Dinners that elicit utter silence in guests are the ones to strive for. When the food takes precedence and words simply do not form in your head, you have achieved something great.  This was one of those meals.

It all started a few weeks ago when an amazing blogger friend stated “You cook the most exotic food. Do you ever just roast a chicken?” I decided to take it as a challenge, because truth be told, I rarely just roast a chicken. Maybe a bit of spring cleaning in the kitchen is in order to appreciate the simple wonders of classic fare.  Fast forward to a few days ago- I found myself on a lazy drive cruising the back roads of the Kitsap Peninsula in search of fresh eggs. Can I just state for the record and for the hundredth time that I desperately want chickens and ducks and I don’t think it’s fair that my evil husband won’t let me keep them on our in-city lot? Stated.  My loose goal was to end up at Pheasant Fields Farm, although I’ve never been before.  I rolled up and was greeted by dozens of friendly free-roaming chickens, who incidentally struck fear into Bentley’s little heart. He clung to my legs like never before but he was so awed he couldn’t walk away.  Come to find out, I had missed by a half hour the slaughter of a whole mess of chickens. If you know me at all you can imagine how disappointed I was to miss such a thing, but I’m told they’ll do it again soon and I’m invited to come participate. Plus, they still had all the equipment set up along with a giant bucket of heads and feet which they graciously gave me to take home and make stock. All that collagen- oh yes, baby!

I was only too happy to take one of the freshly-rigormortisized chickens off their hands along with some duck and chicken eggs right out of the nests. I learned a great tip I wish I had known when I unceremoniously killed my own chicken last fall.  Don’t cook the birds until they are no longer stiff, as rigor mortis causes toughness if you cut meat off the bone while the bird is still in that state. It takes 24-48 hours for the bird to loosen back up, though you’re welcome to brine the bird during that time.  I waited the obligatory two days and meanwhile made a batch of fresh cottage cheese.  I decided cottage cheese noodles would be a perfect accompaniment to simple chicken.  I also had some triple crème languishing in the refrigerator (don’t ask) so I tossed that in with the noodles along with a boatload of my fresh eggs, some thyme, just churned-butter and the cottage cheese.  This was my first experience making the noodles with a pasta machine. I felt a little bit like a sellout since I have hand-rolled and cut them several times a week for as long as I can remember, but I guess that fact in itself justifies a machine.  The noodles sure are nice and uniform, even if they do lack the personality of truly handmade pasta.  I will use the machine in the future but will also definitely retain my hand-rolled technique as well. Another interesting observation about machine-rolling the noodles is that it doesn’t require nearly as much wine. You simply cannot hand-make noodles without regular gulps from a big balloon wine glass in order to fortify your strength. Because you need less strength for machine-done pasta, you don’t encounter near-enough of this happy problem.

Once enough time had passed, I removed my newly-loosened chicken from her brine and fired up the smoker while her skin air-dried.  I figured one little change from roasting the chicken to smoking it really doesn’t make much of a difference to my initial challenge, as it’s essentially just cooking it in an outdoor oven over apple wood as opposed to an indoor one.  Once she was nice and dry and the smoker was nice and hot (I averaged 220° F for 3 hours for a 5.5 lb bird) I trussed her, stuffed her cavity with a bit of thyme, and rained Maldon salt and a touch of pepper over her body.  Because simplicity was the name of the game here, I didn’t want to get complicated with extra rubs, marinades, or god-forbid basting, which doesn’t work well with smoking as it lets too much heat escape.

Once my chicken was nearing completion I tossed the noodle concoction into the oven and whipped together a simple butter lettuce and cucumber salad along with some homemade buttermilk dressing.  I made a jus to drizzle over the chicken by reducing the juices collected from her cavity in a saucepan along with some vermouth and thyme.

The noodles came out, the chicken was carved, salad was served et voila- I can DO simple, damn it! And I’m happy to report it was so simply damn delicious that not a word was spoken amongst five of the most talkative people I know for over 60 seconds.  They resumed their maddening din after they recovered from their delight, but did so with a lingering smile around their lips as they licked the last of the chicken from the glistening bones.

Last night’s dinner was really a mouthful. So many different elements played off eachother to compose each tasty bite it was hard to keep from shoving it all in at warp speed.  First let me talk about the mmmlicious Meyer lemons. The blogosphere is Meyer lemon-mad right now; everyone and their Nana is using them in everything from curds to pannacotta, limoncello to lemonade.  It’s easy to understand why, the little hybrid sweet tart buggers couldn’t be more delicious right now at this moment AKA go out and buy some Meyer lemons if you haven’t already.  I have purchased them to excess, so last night’s dinner was to be about combining elements in which a Meyer lemon cream sauce would work.  Making it was straightforward enough- sautee some shallots, oregano and zest in butter, add and reduce white wine, bring it on home with the addition of heavy cream, and adjust seasonings with lotsa Meyer lemon juice and a little salt and pepper.  Make the sauce last, it only takes ten minutes to come together. 

