Chickenfrickenzee
Last Saturday I picked up an interesting bottle of wine. As you know I’m a sucker for wine. Okay, and a sucker of wine, as well. As I was wandering down the “Weird Producing Countries” aisle at the Evil Clown and I came upon this
Herding Cats 2005 Chenin Blanc/Chardonnay blend from South Africa. Looked interesting and at $8 it hit the price point for the first bottle of the evening. I’m usually not a huge Chenin Blanc fan (and no Ken, that’s not the name of some Eurotrash band), but the addition of the Chardonnay took away the cloying fruitiness that they can have and made it a clean not overly sweet mildly fruity wine that was very pleasant. But what to cook while drinking? I reached for that old standby Marcella Hazan (and why haven’t you bought this book yet?) and decided to make some chickenfrickenzee and risotto. This basically meant I was tied to the stove for the next few hours; luckily there was lots of wine within easy reach.
First the chicken
5 1/2 pounds or so just asking to be hacked into little bits by my Shears of Doom™. So naturally I obliged and took out Mr. Spine
and then greatly reduced Mr. Chicken’s ambulatory abilities by removing his wings, legs, and thighs
This left me with the ever-delicate question of the Pamelas, still attached as nature intended.
How exactly does one remove the Pamelas from the bone? Danged if I know. So after barbarically ripping one Pam off the bone in a beastly fashion I decided to leave the other more or less as it was and put my faith in thorough cooking
So there you have it, eight pieces of happily hacked hen looking for a hot time in a pan. But first to attend to my needs.
It really is a rather refreshing wine.
now take a tablespoonish of butter
and get it meltulated with a couple of tablespoons of olive oil in a nice big pan over medium-highish heat
add the chicken
and let it start browning, turning occasionally. While its doing that chop 1/3 of a medium sized onion fairly fine
reserve another 1/3 for the risotto
and chop 4 healthy cloves of garlic into somewhat nicer sized chunks
add the onions, garlic and a sprig of fresh rosemary arrayed in a rakish fashion
and let them sauté for a few minutes, then add, oh, call it 3/4 of an inch of white wine
and when it starts to simmer cover and reduce the heat to medium-low
and let that puppy simmer away for 20 minutes or so whilst you work on wiping out what wine you have at hand.
After a few glasses of wine it’s time to get the risotto ready. In a large sauce pan heat up 5 cups of beef broth or stock until it is at a nice slooow simmer
In a sauté pan with a lid get 3 tablespoons of butter and say 2 tablespoons of olive oil sizzlin
sauté the 1/3 of an onion from before that has been reasonably finely chopped
when the onion is clearish add two cups of arborio rice and stir it so it gets well covered with the oniony butter oil
now ladle in some of the stock
and stir it well until the rice absorbs all the liquid.
now do it again and again
until all the liquid is gone. Yep, all 5 cups. It’ll take 20 minutes or so.
Now all this ladling and stirring and absorbing is thirsty work, so it’s time to open another bottle
Kind of an interesting wine, this one. CMS White by Hedges; a blend of Chardonnay, Marsanne, and Sauvignon Blanc. It had a nice clean crisp fruitiness. Most yum for $12 buckskies. I had bought it to have with the mussels I was cooking the next night…but I got thirsty.
Let’s see, the stock’s all gone and mostly absorbed
the Frickenzee is looking and smelling frickin’ good
…and now things happen fast and furious, so let’s remove the buzzard to a platter
dump a heaping 1/2 cup of grated parm onto the rice
dump the juice from one lemon and some shavings from the lemon peel (only yellow stuff; none of the bitter white skin) into the pan the buzzard so recently vacated
turn back to the risotto and turn off the heat, mix the cheese in well until everything is coated and grate some fresh nutmeg on top
turn off the heat and set it aside. Get your chicken juices and lemon all a boiling and reduce it down to a nice tasty sauceitude
And then schpoon it over the ‘Fricken and serve with the risotto. Yum!
total cooking time is around 45 minutes.
Swill Food and Grog | Mr. Bingley | 
September 17, 2007 9:19 am
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Looks good, Bings.
And I never thought Chenin Blanc was a Eurotrash band, I thought she was that chick down the street from your place. You know, the one with the fishnets and spike heels?
You’re thinking of that picture of me, ken.
Hmmmm.
I wouldn’t get past the “open bottle, pour into glass” stage. At that point I’d have to have something delivered.
Was that you? Say, you cut a rather splendid figure there, man.
Don’t get fresh, you.
Chicken frickenzee… I loved her on “One Day at a Time.”
Hmmmm.
Beef broth. Not a huge fan of beef broth due to the sodium.
BTW CostCo is now selling a 6 pack of 1 qt Pacific Chicken broth. It’s a nice deal particularly since autumn is now upon us.