Saturday, February 19, 2011

Chicken Under a Cast Iron Pan

Because I didn't have a foil covered brick handy.  Cast iron skillet on the stove with a cast iron chicken fryer weighing down the chicken from the top.  The skin over the breast shrunk back a bit on this half during cooking.  No big deal.

For the bird the back bone got cut out with decent sizzors.  Then the keel bone, wish bone, ribs, and wing to the first joint were removed (nice little tutorial here).  What was left was easily sliced in two halves and seasoned liberaly with Berbere seasoning, salt,and pepper before being cooked in lard with a bit of butter, and unpeeled garlic clove, and some thyme.  Short of 10 min skin side down under weight on the stove, then flipped and cooked until done in a 450 oven.

Potatoes sarladaise style.  Peeled, sliced, and rinsed Russets.  They got dried and cooked in lard that came about halfway up the slices until crispy.  After cooking they were seasoned with salt and a mixture of chopped thyme and garlic (not too much, as evidenced by the no trace of seasoning in the pix).  Really nice side.

Sauce is veal stock reduced in the chicken cooking pan with some more salt and a pat of butter.  Nice little gravy for the potatoes.

Pretty enjoyable meal.  Simple, rustic, and all that.  Chix from Plum Creek.

4 comments:

Ed and friends said...

Did you brine the chicken before cooking?

The CFT said...

negative. i've enjoyed some great brined chicken in my life, but really like the flavor of these particular chickens as is. should probably mess around with brining them sometime though just to get a sense of what i may be missing.

QuarryLaneFarms said...

Nice work...appears to have good crust too.

Brine? Naw. We don't think you need a brine...just make sure you have a good blackening seasoning (cajun rubs). Duh.

Munchamuncha bitches

QLF

Maricar said...

So pleasing to the eyes and definitely pleasing to taste. Love it!