle liberally with sugar, and caramelize it with a kitchen torch or by placing it under a broiler for 2 to 3 minutes. Serve, scooping out individual portions.
Yield: 8 servings.