Tag: gravies

Roast Chicken

One day at the cabin I decided to try roasting a frying chicken. I had planned to marinate and cook it on the grill, but the mosquitos were at their peak, so I opted for something I could do inside. Since the result was pretty good, I jotted down the ingredients and repeated the experiment a few weeks later.

Now we have roasted chicken at least a couple of times a year at the cabin. With this simple recipe you can have a chicken in the oven in only a few minutes and a gourmet meal on the table in an hour and a half.

INGREDIENTS:

3-4 lb. whole chicken
1 T olive oil
2 T flour
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. tarragon
1/4 tsp. rosemary
1/4 tsp. basil
1/2 tsp. paprika
dash or two of cayenne
1/8 tsp. freshly ground black pepper

PROCEDURE:

Preheat the oven to 400º.

Crush the rosemary in a pestle or use a cup and spoon. Put the flour on a plate and add the salt, tarragon, crushed rosemary, basil, paprika, cayenne and black pepper. Mix everything together thoroughly and spread it in a thin layer.

Remove the giblets and set them aside. Rinse the chicken under cold water, pat it dry with a paper towel and rub it with the olive oil. Roll the chicken in the flour and spice mixture, coating the outside and dusting the inside of the cavity. Tie the legs together with kitchen string.

Put the chicken, breast side up. on a rack in a roasting pan and put it in the preheated oven. After 20 minutes, turn the oven down to 350º and roast until done, about an hour. Baste it with a little butter or olive oil once or twice while cooking.

Test for doneness by poking a skewer into the thick part of the thigh; the juices should run clear. Or you can check that the legs move easily or use an instant read meat thermometer. When the temperature at the thickest part of the breast is 165º the meat is done.

Serve with boiled or baked potatoes or rice and a vegetable or salad.

NOTES: You can use the meat from the giblets and neck to make an excellent gravy with the drippings from the chicken. Wash and put the gizzard, heart and neck in about a pint of water in a small saucepan, add a bouillon cube and simmer the meat for about 45 minutes. Don’t use the liver unless you like the stronger flavor in your gravy.

Remove the meat from the broth and let it cool a few minutes. Cut the gizzard and heart into a small dice and pick as much meat as you can from the neck.

When the chicken is done, set it aside covered. Heat the broth to boiling and pour it into the roasting pan. Scrape the drippings from the bottom of the pan and return the broth to the saucepan. Add the meat from the giblets and bring the pan to a simmer.

Dissolve a tablespoon of corn starch (or a heaping tablespoon if you like thicker gravy) into a quarter cup of cold water and stir it into the broth. Simmer for two or three minutes, taste and correct the seasoning.

Sausage Gravy

Sausage Gravy

When we go south to visit friends and family I look forward to three specialties of southern cooks: Barbecue, grits and sausage gravy. Today you can find pretty good barbecue throughout the United States, but the really good barbecue is still made in small out-of-the-way restaurants that sometimes seem a little uninviting until you taste those wonderful ribs, burnt ends or pulled pork sandwiches.

There’s one in Kansas City in what was once a gas station and another in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, in a long low building that grew along with the business. And though it’s a days’s drive north of the Ohio River, you can get some darned good barbecue at a little take-out restaurant near Dale and University in St. Paul, Minnesota.

More than forty years ago some friends at Murray State University introduced me to a great barbecue place in Fulton, Kentucky. Wonderful rib sandwiches were served in the bar room of an old hotel by a waiter in a white shirt and black bow tie. The meat, smoked in the courtyard behind the hotel, was served with plain white bread. The only condiment was a hot sauce that you soon learned to respect. The little unlabeled bottles were plenty big. No Kansas City or Carolina sauces were allowed in the building.

There’s a restaurant along I-35/I-80 at Des Moines, Iowa, that comes close to matching that old place with the meat and sauce, in case you also like real barbecue.

As you can tell, we often stop at different barbecue restaurants on our trips south. Of course we stay at a lot of hotels too, and all of them offer a hot breakfast, which usually means a waffle machine and a slow cooker filled with sausage gravy next to a tray of biscuits. Our favorite hotels, like the Wildwood Lodge at Des Moines, Iowa, often add grits and bacon to the breakfast bar.

But when I think of a gourmet breakfast, I remember the men’s prayer breakfasts with my brother-in-law at the First United Methodist Church in Bartlesville, Oklahoma. Church chef Wayne Rountree served bacon, eggs, sausage gravy, tender hot biscuits and grits to die for. When I told him that his were the best grits I had ever tasted, he smiled and told me that there was a half pound of butter in every gallon batch.

For the lighter appetites there were a couple of choices of cereal, milk, toast, juice, and coffee. It was no wonder that the Men’s Prayer breakfasts were well attended, even though they started at 6:00 AM. I think that every church would benefit from a dedicated church chef like Wayne.

Wayne’s sausage gravy was tastier than most hotel gravies, but I think that mine is better than his. After I posted our sausage gravy recipe on our personal web site a man in England emailed me that he had been making a survey of sausage gravies and that mine was the best one he had found to date. That was a long time ago, so he probably has found another version more to his taste by now, but we still like ours.

With fresh biscuits or toast, sausage gravy makes a hearty breakfast on a crisp morning. You can use either mild or hot pork sausage.

INGREDIENTS:

1 lb. pork sausage
4 T flour
1/4 tsp. white pepper
1/4 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. tarragon
2 cups milk
Dash of hot sauce
Salt to taste

PROCEDURE:

In a heavy frying pan or skillet cook the sausage and break it into small pieces. Use a slotted spoon to remove the sausage from the pan once it is cooked. Leave the fat from the sausage in the pan. There should be about 4 tablespoons fat, but this will depend upon the sausage. If there is too much fat, spoon some out. If not enough, add some shortening or butter.

Put the flour, salt, tarragon and white pepper in the pan over low heat and blend until it is smooth and begins to bubble. Cook for about three minutes . Do not brown the flour. Add the milk all at once and cook until it bubbles and thickens. Return the sausage to the pan and stir it into the sauce. Add a dash of hot sauce. Taste and adjust the seasoning.

Serve on toast or baking powder biscuits.

NOTES: This recipe serves four adults generously or two adults and one teenaged boy. Add a bit more hot sauce for extra flavor.

Sausage gravy is a good choice for brunch as well as breakfast. It goes especially well with scrambled eggs, bacon, grits and fresh fruit for a brunch buffet.

The white sauce cuts the heat of the spice, so don’t be afraid to try hot pork sausage sometime.