Table Talk
Chicken, chicken and more chicken
Costco can be a dangerous place. Anyone who shops there knows how easy it is to arrive with a list of 5 or 6 things, and leave with a trunk full of great deals, new things to try or just more of something than you really need. This has happened a lot over the last month, as Costco pulled out all of the stops for the holidays, stocking their meat and ready-made food and cheese area with really fun things. But I'm not always sure what to do with my excess bounty. Have a party? Eat hor d'ouerves for dinner? Or maybe test some new recipes...which is what I did this weekend. I had come home last week with a bag of chickens. One chicken, on it's own, will easily feed my husband and me for 4 or 5 lunches and dinners, so it was time to get creative and cook a variety of dishes, using the humble chicken. As I had been reading a book, which talked extensively in one chapter about roast chickens in France, I obviously had to roast one of them, perhaps the most classic preparation. I used a variation on Julia Child's roast chicken, using lemon, rosemary and butter. For another, I used a recipe from a restaurant, which roasts the chicken and then covers the pieces with a lemon-garlic-oregano sauce. On the next, I butterflied it, sprinkled it liberally with a spicy rub and grilled it, using wood chips to give it a slightly smoky flavor. And finally, with all of the spare parts and empty carcasses, I made chicken soup. Bounty indeed.
