This is a wonderful dish from Jamie Oliver. I missed seeing him when he was in Toronto (the city beside our small city of Pickering) a couple of weeks ago – I found out he would be here the night before and we couldn’t get a babysitter in such a short time. I didn’t really like the idea of going alone and leaving Belle to stay with Dylan. Anyway, I was disappointed to have missed him but there will be other opportunities, I hope!

You see, we do not have cable or satellite – lots of DVDs and videos but no television otherwise – so I can’t watch the Food Network or any of the cooking shows (unless I can get it on DVD). I gave up cable television about 20 years ago and have not missed it at all, except now that I love cooking I would like to see these cooking shows! When Belle and I first met, I said I really did not want to waste my time or life with TV and she agreed. It has been wonderful. I just wish there were more cooking videos/DVDs out there!

By the way, if someone out there is addicted to cooking shows and likes to tape/copy them and wants to send an occasional Care Package to a Canadian without cable television, please contact me and I will be more then happy to send you blank DVDs or tapes.

Now, back to this post. Belle just loves this Chicken Pot Pie and so do I. It is so easy to make but tastes like you slaved in the kitchen for days (you can always tell them you did and they would believe it!).

I made this two nights ago for Belle and I and then the next night was my dojo’s Adult Christmas Party and I was going to make Jamie Oliver’s “Hunter’s Lasagne” and Belle said why not make the Chicken Pot Pie instead, or both. Since I’m always up to a challenge, I made both after getting home from teaching classes and it was ready just as we left for the party. So, quite easy. And delicious! You couldn’t ask for more, could you? Recipe follows the pictures below!

Cooking up the chicken and vegetables

Thickening the sauce

The sausage balls

Ready to bake

Ready to eat!

Belle’s note: This is, indeed, my favorite chicken pot pie recipe. I think it’s the addition of the sausage balls that makes it so delicious. You know how lovely chicken smells sometimes when it’s baking? This pie tastes as good as it smells!

The following recipe is adapted from Jamie’s Dinners.

The Best Chicken and Sweet Leek Pie with Flaky Pastry

2 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp butter
2 1/2 lbs free-range boneless & skinless chicken thighs, cut into bite size pieces
2 leeks, trimmed, washed and cut into 1/2″ pieces
3 carrots, peeled, quartered lengthwise and chopped (1/4″) (organic preferably)
3 stalks of celery, quartered lengthwise and then finely sliced (organic preferably)
Handful of fresh thyme
3-4 tbsp all purpose flour
1 cup dry white wine
1 1/4 cups milk
1 cup water
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 lb hot Italian sausage (approx 3)
1-1/2 tbsp olive oil
1 lb package of all-butter puff pastry
1 free-range egg

1. Preheat oven to 450 degree F.
2. Heat the oil in a large, deep skillet over medium heat along with the butter.
3. Add the chicken, leeks, carrots, celery and thyme and cook until the veggies are soft and the chicken is mostly cooked (about 30 minutes).
4. Add the flour (2 tbsp to start) and turn the heat to high and cook for a couple of minutes.
5. Add the wine, milk and water and season with salt and pepper.
6. Cover with a lid and simmer for 30 minutes.Stirring occasionally.
7. Remove the lid and continue to cook at medium heat until the liquid is thick -add the extra flour at this point if it is still very liquidy (is that a word?).
8. Pour into a 9×13 (approx) baking dish ( A smaller dish would work better given the size of the puff pastry but this is what I had).
9. Squeeze the meat out of the sausages and roll into small balls (agate size for those of you who ever played marbles).
10. Brown the sausage balls in 1-1/2 tbsp olive oil in a large skillet. Place the sausage balls in the chicken mixture and mix together.
11. Break the egg in a small bowl and whisk. Egg wash the  rim of the baking dish.
12. Drape the pastry over the baking dish, using a knife cut off the extra. Egg wash the top of the pastry.
13. Place in the oven for 40 minutes.
14. Serve and enjoy.

This salad was a big hit at our November 14th Open House dinner but even more of a hit with Belle. She loves it. She has been eating the leftovers all week – I made a lot, and she even loves the way it smells.

At first I thought about going for skinless, boneless chicken breasts but Belle suggested (and quite rightly) that bone-in and skin-on chicken wouldl add more flavour to the meat. To help convince me, she even offered to remove the skin and bones for me and shred the meat. Who am I to refuse help?

