What's Cooking (Take Three!)

Hankering for tart, sour tastes, I pulled out the dried persian limes ( Limu Omani ) and sumac to make a Persian red lentil soup with lots of dill and parsley. Not sure why such a current attraction but these ingredients along with pomegranate juice, pom molasses and fresh arils are jogging my imagination. Even a cocktail with Pom liqueur.

[Jenise]

Karen, I can't follow your last comment. Did you mean that to go in another thread

Wednesday's sherry tasting dinner was delayed to tonight, so that's what's going on here!

That is so weird, it did not belong here. It is not giving me the option to delete. So, if you are able to do so, please remove. thanks

Today it is a whole chicken, spiced up with salt, paprika, cayenne pepper, onion powder, thyme, white pepper, garlic powder and black pepper. This mix is rubbed outside and inside of chicken, then placed in fridge in a zip lock back overnight. Then onions, and fresh lemon wedges are stuffed into the chicken. Cooked in roaster, breast side down for 5 hours at 250° Baste occasionally with pan juices. I usually turn chicken over, and broil to get the breast a bit darker, if needed. Serving with Farro, cooked with chicken stock, onion, garlic, semi-dried cherry tomatoes, salt, olive, and Parmigiana Reggiano . Fresh Basil and Parm for garnish.
I like to add a little of the oil from the semi-dried cherry tomatoes to the oil when sautéing the onion and garlic.
Todays veggies will be roasted Brussels Sprouts with fresh garlic and lemon juice

5 hours at 250*F works?

Might as well stick my comment in this thread:

Last night I fried some ham with scalloped potatoes and peas as sides. I had bought some Kroger brand frozen peas. Well, I boiled those peas for over 35 minutes, and they were still al dente. WTF?

I'm going to email Kroger to see what's going on. Ever happen to you?

Did you defrost them first? Even if you didn't, that seems way too long a time. Perhaps there was a leak in the freezer bag and they dried out?

-Paul W.

5 hours at 250*F works?

Sure it works. Very old recipe I have made many times. At least a three pound or more chicken is best. Last nights chicken had a very well browned breast when I turned it over and lots of delicious juice. I always add fresh lemon wedges to the onions in neck and cavity. I took it out at 4 1/2 hours and let it rest while I roasted the veggies. Here is a write up on it by Mimi, the original poster of the recipe who was on Gail's Recipe Swap many years ago. The site changed to Eat. at then to The Recipe Swap but I see now they must have shut down because I can no longer get them. Very tender chicken, usually just pulled apart and served on a platter, the skin is very crispy and yummy. House smells wonderful while cooking.

http://www.cyber-kitchen.com/recipes/Fo ... hicken.htm

https://www.deepsouthdish.com/2010/04/m ... icken.html

Did you defrost them first? Even if you didn't, that seems way too long a time. Perhaps there was a leak in the freezer bag and they dried out?

-Paul W.

Paul, the chicken was not frozen when I put it into the oven. I bought it fresh, and as I posted it is spiced up and then goes into the fridge overnight.
There is more than one way to roast a chicken!

[Jenise]

Might as well stick my comment in this thread:

Last night I fried some ham with scalloped potatoes and peas as sides. I had bought some Kroger brand frozen peas. Well, I boiled those peas for over 35 minutes, and they were still al dente. WTF?

I'm going to email Kroger to see what's going on. Ever happen to you?

Never, and I'm a fan of frozen peas. I have, however, cooked fresh peas that were so old/woody they were unedible. A good frozen pea will be ready about two minutes after coming to a boil.

The peas were newly purchased, plump, bright green, spherical, no wrinkles, not dried out or woody (actually beautiful looking). As far as defrosting goes, frozen peas defrost almost immediately after being put in boiling water. I've cooked frozen peas for probably six decades and this is a new phenomenon to me.

Very curious Larry. Never happened to me. I never even cook frozen baby peas when I use them in a salad. I just run them under water and drain to room temp.

[Jenise]

Very curious Larry. Never happened to me. I never even cook frozen baby peas when I use them in a salad. I just run them under water and drain to room temp.

Same here, and I love them in salads. 'Cooking' for frozen really just means heating up.

[Jenise]

Did you defrost them first? Even if you didn't, that seems way too long a time. Perhaps there was a leak in the freezer bag and they dried out?

-Paul W.

Paul, the chicken was not frozen when I put it into the oven. I bought it fresh, and as I posted it is spiced up and then goes into the fridge overnight.
There is more than one way to roast a chicken!

So I bought an heirloom roaster to do a roast chicken, which did not happen, and a few days ago I saw my clay roaster in the pantry and thought "I really should conjure up an excuse to use that" and then Friday I was seasoning something with Lawry's seasoning salt which brought to mind the baked supermarket chickens of my childhood (more basked than roasted, never a crisp skin, which was seasoned with nothing other than Lawry's seasoned salt or at least a brand that tasted identical to that, but in my head the flavor of chicken and noodles was winning out over a conventional roasted chicken until today when I read your intriguing recipe.

