Mark Bittman's Quick and Easy Recipes from the New York Times (21 page)

• Cook 1 tablespoon or more of chopped garlic with the onions.

• After cooking, puree the onions and their liquid in a blender for a creamlike sauce; use it to top the chicken.

MAKES 4 SERVINGS

TIME: 40 MINUTES

THIS IS JUST
one of several great poultry dishes from the area around Lyon, a region whose famous poulet de Bresse was long considered by many to be the best chicken in the world. Chef Paul Bocuse learned poulet au vinaigre as a youth and, some years later, showed considerable audacity by putting what is essentially a peasant dish on the menu of his Michelin three-star restaurant just outside of Lyon. He insisted that it was neither how much work nor the cost of ingredients that determined the worthiness of a dish, but how it tasted. Bravo.

1.
Preheat the oven to 450°F. Heat the oil in a large, deep skillet over medium-high heat until it is good and hot. Put the chicken in the skillet, skin side down, and cook for about 5 minutes, or until the chicken is nicely browned. Turn and cook for 3 minutes on the other side. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

2.
Put the chicken in the oven. Cook for 15 to 20 minutes, or until it is just about done (the juices will run clear, and there will be just the barest trace of pink near the bone). Transfer the chicken to an ovenproof platter and place the platter in the oven; turn off the oven and leave the door slightly ajar.

3.
Pour most but not all of the cooking juices out of the skillet. Put the skillet over medium-high heat and add the shallot; sprinkle with a little salt and pepper and cook, stirring, until the shallot is tender, about 2 minutes. Add the vinegar and raise the heat to high. Cook for a minute or two, or until the powerful smell has subsided somewhat. Add ½ cup water and cook for another 2 minutes, stirring, until the
mixture is slightly reduced and somewhat thickened. Stir in the butter if you like.

4.
Return the chicken and any accumulated juices to the skillet and turn the chicken in the sauce. Serve immediately.

VARIATIONS

Paul Bocuse’s Poulet au Vinaigre

In step 1, brown the chicken in 7 tablespoons butter. In step 3, add 3 tablespoons butter to the reduced vinegar sauce.

• Substitute chopped garlic or onion for the shallot.

• Add an herb to the chicken as it’s browning: a sprig of fresh tarragon (or a big pinch of dried tarragon), a few fresh thyme sprigs (or 1 teaspoon dried), or 5 or 6 bay leaves.

• Use champagne, rice, or white wine vinegar.

• Add about 2 tablespoons capers to the vinegar as it reduces.

• Stir a tablespoon or more of Dijon mustard into the sauce just before serving.

MAKES 4 SERVINGS

TIME: 40 MINUTES

CHICKEN WITH DRIED
apricots is hardly a new idea, but it’s almost always too sweet, and the routine addition of cinnamon and cloves makes the whole thing taste more like dessert than dinner. Take them away, add a little vinegar to counter the fruit’s sweetness, improve and simplify the cooking technique, and you have a beautiful dish for a winter meal.

1.
Put the apricots in a small bowl (or a 2-cup measure) and add the vinegar, wine, and about ¼ cup water to cover. Let soak while you brown the chicken.

2.
Turn the heat to medium-high under a 12-inch nonstick skillet and add the chicken, skin side down. Cook, rotating the pieces (not turning them) so they brown evenly. When they are nicely browned—take your time—turn them so they are skin side up and season with salt and pepper. Make a little space in which you can add the onion and cook, stirring the onion occasionally, until it has softened a bit, a minute or two.

3.
Add the apricots and their liquid and bring to a boil; cook for a
minute, then turn the heat to low and cover. Cook until the chicken is done, 15 to 20 minutes; do not turn while it is cooking. Remove the lid, raise the heat, and season the chicken well with salt and pepper. Boil out any excess liquid; you do not want the sauce to be too watery. Taste and adjust the seasoning if necessary and serve.

VARIATIONS

• A few fresh thyme sprigs, added at the beginning of step 2 and discarded before you serve the chicken, add another dimension to this dish.

• A tablespoon or two of butter, stirred in at the end, will make the sauce considerably richer. Or you might render some bacon, remove it, and brown the chicken in the bacon fat; crumble the bacon and stir it in at the end of cooking.

MAKES 4 SERVINGS

TIME: 1 HOUR

THE CHICKEN MUST
be well browned before the rest of the dish is cooked, and in this instance there is no hurrying the process. Take your time and brown each piece of chicken well; especially if you’re cooking for eight or more, this will take a while, as you’ll have to brown in batches.

1.
Put the oil in a large skillet, preferably nonstick, over medium-high heat. When hot, add as many of the chicken pieces as will fit without crowding, skin side down. Cook, rotating the pieces and adjusting the heat as necessary to brown them evenly, about 5 minutes; turn and brown on the other side(s). As the pieces are done, sprinkle them with salt and pepper and transfer them to a large casserole.

