BOOK/A TABLE - A Simple Supper

When I’m fed up with take-out options (and delivery fees!) and don’t crave anything in particular, but still feel the need to be fed, I start freezer-diving, sifting through the bergs of various meats to see what’s available for supper. Following the selection of a worthy protein, I then try to utilize one of the cookbooks lining our kitchen shelves to find a recipe that features ingredients we already have on hand. 

In these last-minute instances, I don’t want to run out to the grocery store of course or make anything overly complicated: chicken breasts from the freezer and my good old reliable Barbara Pym Cookbook won a recent round.

I ended up making fragrant Chicken Tarragon, served with a side of canned lentils, and unboxed some Jell-O chocolate pudding for a finish. It was as simple as you’d suppose, and oh-so-tasty.

The lentils can be prepared with a bit of simmered white wine or broth, garlic, and a bay leaf thrown in, but if you have time and the inclination, try these gorgeous Lentilles du Puy. Should you wish to think outside of the Jell-O box, look to this Mousse au Chocolat.

From Barbara Pym’s Excellent Women, Mrs. Bone speaks most vividly of The Dominion of the Birds, that apocalyptic scenario where our avian friends end up ruling the roost: “I very much fear it may come to that...I eat as many birds as possible,” said Mrs. Bone when we were sitting down to roast chicken. “I have them sent from Harrods or Fortnum’s, and I sometimes go and look at them in the cold meats department. They do them up very prettily with aspic jelly and decorations. At least we can eat our enemies.”

Chew on that. Delicious!

 

 
Chicken with Tarragon
Ingredients
One chicken, cut into 8 pieces (I just used two chicken breasts)
3 tablespoons butter or oil
One small onion, chopped
One tablespoon flour
One glass white wine
Half cup chicken stock
Finely chopped tarragon leaves to taste (dried worked out well)
Salt and pepper to taste

Method
Sauteed chicken pieces in butter or oil until lightly browned. Removed to a platter and keep warm period in the same pan, sauteed chopped onion, stir in flour, and cook 2 to 3 minutes. Add wine, stock, tarragon, and seasonings. Cook to reduce somewhat. Return chicken pieces to pan, cover, and simmer in sauce 20 minutes. To serve, place chicken pieces on a platter and pour sauce over.

Lentilles du Puy

Sometimes I feel lentils are the lost legumes because short of being stuffed in a veggie burger or hiding out in a hearty stew, lentils are difficult to find on a menu, shining on a plate of their own.

Café de Bruxelles in the West Village used to serve the most delicious grilled brook trout paired with a side of lentils and I have served them together at dinner parties as a result. I think it’s a great combo. Mercato further uptown currently serves luscious lentils lounging in a shallow pool of olive oil and anchovy paste to accompany table bread, but I have yet to experiment with that at home.

However, a dish of Lentilles du Puy needs no supporting cast—or indeed, even a plate! Sometimes I just spoon it right out of the roasting pan.

Instead of adding three cups of water to the lentils as in the recipe below, I suggest using two and a half cups stock (such as mushroom, vegetable, or chicken) and about half a cup of white wine.

Fresh is best, but canned or vacuum-sealed beets are fine to use in a pinch (and you don’t have the bother of peeling them). I’ve also added bacon, because why not? Fry three strips of bacon ahead of time, remove them from pan and sautée the carrots and beets in the bacon grease with a little butter instead of the suggested oil. Crumble the cooled bacon and toss into the mix at the end.

C’est magnifique!


Lentilles du Puy with Roasted Carrots and Beets
Adapted from Saveur, Issue #18
Serves 6 as a side dish

“This recipe was developed for the esteemed lentils from Le Puy (which have been granted an appellation d'origine contrôlée by the French government), but any French-style lentil will do.”

Ingredients
3 small beets, peeled and diced
1 large carrot, peeled and diced
4 shallots, peeled and halved
3/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
2 sprigs fresh parsley
2 sprigs fresh thyme
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
3/4 lb. lentilles du Puy, or other French-style green lentils, picked over and rinsed
3 tbsp. sherry vinegar
1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley

Method
1. Preheat oven to 400°. Place beets, carrots, shallots, and 1/2 cup oil in a medium roasting pan. Stir to coat vegetables evenly with oil. Add parsley and thyme, season with salt and pepper, and cook, stirring once, until vegetables begin to brown, about 20 minutes. Add lentils and 3 cups of water, stir, then cover pan with foil. Cook until lentils are tender and all water is absorbed, about 1 hour.

