Mastering the Art of Apartment Cooking: Roast Chicken from Julia

Happy Tuesday guys! I'm certainly having a busy time right now in the last few weeks before Thanksgiving, but I'm still trying my best to blog one day per week. This post is one of those it's-the-freakin-weekend-so-let's-have-friends-over-to-cook - meals. TIP: Do these.

My friend and fellow foodie Emily brought over her bible, Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking for a delicious meal of roast chicken with potatoes and haricots verts (green beans...come on, get fancy).

Of course, we had to set the scene first for a great French meal, with camembert and rolls. Notice the bag of rolls, also. TIP: If you'd like your bread to stretch out for a few more days, get some of these half-baked rolls. You just pop them in the oven for 5 minutes and you've got fresh, hot bread for your meal :)

Emily prepared the potatoes with garlic, lemon, and butter, highlighting three ingredients that make for some fantastic French cuisine. As for the H.V.'s (haricots), just be careful to not overcook (in this case, over-boil) them, as with any vegetable. 

Now for the chicken:

Whereas I had used Mark Bittman's recipe to roast the chicken with spices inside and olive oil outside, Julia Child's recipe uses carrots, and good ol' butter. I'll discuss a great feature of the butter in my next post!

What a beautiful bird! This didn't take much time at all, and all it takes is a little time in the oven and a few basic ingredients. 

À table, tout le monde!

Everyone was ready to eat - they just patiently await me to finish taking photos for the blog :)

You can see the potatoes pretty well in this picture - potatoes can be done in so many different ways. Emily essentially scalloped the potatoes - slicing them into disks adds a nice texture to compliment the H.V.'s and the chicken. 

Et voilà (with some bread - we had challah around):

Flavorful sauces and marinades with curry!

Hey guys,

We decided to throw together something quick for dinner last week and used one of my favorite spices, curry powder. There are dozens of varieties of curries, as the word only represents a blend of spices, but I have a jar of the traditional saffron-colored powder lying around. I hesitate to call this an "Indian" meal, because not all of the ingredients are in the style of Indian cooking (but then again, what is "Indian" anyway?? Ok ok, Zach, don't get too caught up in the Identity Studies...). 

For this quick meal, I made a quick marinade that ultimately lent fantastic flavor to my chicken. Here's the TIP: don't be afraid to mix and match (strong) flavors and experiment with sweetness and savory. Also, try out plain yogurt for so many uses. Here I used it in my sauce:

I mixed plain yogurt, curry powder, cinnamon, and raisins, and poured the mixture over my cut up murgh (chicken) and let it sit for about a half hour in the fridge under wraps. 

We cut up some veggies we had lying around - peppers, zucchini, shallots, and sauteed those first to brown them. As you've seen with my recipes that roast veggies, we don't always want raw ones, and a little browning really brings out a great flavor! 

I took the vegetables out before I added the chicken so it could cook up on its own and not overcook the vegetables (soggy - ew). I cooked the chicken for a few minutes and added the veggies back in. 

We cooked up some boxed jasmine rice and heated up a jarred curry sauce (we didn't know how the sauce would be and wanted to let my marinade flavor the chicken, so we served it on the side). You already know I love this TIP, but try to cook with as many colors as possible. Your food will be even more satisfying if it's visually appealing! 

And now for a good-looking close up to make you want to make this easy dinner right now:

Enjoy!