I set out for the market yesterday morning intending to buy chickens as I’m about outta chicken stock and need to make more.  I came home with game hens, though, because the little buggers looked up at me all cute-like and said “Buy me, Linda, we’ve never been frozen, ran free when we were alive and come from a farm not 20 minutes from here. Let us meet our fate in your tasty kitchen, pretty please?” They had me at hello, plus dinner was only for four, so why not salt-encrust some game hens?  Then I could use their little carcasses to make a rich stock, plus it’s kind of fun to serve guests an individual bird all to themselves. 

I had some salt that needed using too, we made quite a big batch of it last time we went out seawater collecting and we’re planning a new collection mission soon, so I used some homemade sea salt to form the base of the game hen crust.  I like to do salt crusts because I love salt, but also because believe it or not, the salt crust keeps the meat inside so nice and tender it just falls off the carcass like melted butter.  Making a salt crust is easy, I’ll give you the ratio for one game hen, obviously for four, or a chicken, you’ll want to increase accordingly.  Mix four beaten egg whites with one pound of salt and 1.5c flour.  Add water until a medium-tacky dough is formed.  (You can add herbs too- they infuse flavor. I used oregano since it’s taking over my garden right now and is so fresh)

To encrust the bird, first stuff ‘em and truss ‘em.  I stuff’ em with half a lemon, half a shallot and a bunch of oregano.   Truss so that no pointy wings or legs puncture your crust.  Lay a base of crust on a jellyroll pan lined with parchment. Be sure the base is slightly larger than the bird, then set the bird on the crust.  Pack the remaining dough all around the bird, taking care not to leave any holes where moisture can escape.  Immediately put the bird into a 400° oven and cook for 15 minutes for the crust to solidify, then reduce heat to 350° and bake until an internal thermometer probe reads 160°.  Remove the bird from the oven, but do not remove crust- bird will continue to cook for another half hour or so since the crust acts as an oven.  When you are ready to serve, either remove the crust yourself or let the guest do it himself at the table for a more dramatic presentation. 

I knew that my little game hens would do well with a lemon sauce, so I wanted a starch that could handle it as well since encrusting the bird means you get no gravy as the crust soaks up the cooking jus.  My mind often leans toward gnocchi; it’s one of nature’s perfect foods.  Because the Meyer lemons have a touch of sweetness, however, I wanted to soften the starchiness of typical potato gnocchi.  Parsnips proved the perfect addition since they are a touch sweet themselves.  I used a ratio of 1/3 parsnips to 2/3 potato and it was just right. I’m not sure I’ll make plane ol’ potato gnocchi again anytime soon- try it with parsnip and you’ll see why.   I cooked my potatoes and parsnips sous vide before milling them with my potato ricer. Sous vide is perfect for gnocchi as boiling potatoes leaves too much residual water and makes for a gloppy texture, whereas sous vide doesn’t add any water, but nor does it take any away like baking can, often resulting in overly dry gnocchi.  If I didn’t have a Sous Vide Supreme I would cook the potatoes and parsnips by first boiling, then baking them before ricing. 

After the potatoes are milled into even texture, I add a touch of salt, some microplaned Parmigiano Reggiano, and I start adding flour.  The general ratio of flour to potato matter is 1/3-2/3, but I do this by feel.  You know you have enough flour when the dough doesn’t stick to your hands any longer and you can break off clumps and roll it into tubes without it leaving goo all over the counter.  Once you roll the tubes ¾” thick, cut them into ¾” pieces. At this point you can brand them with the tines of a fork if you are using a thin sauce that you want to adhere to the noodle better, but in the case of my cream sauce I wasn’t worried, so I didn’t brand them since I think they look prettier unadorned.  Cook them in gently boiling salted water until they float to the top, then remove them with a slotted spoon and keep them in a pan in a warming oven with a little butter to prevent them from sticking to one another.  You can start the lemon cream sauce when you’re halfway through cooking the gnocchi and your timing should be right.  Serve both the game hens and the gnocchi with the cream sauce drizzled over the top.

I’m three days into the United Way Hunger Challenge and I have $59.83 left to spend.  Good thing too, since tonight is Jonas’ birthday, and I have to at least make it somewhat special, which led me down an entirely different train of thought.  We agreed to do this challenge despite having several events (like a birthday) this week that would be tricky to work around.  I recall feeling a bit miffed at the beginning of the week, thinking “couldn’t it have been a different week?” and oscillating over whether to actually go through with it. 

Well midway through the challenge I look back at my three-day-ago self with disdain.  There are people who have to scrape together for kids birthdays, spouses anniversaries, holidays and the like on the budget I was given for a week only they have to do it 365 days a year.  What kind of little princess bitch am I that I mumble and moan feeling sorry for my family when we only have to do this for five days? And we are doing it voluntarily at that? And I’m writing about it and documenting it for my blog, which is an even further luxury?  The bright side is that in three short days I’ve learned to be a humbler person, and to appreciate my lot in life.  In fact, if everyone like me were to live on slightly more moderate means there would surely be more to go around, but that’s a different matter entirely. 

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