Winner, Chicken Dinner.

We ate lots of chicken growing up, but Gran Fran got hers from a butcher. A nice, old place, run by a bunch of (as I recall her saying) good looking German men. They'd always give me a mini hot dog while they got our order together.

The quality of the meat Gran Fran bought (and still does) raised all of us with the taste for only the best. She generally stuck to chicken breasts, sometimes legs if there was frying going on, or whole chickens for roasting.

As an adult, therefore, Chicken thighs were a revelation to me. I get the feeling that using Chicken thighs vs some fancier part of the chicken, ranked up there with buying inferior meat products, in Gran Fran's world. Because the flavor and moistness of thighs is sooooo good, I am straying from the Gran Fran and using Chicken thighs a lot.

The recipe featured here only takes about 30 minutes to marinate, saute and then bake, so it's an excellent weeknight meal. I made it for a friend, and served my daughter (remember Ms Iz?) some of the leftovers. Being somewhat cautious about sauces and flavors, I worried Ms Iz would not eat it. But, to my joy, she loved it and has asked me to make it again.

Goes to show, I should probably make the 12 year old eat more sauces....

Chicken Thighs with Oregano, Honey, Mustard and Lemon

• 8 chicken thighs
• 2 tbsps Honey
• 1 tbsp Mustard
• 1/2 cup Olive Oil, plus more for sauteeing
• Juice of 1 Lemon
• 2 cloves Garlic, sliced thinly
• 1/4 tsp Dried Oregano
• Salt and Pepper to taste
• 1/4 cup White Wine or Dry Vermouth

Method

• In a large non-reactive(!) bowl, place honey, mustard, olive oil, one half of the lemon juice and a pinch of salt. 
• Stir until all ingredients are mixed well.
• Add chicken thighs. Using your hands, thoroughly cover the chicken with the marinade.
• Set aside for five minutes (if you have more time, you can let it sit for as long as you'd like).
• Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
• Once chicken has marinated for as long as you have, heat a large ovenproof skillet over high heat.
• Add oil when the pan is good and hot.
• Place chicken thighs skin side down onto pan. Pour remaining marinade over chicken.
• Do not disturb them for five to eight minutes, until you see the side of the skin curling up a bit.
• Move thighs to one side of pan, add garlic slices and quickly turn over the thighs to rest on top of the garlic.
• Squeeze remaining one half lemon juice over top of the chicken.
• Remove pan from flame.
• Add white wine or vermouth, trying to pour it underneath the chicken, so as to not soak the skin side.
• Sprinkle oregano, salt and pepper over the chicken.
• Place pan in preheated oven and bake for twelve more minutes, until meat is cooked through and juices run clear.

Enjoy!

Bones...Not for Soup....for Roasting

There is a restaurant here in San Francisco, Bar Tartine, that has a lovely menu ranging from locally harvested veggies to fatastically prepared roasts. My most favorite item on their menu is the roasted beef marrow. I had never tried this dish before going to Bar Tartine.

Let me tell you, once I had them, I found every excuse to go there for dinner as often as possible. It is not inexpensive, so it was quite an undertaking financing my new obsession. But, they never let me down. Each and every order showed up at the table piping hot with a lovely herbed salad and perfectly toasted bread slices. Frankly, I like going there with vegetarians, that way I get the whole order to myself.

Today, I am on day two of staying home sick. As mentioned in my previous post, I have taken to cooking my own comfort foods. And, so, this morning when I was at Whole Foods picking up fruit, I wandered over to the meat counter. They did indeed stock (no pun intended...ok, well maybe a little pun), beef marrow bones.

But then, the questions began: "is it for soup?" "did you want the femur or the knuckles?" "how many pounds did you need?"

Short of telling the butchers about my craziness for the Bar Tartine version, I tried to give them the sense that I knew what I was doing. I explained I was just roasting them and serving them with toast. He figured out that I wanted the femur cut into smallish pieces and went off to saw the bones apart for me. In the end, I didn't come off as an idiot, and came home with $12 worth of the loveliest beef marrow I've ever seen (ok, I guess I'd never seen it raw until this morning...).

In the end, I realize that Gran Fran did make osso bucco periodically utilizing the same (or very close to the same) types of bones. Once I got them marrow home, I placed some in a pan and stared at it. It resembled the cooked appetizer I loved from Bar Tartine, but it also seemed like a daunting task to get these bones from raw to roasted.

The recipe I based my first batch on came from Group Recipes. I used it mostly to make sure of how to put the bones in the pan, but improvised from there. So, herewith, my version (I've now made two batches) of an almost-as-good-version of Roasted Bone Marrow ala Bar Tartine.

Roasted Bone Marrow serves 6 as an appetizer

Ingredients: 3 lbs Beef Bone Marrow cut into 3 inch long pieces

• 1 cup loosely packed Italian Parsley
• 3 cloves Garlic
• 3 Tbsp Lemon Juice
• 2 Tbsp Olive Oil
• Salt and Pepper to taste

Method:

• Preheat oven to 450 degrees F.

• Place marrow bones cut side up in oven proof skillet or roasting pan.

• Roast in the oven for 25 to 30 minutes, just until the marrow gets soft, the outside of the bones are lightly browned and the excess fat on the bones has browned as well.

• While bones are roasting, finely chop the parsley and garlic. Mix with the lemon juice, olive oil, salt and pepper. If you have an electric chopper, this is a good time to use it.

• Toast bread pieces.

• Serve with small spoons to scoop out the heavenly marrow, which can be placed on the toast with the parsley mixture.

ps check out those photos, huh? thanks again to gran fran and joe for my swanky new camera! xo