*** finding the entertainment in everyday life ***

Tuesday, January 5, 2010

Cooking Day: Braising and Baking

On Tuesday, I had a braising and baking day. Yeah!! Oh, cooking-love, I'm coming back to you. I had read some gushing reviews of Jamie Olivers Chicken in Milk in The Kitchn and on SmittenKitchen, I think, so I gave it a whirl in my new-ish heavy dutch oven. It was very simple (brown the bird in butter, throw all the ingredients in the pot, and cook), had an interesting and v. yummy combination of ingredients (lemon zest, cinnamon stick, garlic, and milk), and turned out 1/2-way good. The skin, from frying it in a stick of butter essentially, was delish. The dark meat was really perfect - moist, soft, fell off the bone. The white meat, however, was dry. Boo. It might be because I accidentally cooked it breast down, but you'd think being submerged in the cooking liquid would prevent dryness? I guess not. I will try it again flipped over and see what happens.

Since the oven was already on for 2 hours, I also made Molly Stevens Braised Cabbage from All About Braising. The recipe was typed out on the Orangette blog, sans the poached egg. I've made this before with a variation which adds balsamic before the last uncovered roasting step.

Finally, continuing on my biscuit journey, I made Cheddar Sage Biscuits from Everyday Food. I cannot believe how easy biscuits are and even people who are dough-challenged, like myself, can manage to whip out some of these. I baked 4 of them and froze the rest raw to bake on demand later on. I threw those in the toaster oven since the big oven was occupied. I made some Yukon mashed potatoes to use up some of the leftover buttermilk. I'll have to either make more biscuits or more chicken to finish the b.milk or maybe I can find some room in the freezer (doubt it) and will just save it. Dying for an extra freezer...

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