A few weeks ago on a very rainy Saturday night, we decided to stay in and Jeff cooked up some great comfort food – roast chicken, green beans, and mac & cheese. Yum!
Roast Chicken
First and most important step – buy a good chicken. We picked up a nice organic free-range bird from WholeFoods.
Next step – truss the chicken properly. Thomas Keller’s Ad Hoc at Home has good instructions as well as some nice pictures (actually the whole book has some really beautiful pictures – it’s worth checking out for the pics alone!)
Then season and dress up the chicken as you like. Jeff put put some lemon slices, rosemary, thyme, and butter inside the cavity. He buttered the outside of the bird and added some lemon zest, rosemary, thyme, salt, and pepper.
Finally, roast the chicken. Start chicken back-side up at a high temperature (425F) for about 15 minutes, then rotate to breast-side up at high temperature (425F) for about 15 minutes, then reduce oven heat to 375F and roast for about 1 hour.
Green Beans Almondine
Green Beans Almondine is actually pretty simple to make. A few years ago, Jeff and I took a cooking class at The Chopping Block in Chicago and this was one of the things we made.
1 pound green beans, ends removed
2 tablespoons butter
1/2 cup slivered almonds
Salt and Pepper to taste
Bring a pot of water to a boil and add a large pinch of salt. Blanch the beans until they are crisp and tender, about 2 minutes. Shock the beans in a bowl of ice water to stop the cooking process. Remove from the water set aside.
Heat a saute pan over medium heat and add the butter. Cook the almonds until they are golden brown. Add the beans and toss to coat. Sean to taste with salt and pepper and serve.
Mac & Cheese with Bacon and Truffle Oil
This dish was inspired by the Mac & Cheese at Bouchon Bakery. We can’t remember the exact recipe, but it went something like this…
For the cheese sauce – make a roux with flour and butter, add milk and simmer, then add cheese (Brie, Parmesean, and Mascarpone). Add cheese sauce to cooked noodles along with bacon and truffle oil. Put some bread crumbs on top and bake. Make sure there is a lot of cheese sauce! We learned this the hard way – thinking there was too much sauce (seemed kind of soupy), we scooped some of it out – bad idea – the mac & cheese dried out while baking. Luckily we kept the extra sauce and added it back after baking.
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