So I went with the bone-in and skin on breasts. Obviously, this was the right choice. The salad was simply delicious.

The stock in which I simmered the chicken

I made the chicken the night before and after Belle shredded it, I put it in the fridge. The next afternoon, I brought the chicken out to come to room temperature. This is a great party dish because you serve it at room temperature – one of the reasons we picked it.

I should also mention I used two pots to accommodate the six breasts I used, rather than the three in the recipe below, but that was necessary only because we were having so many people over. If you follow the recipe below, you will only need one pot.

Belle’s note: I was indeed happy to offer my services as sous chef for this dish; the chicken turned out to be very flavourful, and yes, it had the most wonderful chicken salad-y smell. I’m not kidding. I had a bowl of it at my desk the day after, and the scent of the dish was just divine! Ward was hesitant about adding the raisins (he isn’t a big fan of raisins himself), but I think they’re essential to the dish.

The following recipe is adapted from Oranges and Olives (a really splendid book about Mediterranean cooking).

Chicken Salad with Tarragon, Toasted Pine Nuts and Golden Raisins

2 carrots, chopped coarsely
2 celery stalks, chopped coarsely
1 medium onions, peeled and cut into eighths
4 garlic cloves, peeled and cut in half
1 lemon, sliced in half
6 sprigs of fresh parsley
4 sprigs of fresh thyme
1-1/2 tbsp black peppercorns
1-1/2 tsp fine sea salt
1-1/2 cups dry white wine (Sauvignon Blanc is a good choice)
1/3 cup red wine vinegar
3 bone-in, skin on free-range chicken breasts
1/2 cup golden raisins, soaked in warm water for 15 minutes and drained
1/2 cup pine nuts, toasted over medium heat
3 scallions, sliced thinly on the bias
1/3 cup fresh tarragon, chopped
1/3 cup Italian parsley, chopped
3 tbsp fresh chives, chopped
3/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
1 tbsp white wine vinegar
1 tsp sea salt
freshly ground black pepper, coarse

Chicken

1. Put 8 cups of water into a large pot and start bringing to the boil.
2. Put carrots, celery, onion, garlic, lemon, parsley, thyme, peppercorns, salt, wine and vinegar and allow to come to a boil.
3. Add the chicken breasts and reduce heat to simmer and cover.
4. Cook for 30 minutes, remove chicken and allow to cool (you can discard the poaching liquid at this point – I know, it seems a shame. By all means, reserve it if you think you can use it for something else)
5. Remove the skin and bones from the meat, shredding the chicken as you go.

Salad

1. Mix the raisins, pine nuts, scallions, tarragon, parsley, chives, oil, vinegar and salt in a large bowl. Add the shredded chicken to the mixture. Toss well, so that the chicken is well-coated.
2. Adjust the seasoning with salt and pepper.
3. Serve at room temperature.

Most of our Thanksgiving menu was prepared in advance. The pumpkin pies were also made a day ahead and the appetizers were prepared early Thanksgiving morning while everyone else slept (well not Dylan, he never sleeps past 7 am, unfortunately!).

I had our butcher butterfly a 15lb free range turkey. He removed the back bone and breast plates. The plan was to roast the turkey on top of the dressing so the drippings from the turkey would mix into the dressing. I did not have a roasting pan that had a cover with holes in it but I did have a roasting pan with a wire rack which I thought would work.

In hindsight, I probably should have covered the rack with foil and cut some holes in it for drainage. This would have slowed the drainage down and not made the dressing so moist. However, everyone loved the dressing as it was. I just thought it was not the ‘traditional style dressing’.

The following recipes are adapted from The Best of America’s Test Kitchen “Best Entertaining Recipes” DVD. To print the recipes, click on the print link at the end of the recipes.

