THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, July 28, 1996 TAG: 9607250035
SECTION: FLAVOR PAGE: F1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JERRY CRONIN, SPECIAL TO THE DAILY BREAK
LENGTH: 102 lines
WHILE AT A cooking class a few years ago, I experienced revelation at the hands of a Buddhist monk.
Mr. Kenai, head cook of a Zen monastery in Japan, was demonstrating cooking techniques to an audience of foodies and karate students. One of the more memorable moments was when Kenai told us that we had an obligation to keep the spirit of the chicken we were cooking happy.
After the chuckling stopped, he explained that taking the life of the bird and not using it to its fullness was bad karma and that the chicken is pleased when it knows that it has gone to good use.
However, ``using a chicken to its fullness'' is a challenge to make even the most experienced cook throw in the towel. By day three, you feel like you've eaten enough bird to grow feathers.
One of the tricks to effectively making anything last is to keep it interesting. Chicken is no exception. You know success when, ``Dad! Are we having chicken again?'' isn't uttered in your house.
Four things you can change to eliminate that dreaded phrase are emphasis, meal, cuisine and course. Change them all with the same bird and make an interesting week of cooking.
The next time you buy chicken, pick up a 7- to 8-pound roaster and plan to make its acquaintance. Both you and the bird will shine over seven days.
On day one, chicken is the lead player of the evening meal. Start your odyssey by roasting the bird with vegetables. I particularly like Marchella Hazan's method. It is almost as simple as throwing the bird in the oven.
Cook and serve the meal in a large roasting bowl. This allows for a nice presentation of the browned bird and vegetables in the middle of your table. You can also cover the dish with plastic or foil and stick the whole thing in the refrigerator when you are done.
Don't skimp on the carrots, potatoes, onions or other roasting vegetables. Peel them, cut them into chunks, coat them with olive oil and herbs and toss them into the pan with the chicken for the last hour of cooking.
Day two is when you discover the wonderful things created in the roasting pan after the cooking juices cool in the refrigerator overnight.
In addition to bird and vegetables, you will probably see fat and juice in the bottom of the roaster. Reduce the fat content by removing the hardened chunks with a fork or slotted spoon and throwing them away. The juices are a thick liquid or a gelatin-like substance containing the flavors of roasted chicken and vegetables. Do not throw this away!
What you have is one of the secrets of flavorful cooking. This liquid will become the basis for gravies or sauces, or a welcome addition to the pot when making stock at the end of the week.
The next meal is a simple variation of the first. Prepare a gravy with the de-fatted liquid and heat slices of chicken and vegetables in the sauce while you fix rice. Serve the heated leftovers over the rice and return the roasting bowl to the refrigerator.
You can get away with having chicken play the central role on day two thanks to our expectations of leftovers following a festive meal. However, to keep serving the same meal past this point is to invite boredom.
Sandwiches on day three allow you to serve something totally different for dinner and erase the memory of the chicken from your family's taste buds.
Sometime during day two or three, strip the bird of the remaining meat, reserving both meat and carcass for later. Be sure to break apart the skeleton to get into nooks and crannies.
Put the meat in a plastic container and place the bones and skin in a freezer bag for stock. This is where much of the roasted and herbal flavors are resting. Save the de-fatted liquid, left in the bottom of the roasting bowl, for sauces or put it in the freezer bag with your stock-making materials.
On day four, a salad makes an evening meal, particularly if it is souped up with ingredients beyond lettuce, tomato and cucumber. Let strips of chicken play a role as the supporting protein, using it sparingly along with other flavor boosters. The emphasis of this meal is not on the meat, but rather the contrasting fruits, nuts and vegetables that dress up the salad.
Having changed the meal and emphasis, on day five, change the cuisine. Prepare a dish that is strongly associated with another country so that the overwhelming impression is that of a foreign land, not one particular ingredient.
For example, if you prepare burritos, tacos or any of their brothers, the association will be with Mexico. The chicken provides an accent, but is not the main language of the dish.
In most households, the chicken will be gone by day six. If not, use up the remaining meat or freeze it for later use in soups. With the meat gone, all that is left of the bird is the material you saved for making stock - the carcass and the liquid from the pan. Place these in a large pot with other stock-making ingredients, cover with water and simmer for a few hours. Cool the stock overnight.
On the seventh day, remove the stock from the refrigerator, disposing of any fat that has hardened on the top. Now you can make the weekend meal special by adding a soup course prepared from homemade stock.
There are as many options for soups as there are cooks and many use chicken stock as a base. When deciding which to prepare, consider what roasting herbs were used on the chicken and whether the flavors will compliment each other. For summer evenings, try a cold soup such as gazpacho.
Taking a week to explore the flavors of a chicken is time well spent. Seeing how far you can go with a single chicken is fun, and saves time and money. Aside from the rewards of using a bird to its full potential, the greatest joy comes when the family smiles and asks, ``Dad! Can we have chicken again?''
ILLUSTRATION: Color photos by Lawrence Jackson
[Food Photos] by CNB