Thursday, September 08, 2011

My Chicken Monterey


Right now, I'm in love with cooking from real cookbooks. I like having to bend the spine a bit to get it to lie flat on the counter, and I like getting the pages a little messy with my fingerprints. Most of all, I like being able to write a little note in the margin.

Even if I never make this dish again, I'll love looking through my cookbook and seeing this: "Made for Mom & Dad, Labor Day Weekend 2011. SF made pasta and fresh pesto to start. We drank Champagne and Vermentino. Blackberry-apricot cobbler for dessert."

My Chicken Monterey
Adapted from The Silver Palate Cookbook
I made some liberal changes to this iconic recipe: cilantro instead of parsley, wine instead of stock, and fresh tomatoes instead of canned. It was a beautiful way to use up a ton of that red-yellow-orange summer produce we got last week in our CSA. I wasn't sure about the orange juice and zest, but I had an orange on-hand, so in it went. It did add something beguiling. Sean said it was a pernod flavor. To me it was more undefinable but equally evocative. It tasted like long late summer days: fresh, vibrant, but with true, deep flavors.   

5 Tablespoons olive oil
1 chicken 2 ½ to 3 lbs, quartered
salt and black pepper to taste
1 cup finely chopped yellow onion
4 garlic cloves, peeled and minced
1 cup white wine
½ cup fresh orange juice
½ cup chopped tomatoes with juices
1 T dried rosemary
1 medium red bell pepper, cut julienne
½ zucchini and ½ yellow squash, sliced diagonally
1/3 cup cilantro
grated zest of 1 orange

1. Heat 3 Tablespoons oil in large skillet. Rinse and pat chicken pieces dry; season with salt and pepper, and cook in oil 5 minutes. Turn chicken, season; cook another 5 minutes. Do not brown; it should be pale gold. Remove chicken and reserve.
2. Add onions and garlic to oil and cook, covered, over low heat until veggies are tender, about 15 minutes.
3. Uncover skillet and add wine, tomatoes, and rosemary. Season with salt and pepper to taste and simmer mixture uncovered, 15 minutes.
4. Return chicken pieces to pan and simmer 20-25 minutes or until chicken is nearly done. Baste pieces with sauce and turn once at 15 minutes. You can refrigerate chicken in sauce and reheat gently before serving in you want to complete recipe here.
5. Heat remaining 2 Tablespoons olive oil in another skillet and sauté pepper 5 minutes. Add sliced zucchini and yellow squash and season with salt and pepper. Raise heat and toss vegetables until tender, but still firm, about 5 minutes more. Serve warm or at room temperature.
Serves 6-8

9 comments:

Sam @ The Second Lunch said...

I've been contemplating stealing my mother's copy of Silver Palate for a while. Why I haven't bought my own copy yet, I have no idea.

Anne Zimmerman said...

Steal it! For some reason I am finding comfort in old 1980s favorites. Childhood nostalgia I guess.

Sunday Taylor said...

I love going back to my old cookbooks and reading the notes I have written. My copy of "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" is loaded with notes in pencil. As is my copy of "How to Beat Those Cordon Bleus." Now I am writing in "Barefoot Contessa" and it really helps the next time I make the recipe. This recipe looks great, I will have to try it.

Anne Zimmerman said...

Sunday, I have a brand new note in my Barefoot Contessa at Home cookbook from Megan. She demystified a recipe for me + now I can't wait to try it again!

Heather Taylor said...

this looks incredible! thanks for the inspiration

~~louise~~ said...

It would be far to complicated to explain how I got here but boy oh boy am I glad I did. I adore cookbooks and LOVE the Silver Palate Cookbook. You've done an outstanding adaption of the classic and, it looks delicious too!!!

I don't want to be a "link dropper" on the first meeting, but you might want to check out the postings at some food blogs called 50 Women Game Changers in Food, I've seen a lot of recent postings from the Silver Palate Cookbook. If you want a link, just let me know.

Thanks for sharing...delighted to "meet" you. Bookmarked!

Anne Zimmerman said...

Louise! So pleased to meet you. I know the list well... thoughts on it?

~~louise~~ said...

Let's see, thoughts on it? I think many of the bloggers are doing a wonderful job cooking and sharing the highlighted recipes.

The Silver Palate Cookbook, and its authors, IMHO, deserve to be brought back into the mainstream and for that I am thankful. However, lists and I don't usually congeal:)

Anonymous said...

Oh how I love the Silver Palate. I just posted about a curried butternut squash soup that is an adaptation of the one featured on pg. 47. It's out of this world! I'm going to make "My Chicken Monterey" very soon!