CRISP-SKIN HIGH-ROAST BUTTERFLIED TURKEY WITH SAUSAGE DRESSING

Serves 10 to 12

INGREDIENTS

For the Turkey

2 cups kosher salt
1 cup sugar
1 turkey (15 pounds, but will work for 12-15lbs), rinsed thoroughly, and butterflied by the butcher (or you can do it yourself)
1 tbsp unsalted butter, melted
ice

For the Sausage Dressing

12 cups Italian loaf bread broken into 1-inch pieces (include crumbs), or 18 cups
1-3/4 cups organic chicken stock
1 cup half-and-half
2 large free range eggs, beaten lightly
14 ounces breakfast sausage, squeezed out of skin
3 medium onions, chopped fine (about 3 cups)
3 ribs celery, chopped fine (about 11/2 cups)
2 tbsp unsalted butter
2 tbsp minced fresh thyme leaves
2 tbsp minced fresh sage leaves
3 medium cloves garlic, minced
1-1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp ground black pepper

DIRECTIONS

Brining the turkey

Dissolve salt and sugar in 2 gallons cold water in large stockpot or clean bucket. Add turkey and refrigerate or set in very cool spot (about 40 degrees) for 8 hours. I did not have the room in the fridge for this so I bought a large styrofoam cooler for $2.50 at the grocery store and a bag of ice. I placed the brining solution in the cooler, added the turkey and topped with some ice. I kept checking the cooler every hour or two to see if it needed more ice. The ice did dilute the brining solution somewhat – next time I do this, I will probably put the turkey (since it’s butterflied and very flexible) directly into the brining solution in the pot, and put the pot in the cooler and surround it with ice.

Preparing the dressing

1. Adjust one oven rack to upper-middle position and second rack to lower-middle position. Heat oven to 250 degrees F.
2. Spread bread pieces in even layers on 2 rimmed baking sheets and dry in oven for about 40 to 50 minutes.
3. Whisk together stock, half-and-half, and eggs in a medium bowl
4. Place bread chunks in a large bowl. Pour stock mixture over the bread and toss to coat thoroughly.
5. Heat a large skillet over medium-high heat, until hot.  Add the sausage and cook, stirring occasionally until sausage is not raw. Remove sausage with slotted spoon to a bowl.
6. Add about half the onions and celery to the sausage fat in the skillet and  sauté, stirring occasionally, over medium-high heat until softened, about 5 minutes.Transfer onion and celery mixture to bowl with sausage.
7. Return skillet to heat and add 2 tbsp butter and the remaining celery and onions, and sauté, stirring occasionally, until softened, about 5 minutes.
8. Stir in thyme, sage, and garlic. Cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Add salt and pepper to taste.
9. Add this second mixture along with sausage and onion mixture to the bread pieces and fold gently to combine.
10. Spray large roasting pan with nonstick cooking spray. Put dressing in roasting pan and spread it out evenly. Cover pan with foil and refrigerate.

Drying the turkey

1. Remove turkey from the brine and rinse well under cool running water.
2. Place turkey on a broiler pan or foil-lined rack (punch a few holes in the foil for drainage) and pat dry with paper towels.
3. Place turkey and pan on top of the stuffing in your roasting pan (still covered with foil) and refrigerate overnight, uncovered. Stacking the two pans saves you space in your fridge – if you have a huge fridge, you can place them side by side.

Roasting the turkey and dressing

1. Adjust oven rack to lower-middle position and preheat oven to 450 degrees F.
2. Remove turkey and stuffing from the fridge.
3. Remove the foil covering the dressing in your roasting pan. Baste the turkey with 1-2 tbsp melted butter, then place the turkey and broiler pan on top of dressing again. Place in oven and roast for 45 minutes.
4. Rotate roasting pan and continue to roast for an additional 40-45 minutes or until an instant-read thermometer reads 165 degrees F in the breast and 175 F degrees in the thigh.
5. Remove the turkey and place on cutting board. Loosely tent with foil and let rest 20 minutes.
6. Place the dressing in the roasting pan back in oven and continue to bake for 10 minutes (or until golden brown). Remove from oven and let rest, uncovered, for 5 minutes

TURKEY GRAVY

INGREDIENTS

Turkey trimmings: reserved giblets (do not use the liver), neck, tailpiece, and backbone and breast bones from turkey
1 carrot, cut into 1-inch pieces
1 rib celery, cut into 1-inch pieces
2 small onions, coarsley chopped
6 cloves garlic, unpeeled
3-1/2 cups chicken stock, divided
2 cups dry white wine
6 sprigs fresh thyme
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
Salt and ground black pepper

