Cooking with Oscar: Italian Winter Feast
This is when you know you don’t have ‘it’ with cooking. How can nugget potatoes, yam, garlic, carrot and simple herbs combine together so elegantly in one dish and create something so delicious? Students taking online college classes for cooking would know what I mean.
Oscar says in this case, it’s all about the ‘simple sugars’. He scores, rather than pricks, the potatoes so they soak up the flavors while roasting, and lays the sautéed oregano, rosemary, and flat leaf parsley atop the assorted vegetables to get the process started… and it results in ovenfried herb crust atop sweet root vegetables, with fresh grated parmesan reggiano, served next to a golden roasted chicken, stuffed with rosemary, a lemon, s&p and half a white onion.
Oh. My. God. (that comes from me). Oh, Oscar says: let the chicken sit for at least five-10 minutes: it’s a muscle, it has to contract before you cut it, to keep the juices in.
Garnish sauce: chicken stock, drippings without the oil, grainy mustard – no salt – pepper, splash of marsala (a one night stand, or sex with a stranger and no regrets splash) and cook at med-high heat until it reduces.
Joint the chicken (‘drop one chicken and everyone thinks you’re an alcoholic’) and pour garnish sauce over and serve.
NOT A LESSER KALE
This is the way to cook kale! Butter, olive oil, leek minced fine, a bit of left over bacon (“bacon and jazz, the only good things America has given the world,” says O), orange pepper, fennel, Wreck Beach salt, and asparagus sauteed til crunchy, drizzled with lemon. Then a swizzle of maple syrup to take the mild bitter edge of the winter kale that goes in on top of everything in the pan. (everyone’s tougher and more bitter in the winter) When it has wilted, stir together and serve.
After dinner, we shall have tea… A most un-Italian beverage, which Oscar (who is Italian) says is like screaming out, I’m homosexual! (he is).
“There’s a reason British people don’t get laid… They’re always drinking tea!”
Cheers!
Oscar’s favorite tea cup…
