Chicken

I called this recipe “3 beans and some chicken” because I didn’t want to put on any airs. If you’re having people over for dinner and your guests inquire what you are serving, by all means posh it up and inform them that you are preparing “Lemon-Scented Sautéed Poulet with Legume Ragout.” Snap!

Have one of each! Serve with spicy refried beans.

Serve with a green salad or vegetable sticks.

This chicken confit utilizes our favorite piece, the thigh. You can of course substitute your favorite part of the bird when making this deeply flavored chicken dish at home. We like to keep any extra seasoned fat in the refrigerator—we use it like bacon fat, sautéing vegetables, potatoes, fish, and anything else we happen to be cooking. The thighs pair nicely with Green Beans Amandine (page 203) for a lighter meal, as a replacement for the duck in a classic confit salad, or with roasted potatoes and bitter greens for a hearty winter supper. It’s a versatile preparation whose do-ahead nature makes it easy to put together a great meal in a hurry.

This is one of our favorite meals. The hardest part is waiting for the chicken to finish resting before we dig in. We love the slightly bitter sweetness of broccoli rabe, although if you prefer you could substitute broccoli or cauliflower. And really, the best part of this preparation is the amount of crispy chicken skin; because the bird is roasted flat, all the skin renders and crisps, which makes for an all-around better chicken.

This is the best fried chicken ever. The smoke permeates the meat, seasoning it from the inside out. Combined with the crunchy exterior and juicy meat, it is revelatory. Just remember to let it rest before eating. It’s almost impossible not to dive in immediately, but when the chicken is too hot you can’t fully appreciate the texture and flavors. We use rice bran oil for frying because it has a high smoke point and a clean, neutral flavor, which means that fried foods tend to cook evenly without burning or absorbing any heavy flavors from the oil. It is pressed from the hull of the rice grain and is high in antioxidants. It costs about the same as good olive oil, and its slightly sweet, nutty flavor is good for baking, cold marinades, and dressings. Once you try it, it will be hard to go back to canola. You can substitute whatever your favorite chicken parts are for the thighs. If you use breasts we suggest cutting them in half crosswise for the proper coating-to-meat ratio. Whatever you do, just make sure you try this technique. It’s a little bit of work for a big reward.

This may seem like an unorthodox flavor profile, but roast chicken brine is delicious. Just as chicken stock is used as the base for myriad soups, this roast chicken brine pairs well with a variety of vegetables and fish. Unsurprisingly, it is also amazing with chicken and turkey. We are lucky enough to be able to buy inexpensive chicken backs at our local Whole Foods. If you can’t get backs or if wings are too expensive, chicken legs or thighs are sometimes an economical substitute. Even if you prefer to eat white meat, using dark meat for the brine will give you the most flavor.

When I was in Paris, I got in touch with Anita Hausser, Jacqueline’s daughter. We met at a café in Paris to chat. The conversation turned into lunch, then finally extended into a dinner on another occasion in her charming and very French apartment, near the Maison de la Radio in Auteuil. For dinner, the first course was Alsatian goose liver spread on grilled bread, accompanied by champagne. Sometimes, she told me, she slathers the marrow from the cooked bones on the toast instead, sprinkling it with coarse salt. At the dinner we ate as a first course the broth from the pot-au-feu with tiny knepfle (matzo balls), to the delight of her very assimilated French Jewish guests. A century or so ago, in small villages of Alsace, the pot-au-feu cauldron of vegetables and meat would hang on a hook in the chimney to simmer slowly all night. I imagine religious Jews placing it there before the Sabbath began, and going to sleep with the tantalizing aromas of meat and vegetables as the fire slowly turned to embers and died out, leaving the pot still warm. When Anita makes her pot-au-feu, she cooks the meat slowly with the vegetables, which she discards toward the end. She then adds fresh carrots, leeks, and turnips, cut in chunks, for the last 30 minutes of cooking. She always accompanies her pot-au-feu with horseradish, mustard, and gherkins. This slowcooked dish is traditionally made in Jewish homes for Rosh Hashanah and the Sabbath.

Like many other communities in France, the town of Annecy had few Jews living there until the late 1950s. Then, one day, the town’s mayor assembled the Catholic archbishop, the head of the Protestants, and the leader of the tiny Jewish community, who happened to be my relative Rudi Moos (see page 3), and asked them to welcome emigrants from North Africa. Rudi sponsored about forty Moroccan, Tunisian, and Algerian Jewish families and built a synagogue in this town that had none. Cécile Zana and her husband were one of these families. They left Tunisia and went first to the Congo, and then, in 1968, to Annecy, where they live today. And, perhaps not surprisingly in this small Jewish world, Cécile’s daughter married Rudi’s grandson. Cécile showed me how to make this delicious spring dish with lots of parsley and peas.

When Céline Bénitah cooks this dish, she blanches the olives for a minute to get rid of the bitterness, a step that I never bother with. If you keep the pits in, just warn your guests in order to avoid any broken teeth! Céline also uses the marvelous Moroccan spice mixture ras el hanout, which includes, among thirty other spices, cinnamon, cumin, cardamom, cloves, and paprika. You can find it at Middle Eastern markets or through the Internet, or you can use equal amounts of the above spices or others that you like. To make my life easier, I assemble the spice rub the day before and marinate the chicken overnight. The next day, before my guests arrive, I fry the chicken and simmer it.

This Jewish-style stewed chicken comes from Gastronomie Pratique, a cookbook published in 1907 by Ali-Bab. Born Henri Babinski to Polish Christian immigrants to France, he was by profession a mining engineer, but he loved to cook and travel. Using the pseudonym Ali-Bab, he wrote the book for fun and included a long description of kosher cuisine as well as two Jewish recipes, one for choucroute, and one for poulet à la juive. Basically, he’s making a pot-au-feu, substituting chicken for beef and using fresh rendered chicken fat or veal-kidney suet. Since he finishes the dish off with butter, a no-no in kosher cooking, I have omitted this step. When serving this, I sometimes remove the skin and bones from the chicken for a more refined dish. I pile the chicken over white rice and spoon the gravy on top. Others, who like the meat on the bone, serve it as is. Sometimes called poule au bouillon or poule au pot, it is a comfort dish, and one often served in France for Friday night dinner or for the meal before the fast of Yom Kippur.

In the heart of Dijon, at the Municipal Museum, right next door to the majestic stone kitchen of the dukes of Burgundy, Alette Lévy checks coats. Once the owner of Dijon’s only kosher butcher shop, she talks food between customers, such as this chicken-tagine recipe she makes for her French friends. The trick to this recipe is to put the almonds in the microwave for 3 minutes, to make them crackly. This way you don’t run the risk of burning them, the way I always seem to do when I forget them in the oven or frying pan. Alette told me you can substitute lamb for the chicken.

When I was in Bordeaux, I received a call from Yaël Nahon, a young woman in public relations who loves to cook. We decided to meet at the Place des Quinconces, a beautiful square near the harbor with shimmering water where children play in the summer. In her spare time she is trying to re-create the dishes of her mother and grandmother, who came from Oran, in Algeria. Like many other North Africans, she uses spigol (an Algerian spice combination of hot pepper, saffron, and cumin, now packaged in Marseille) to enhance the flavor of her chicken dishes. This is a dish Yael ate every Friday night of her childhood. It was always preceded by several salads and followed by cookies and fruit.