DIRECTIONS

1. Heat oven to 450 degrees F.
2. Place the turkey trimmings, carrots, celery, onions, and garlic in large roasting pan and spray lightly with vegetable oil spray.  Toss to combine.
3. Roast, stirring every 10 minutes, until well-browned, 40 to 50 minutes.
4. Remove pan from oven, and place over burner(s) set at high heat. Add chicken stock and bring to boil, scraping up browned bits on bottom of pan with wooden spoon. Transfer contents of pan to large saucepan. Add wine, 3 cups water, and thyme; bring to boil over high heat. Reduce heat to low and simmer until reduced by half, about 11/2 hours. (Note: if you don’t have a roasting pan that can be placed on top of a burner, just transfer the contents to your large saucepan and add the chicken stock directly to the saucepan and bring to a boil. Then add the wine, water and thyme and bring to boil again before simmering.)
5. Strain your stock into a large bowl. Cool to room temperature, cover with plastic wrap, and refrigerate overnight.
6. The next day, skim fat from stock, keeping  fat for the gravy. Pour stock through fine-mesh strainer to remove remaining bits of fat. You can discard these remaining bits of fat.
7. Bring stock to simmer in a medium saucepan over medium-high heat.
8. In another medium saucepan, heat 4 tbsp of the reserved turkey fat (skimmed from the stock) over medium-high heat until bubbling. Whisk in the flour and cook, stirring constantly with your whisk, until combined and honey-colored, about 2 minutes. You need to make sure you get that honey-colored look, or your roux will be undercooked.
9. Continue to whisk constantly and gradually add the hot stock and bring to a boil, then reduce heat to medium-low and simmer, stirring occasionally, until slightly thickened, about 5 minutes.
10. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Pollo Alla Diavola looked delicious in the cookbook (The Food of Italy: A Journey for Food Lovers), so when I was putting together the list of meals for this week, I slipped it in there, along with spaghetti con zucchini (very garlicky good) and grilled mushroom caps with arugula butter (absolute perfection).

I had absolutely no idea that I’d picked a dish that would have me saying, over and over again, “This is so good. This is so good. This is so good.”

It didn’t look like it would turn out well, actually. This was the first dish we’d be making from The Food of Italy, a new-to-us cookbook. You have the option to either grill it on the barbecue, or broil it in the oven. Since the mushroom caps had to be grilled over indirect heat, and our grill isn’t the snazziest most up-to-date grill around (it basically gets the job done, but without any interesting options), Ward decided to use the broiler instead.

One of the banes of Ward’s life is that all the rooms downstairs have a low ceiling. With low ceilings, anything he cooks that smokes a bit usually results in the fire alarm going off. And usually when he uses the broiler, things get smoky..

So tonight, the smoke alarm went on. We fanned around it, and it stopped. It went on again. And again. By the time Ward was finished cooking, we had all the windows open, the stove-top vent on and a fan blowing in an attempt to keep the smokiness away from the fire alarm.

But when things had cleared (literally!) and we sat down to dinner, such lovely smells rose to greet us!

The chicken was delicious – the best chicken I’ve ever had. Seriously. Not only was it tender, it also had a wonderful essence-of-chicken taste. You know how sometimes chicken smells better than it actually tastes? Not with this recipe. It was chicken perfection.

I’d been avoiding chicken recipes for a while because, back when I was doing the cooking, most of the recipes I chose used only white meat, and I just found the results to be too bland. Pollo Alla Diavola has me hooked on chicken again. And Ward says it wasn’t a very difficult dish at all.

The recipe in The Food of Italy tells you to butterfly the chicken. We just asked our butcher to do it for us. Much easier.

Don’t let my mediocre food photography skills put you off. The chicken was far more delicious than the picture looks.

The following recipe for Pollo Alla Diavola is adapted from The Food of Italy: A Journey for Food Lovers:

POLLO ALLA DIAVOLA (Devil’s Chicken)

Serves 4.

Ingredients:

2/3 cup olive oil
2 tbsp lemon juice
1/2 tsp dried chili flakes
4 sage leaves, coarsely chopped
salt and pepper
one 3-4 pound chicken, butterflied
2 shallots
4-5 cloves of garlic
6 tbsp chopped parsley
2-1/2 tbsp butter, softened to room temperature

Other equipment: One ziplock back, large enough to marinate the chicken.