2.
Add the onion to the fat remaining in the skillet and cook over medium-high heat, stirring occasionally, until softened, 5 minutes or so. Transfer it to the casserole, add the salt pork or bacon if you’re using it, and cook, stirring occasionally, until brown and crisp, about 5
minutes; transfer to the casserole and drain all but 1 tablespoon of the fat. Turn the heat under the skillet to medium and add the garlic and, 30 seconds later, the prunes. Cook for a minute, stirring once or twice, then add to the casserole.

3.
Turn the heat under the skillet to high and add half the wine. Cook, stirring and scraping the bottom of the pan to release any solid particles there, until the wine is reduced by half. Pour into the casserole along with the remaining wine. Turn the heat under the casserole to high and bring to a boil; stir, then reduce the heat to low and cover. Simmer, stirring once or twice, until the chicken is done, about 30 minutes. Remove the top, stir in the butter if you like, and raise the heat to high; cook until the sauce thickens a bit. Taste and adjust the seasoning if necessary, garnish with parsley, and serve.

MAKES 4 SERVINGS

TIME: 20 MINUTES

THIS DISH IS
so fast that you must begin cooking white rice, the natural accompaniment, before even chopping the onion. That’s because it uses preblended curry powder, one of the original convenience foods, a venerable spice rub and all-purpose flavor booster. I like to use it in tandem with a twentieth-century convenience food, the skinless, boneless chicken breast. Even a breast from a good chicken is about as bland as meat can get, and one from the supermarket is not much more flavorful than unsauced pasta. Curry changes that quickly.

1.
Put the oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. When hot, add the onion, sprinkle with some salt and pepper, and cook, stirring occasionally, until translucent, about 5 minutes. Turn the heat down to medium, sprinkle with about half the curry powder, and continue to cook for a minute or two.

2.
Meanwhile, season the chicken with salt and pepper to taste and sprinkle it with the remaining curry powder. Move the onion to one side of the skillet and add the chicken in one layer. Cook for about 2 minutes per side; transfer to a plate.

3.
Add the sour cream and stir constantly over medium-low heat until the mixture is nice and thick. Return the chicken to the skillet and cook for 2 more minutes, turning once. Garnish and serve with plenty of white rice.

VARIATIONS

Chicken Curry with Yogurt

Because yogurt will curdle if it boils, some extra care must be taken here: In step 3, turn the heat to very low and wait a minute before adding the yogurt. Stir the yogurt into the onion and cook, stirring constantly, until the yogurt is hot. Return the chicken to the skillet and cook for 2 more minutes, turning once. At no point should the sauce boil.

• Add nuts (slivered almonds are best), raisins, and/or dried coconut pieces to the onion as it cooks.

• Add a couple of small dried hot red chiles or hot red pepper flakes to taste, along with the onion; add more at the end of cooking if you like.

• Substitute peeled shrimp or thinly sliced beef or pork for the chicken; in each case, cooking time will be marginally shorter.

MAKES 4 SERVINGS

TIME: 20 MINUTES

I HAD SOMETHING
like this on a visit to Bangkok, chicken with a creamy but spicy lime sauce. At first I thought the rich texture had come from a pan reduction or even a béchamel-like sauce, but I detected the faint taste of coconut and realized it was little more than coconut milk spiked with lime. With canned coconut milk, it can be made in less than a half hour.

1.
Marinate the chicken in half the lime juice while you start a grill or preheat the broiler; put the rack about 4 inches from the heat source.

2.
Warm the coconut milk over low heat; season it with salt (hold off on salt if you use the nam pla) and a pinch of cayenne. Add the lime zest.

3.
Put the chicken, smooth (skin) side up, on an ungreased baking sheet lined with aluminum foil and place in the broiler. Add half the remaining lime juice to the coconut milk mixture.

4.
When the chicken is nicely browned on top, about 6 minutes later, it is done (make a small cut in the thickest part and peek inside if you want to be sure). Transfer it to a warm platter. Add the nam pla, if you’re using it, to the coconut milk; taste and adjust the seasoning as necessary. Spoon a little of the sauce over and around the breasts, then garnish with the scallions and cilantro and sprinkle with the remaining lime juice. Serve with white rice, passing the remaining sauce.

VARIATIONS

• Add a teaspoon of curry powder.

• Add a tablespoon of minced shallot to the coconut milk as it warms.

This sauce can also be used with many different foods:

• Grilled or broiled shrimp or scallops, with the cooking time reduced by a minute or two

• Boneless pork cutlets, treated like the chicken, with the cooking time increased by a couple of minutes (turn it once during cooking)

• Almost any white-fleshed fillet of fish, especially firmer ones like grouper, red snapper, or monkfish

MAKES 4 SERVINGS

TIME: 45 MINUTES

IT MAY SEEM
absurd, even insulting, to attempt to reduce an entire cuisine to a few flavors, but with just a handful of Thai ingredients—nearly all of which are available at most supermarkets—you can duplicate or even improve on many of the dishes found in your typical neighborhood Thai restaurant. A few ingredients will be unfamiliar to most American cooks, but no complicated techniques are involved in either preparation or cooking. This chicken dish, which can be taken in many directions, is a good example.