Sunday Dinner

I roasted a chicken, using a Mark Bittman recipe I cut from the Times maybe ten years ago. It’s a bare-bones approach (he is "The Minimalist," after all) that hinges on two things: high heat (450F) and preheating the roasting vessel to “jump-start” the cooking of the dark meat, so that everything comes out even. You simply put a cast iron skillet in the oven, turn it on, and salt and pepper the bird. When oven and pan are hot, you plop in the chicken, breast side up, and shove the pan back in the oven. What could be easier? Bittman suggests thirty minutes for a three-pound bird. Mine was four and a half, so I set the timer for 45 minutes, to be sure of doneness. I can’t stomach chicken pink at the bone.

Alas, this time Bittman’s minimalism turned out to be a bit excessive. Before twenty minutes passed L noticed smoke seeping from the oven. I opened the door and choked on a cloud. The bird’s skin was already brown, and the bottom of the pan was swimming in grease, which popped and spattered everywhere. I turned the oven fan on high and opened the kitchen window, but every time I cracked the oven door another billow of smoke rushed to the ceiling. I covered the pan loosely with foil, thinking that might catch the spattering and prevent burning grease, to no avail. Out of tricks, and hungry, I just hunkered down and willed the oven timer to get to zero, alternately cursing Bittman’s cavalier omission ("Warning: Burning grease!") and praying that I wouldn’t set off the smoke detector. In the middle of this ordeal I dimly remembered trying this recipe once before, probably ten years ago—and why I had never tried it again. Thus was reinforced the utility of making notes on recipes, and also that of throwing flawed recipes away.

In the end the bird turned out fine, better than fine even: 45 minutes produced breast meat so moist and juicy I was afraid it wasn’t done, though it had easily run the meat thermometer to 165F. L claimed it was the best chicken she’d ever had. The dark meat was done well, too. Still, despite the results at table, I don’t think I’ll try this recipe again--not indoors, or at least not in winter. My eyes are still smarting from the smoke.

P.S. It’s not often that my having made polenta ranks as an afterthought, but yeah, I made that too. Stirred it for a good 45 minutes while watching the chicken, not constantly, but every couple of minutes over a very low heat. When it was finished I swirled in some Parmesan cheese. It was thick, creamy, and rib-sticking good, nothing like the wretched pre-made stuff that comes in tubes, or the instant variety you buy in a box. The gulf between these impostors and the real thing is akin to that between instant coffee and good French pressed.

I also made some hot oil: red pepper flakes simmered briefly in olive oil which is then allowed to cool, so that the pepper infuses. My father remembers his grandfather keeping a bowl of this simple dressing on the table always, and drizzling it on everything. It added zip to the polenta, caro nonno!