Directions:

1. In a medium-sized bowl, mix together the olive oil, lemon juice, chili and chopped sage. Season generously with salt and pepper. Place the butterflied chicken into the ziplock bag, and pour the sauce over the chicken. Close the bag, and squeeze gently to distribute the sauce around the chicken. Marinate in the fridge for 30 minutes, then gently squeeze the marinade around the chicken again and, turning the bag over, marinate in the fridge for another 30 minutes.
2. While the chicken is marinating, place shallots, garlic, parsley and butter in blender or food processor and chop until the mixture is a fine paste. Add salt and pepper to taste.
3. Preheat the broiler (or your grill).
4. Remove the chicken from the ziplock bag, reserving the leftover marinade. Place the marinated chicken, skin side down, on a broiler tray (or the grill). Place the tray or grill about 6 inches below the heat  and broil or grill for 15 minutes, occasionally basting the chicken with the marinade. Turn the chickens and broil or grill, basting occasionally, for 10-15 more minutes, or until the juices run clear when thigh is pierced with fork or skewer.
5. Spread the butter mixture over the skin of the chicken. Turn off the broiler and set oven to 300° F. Bake chicken for an additional 5 minutes, so that skin gets lightly browned. Serve hot.

Store-bought Rappie Pie, From Frozen

This year we vacationed again in Nova Scotia; we loved it so much last year that we ended up going for two weeks this time around, which gave us time to see some of the places we’d missed out on the year before. The first thing we did, of course, was pick up some more of D’Eon’s frozen rappie pie from the local grocery store.

We also had a chance to spend an afternoon in Yarmouth, N.S., and discovered to our delight that the restaurant we’d stopped in at for a mid-day snack served rappie pie.

Rappie Pie served in Yarmouth, N.S.

Rather surprisingly, we both thought that D’Eon’s Rappie Pie had a more intense chicken flavor than the rappie pie we had at the restaurant.

If you’ve never heard of rappie pie, it’s a traditional Acadian dish that’s made of potatoes and chicken. It has an almost glutinous texture inside, and it’s got a very intense chicken flavor – think about how roast chicken smells when it’s cooking and that’s the way it tastes.

Luckily, we picked up a copy of A Taste of Acadie at a local store in Yarmouth that very same day; it has a recipe for rappie pie, so yesterday Ward decided to give it a try.

While it didn’t turn out looking quite as good as the one we were served in the restaurant – Ward figures he didn’t get as much starch out of the potatoes as he should have – the flavor was definitely there. The bonus? The entire house smelled so delicious the entire time.

Fresh Out of the Oven

The potatoes also stayed in strands, rather than becoming a more glutinous solid. I know “glutinous solid” doesn’t sound very good, but trust me on this one – it tastes much better than it sounds!

Ready to Eat

Interested in making rappie pie? Here’s the recipe we used, adapted from A Taste of Acadie. Next time we try this recipe, we won’t use as much bacon (we found the bacon flavor took away from the intense chicken taste), and we might also order the frozen potato mixture that D’Eon’s sells, as suggested in this FoodTV.ca article.

Rappie Pie

Ingredients:

1 medium-sized chicken

3 large onions, chopped

12 potatoes

salt and pepper

1/2 pd/250 g bacon, cut into small pieces

1/2 tsp-1 tsp dried savory, or to taste

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F/180 degrees C.

2. Cut chicken into large pieces. Place in pot with just enough water to completely cover. Add onions and simmer until chicken is tender.

3. Remove chicken from the pot, reserving the broth. Remove meat from the bones. Cut meat into smaller, bite-sized pieces.

4. Grate potatoes. Place grated potatoes in cotton bag and squeeze vigorously to extract all the water. The goal is to get rid of as much starch as possible by squeezing out all the water.

5. Bring the reserved chicken broth to a boil. Scald the grated, de-starched potatoes in an amount of broth equal to approximately 2/3 of the water you extracted from the potatoes. Blend the broth with the potatoes and season with salt and pepper.

6. In heavy pot, sauté half of the bacon. Add half of the potato mixture. Spoon into greased rectangular baking pan. Add the chicken, sprinkle over with savory, then top with remaining potato mixture. Place remaining bacon on top.

7. Bake for 1-1/2 hours, or until top is uniformly brown.