2. Remove pan from oven. Remove and discard herb sprigs, then dress lentils with vinegar and remaining oil. Allow to cool slightly, then stir in chopped parsley. Adjust seasoning and serve.

Variation—Different vegetables and dressings can be used for this salad. For instance, roast 2 cups peeled small pearl onions for 20 minutes as in step 1 above. Dice 4 celery stalks. Add celery and lentils to onions with 3 cups water, cover, and continue roasting. Meanwhile, mix 3 tbsp. fresh lemon juice with 1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil in a small bowl. Stir in 1 minced peeled garlic clove and 2 tsp. finely chopped fresh thyme. When lentils are tender and liquid has been absorbed, toss with dressing. Adjust seasoning and serve.

Food For Thought

Having weathered the last two days of monsoon-like conditions while firmly ensconced downtown in jury duty waiting for a case to present itself, before we were finally sprung free I put down my book and crossword puzzles and began to imagine myself elsewhere, outside, where the rain had hopefully stopped, doing other patient, more pleasant things: I pictured myself shopping for groceries to make a dinner of brook trout, Lentilles du Puy and a simple but suitable salad, for Baby and me.

Charting the course of the commute in my mind, I knew I would take the train from the civic center of town to the 14th street stop and make my way a block over to Chelsea Market, where, strolling down its concourse, I'd stop into Fat Witch and nibble on a brownie sample they usually always have on their counter. Then, just past the gushing waterfall and whoever else may be around at that time of day, I'd embrace the salty, clean smell of fresh fish and enter the refrigerated air of The Lobster Place. "Do you have brook trout?" I'd inquire of the friendly counterman. "Why, yes we do sir," he'd answer, "right this way!" I'd pick two of the fattest fillets, pay the kindly cashier and walk further uptown to the market around the corner from my apartment and finish the job with a basket full of beets and carrots for the lentil dish, and Boston lettuce perhaps for the salad. Thyme for the dressing maybe with lemon and Dijon mustard...

Raised from my reverie, we were released early, around 230pm (as opposed to 5pm) and off I went, doing exactly as I had planned. Well, almost exactly. Although there was no longer a downpour outside, there was still a persistent mist. But it didn't warrant an umbrella. I caught an express train right away and was eating my brownie sample before I even realized I had done my service and was free of my jury duties. Although the counterman at The Lobster Place was indeed friendly, I was instantly thwarted. There was only one brook trout, he showed me, weighing less than a pound! Why the heck was there such a run of brook trout today of all days? Still it was long-ish and could be shared decently enough, I guessed; I would shroud it in my hearty dish of Lentilles du Puy, making a wreath around the fish and dressing it up with some chopped beets for color. The dressing was a go (see below) for a loosely shredded head of Boston lettuce and if that still wasn't enough to eat for us, I remembered we had an unopened container of raspberry sorbet, recently purchased.

While the lentils simmered in the oven, I made the salad dressing. Afterward, the trout cooked quickly on a grill pan with olive oil, a few sprays of lemon, and dashes of salt and pepper. For a twist on tradition, make a court bouillon ahead of time and instead of poaching the fillets with this broth in the classic manner, whisk a few tablespoons of butter (one tablespoon at a time) into about a cup of the concentrated broth over low heat until thickened for a wonderful sauce to pour over the grilled fish.

I hadn't worked from a grocery list, only well-intentioned memory, so I forgot that parsley goes in with the lentils too, along with more shallots than I had bought. It was of little matter though, because by the time Baby got home, it was nice just to have a homemade, comforting dinner on the table, one certainly that I'd had alot of time to think about!

Lemon-Thyme Dijon Dressing
Ingredients
Juice from 1/2 large lemon (just under a 1/4 cup)
1 heaping tb Dijon mustard
1/2 finely chopped medium shallot (about 1/2 Tb)
1 Tb chopped fresh thyme
1 tsp sugar
1/2 cup olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste

Method
Mix lemon juice, mustard, sugar and shallot in a small container, preferably with a lid. Slowly whisk in oil to create and emulsion and add thyme. Flavor to taste with salt and pepper. Set aside for a bit until ready to use. When the salad is about to be served, put the lid on the container and really give it a good couple of shakes to revive the dressing and then drizzle judiciously over the salad, just coating the lettuce and mix together.