There is now a chicken covered in Lawrys seasoning salt upside down in the clay roaster and in three more hours that's dinner. Will be served with buttered noodles and roasted celery.

We went to a Japanese tea Sunday that had a number of savory to sweet munchies and green tea and oolong teas, finishing with an orange-blossom-water-flavored panna cotta. Didn't have to cook that evening. Yay!

5 hours at 250*F works?

Sure it works. Very old recipe I have made many times. At least a three pound or more chicken is best. Last nights chicken had a very well browned breast when I turned it over and lots of delicious juice. I always add fresh lemon wedges to the onions in neck and cavity. I took it out at 4 1/2 hours and let it rest while I roasted the veggies. Here is a write up on it by Mimi, the original poster of the recipe who was on Gail's Recipe Swap many years ago. The site changed to Eat. at then to The Recipe Swap but I see now they must have shut down because I can no longer get them. Very tender chicken, usually just pulled apart and served on a platter, the skin is very crispy and yummy. House smells wonderful while cooking.

http://www.cyber-kitchen.com/recipes/Fo ... hicken.htm

https://www.deepsouthdish.com/2010/04/m ... icken.html

Thanks for the references, Karen. I'm going to copy this down and make it sometime soon.

Paul, the chicken was not frozen when I put it into the oven. I bought it fresh, and as I posted it is spiced up and then goes into the fridge overnight.
There is more than one way to roast a chicken!

I was asking Larry about his batch of frozen peas.

-Paul W.

[Jenise]

So yesterday I made Karen's five-hour chicken. Mixed results! 1) the skin was the best chicken skin I've ever had. Super-rendered and thin, shattered like glass. Bob loved the dark meat. I loved the wings which had that amazing skin to hold it together. But I did not love the breast meat--it was just plain overcooked. Powdery, dry. And where the dark meat leg-thigh easily separated from the bird in one piece for Bob's serving, the carcass that held the breast together essentially dissolved after the long cook--it wasn't one or two big bones it was a hundred little fragments so I basically ate with my fingers in order to avoid eating bones. Interesting experiment, but this method isn't for me.

Jenise, that does not sound good. Just curious, was your chicken at least three or more pounds? Mine was over 3 1/2 lbs and I took it out after 4 1/2 hours so I could let it rest and cook the roasted veggies in the same oven. Mine was juicy throughout. Some of the recipes call for using a 4 pound chicken. And I did put the resulting juices on the breast slices I cut the first night. Last night I had a leg and a wing, yummy.
I just found this on a website of a lady I know from Gail's Recipe Swap a long time ago. She is a great baker and home cook, not to mention a scientist. Please read her notes on cooking the chicken.
https://bewitchingkitchen.com/2017/07/1 ... m-my-past/

While I was at it, I found some more recipes by Mimi Hiller in a treasury of popular recipes from rec.food.cooking:
http://www.recfoodcooking.org/signature.php

No idea which ones are good but I hear that Mimi HIller's chicken is terrif....

[Jenise]

Jenise, that does not sound good. Just curious, was your chicken at least three or more pounds? Mine was over 3 1/2 lbs and I took it out after 4 1/2 hours so I could let it rest and cook the roasted veggies in the same oven. Mine was juicy throughout. Some of the recipes call for using a 4 pound chicken. And I did put the resulting juices on the breast slices I cut the first night. Last night I had a leg and a wing, yummy.
I just found this on a website of a lady I know from Gail's Recipe Swap a long time ago. She is a great baker and home cook, not to mention a scientist. Please read her notes on cooking the chicken.
https://bewitchingkitchen.com/2017/07/1 ... m-my-past/

Yup on weight. Though half a pound either way wouldn't have made any difference over five hours. The Gail person's instructions deviate slightly from the first of the two recipes you linked to above. 1) she says elevate it, the other didn't and 2) it says "or reaches 155 F" where the other had no such directive. No idea where mine was, after five hours there's no way it wasn't fully cooked so no point in taking its temp. I'm sure it was done several hours before.

[Jenise]

No idea what I'm making for dinner tonight.

And it's 5:30--running out of time.

When in doubt: buttered saltines.

"Yup on weight. Though half a pound either way wouldn't have made any difference over five hours. The Gail person's instructions deviate slightly from the first of the two recipes you linked to above. 1) she says elevate it, the other didn't and 2) it says "or reaches 155 F" where the other had no such directive. No idea where mine was, after five hours there's no way it wasn't fully cooked so no point in taking its temp. I'm sure it was done several hours before."

Strange thing is I've been cooking this chicken for years and never had anything like you describe. Almost sounds like the oven was set to convection, but I am sure you would know that if it were. Cannot fathom the shattering of bone, and the skin shattering. That has not happened with me. Some skins darken faster than others, I have noticed that.