Thursday, January 25, 2007
Poulet au Vinaigre
Tonight I made poulet au vinaigre from the new Fine Cooking issue. It was served with browned potatoes, as they suggested, and steamed green beans. Because I had no desire to go to the store to pick up three ingredients, I made some substitutions. We had no champagne vinegar, so I used apple cider vinegar. As I believe that the first duty of wine is to be red, I didn't have a dry white wine in the house, but I did have flat champagne! We had neither creme fraiche (can you see the accents if I put them in: cr ème fraîche?) nor heavy cream, so I used sour cream instead. Also, we had some organic, free range chicken pieces in the freezer, so I took those down yesterday instead of cutting up a whole one, it was six drumsticks and four thighs. It turned out quite lovely, and everyone agreed that we'd like to have it again.
These are the two onions, thinly sliced, in butter with the salt and pepper just added.
This is how they looked after they were cooked down and with the vinegar added. Oh, the recipe called for fresh tarragon, we didn't have any, but we had dried, so I cooked it with the onions.
The last of the chicken being dredged in flour. I added the salt and pepper to the flour, rather than doing it separately to the chicken to remove one step from putting dinner together.
Here is most of the chicken browning nicely in butter. I need to tell you about this butter, it is Jana Valley butter from New Zealand. It has a much lower water content than most American butter (unless you get it freshly churned or make it yourself), and is priced even lower than the grocery store butter, it is 8.8 ounces at $1.29. It is unsalted, and tastes very good. We buy it at the outlet store every time we are there, because you never know how long something like that will last. I think we will be picking quite a bit of it up the next time we go. I will take a picture of it in the wrapper and out, so you can go see if any stores near you carry it. It's lovely butter.
My plate just before we sat down to eat. I later went back and got more of the sauce to put over my potatoes. We have three drumsticks left with quite a bit of the sauce.
Oh! I almost forgot to tell this story. As we were eating dinner, Dominic reminded us of the story of him being about two and a half or three years old and eating green beans. I was at a women's meeting with two friends, and Rich was home with the boys (there was no Amira yet). Dominic was dawdling over his dinner, as usual, but he wanted a treat. Rich was in the kitchen getting a treat for Alexander and said that if he finished his beans, he could have the treat. Well, that motivated him, and he ate them up and told Rich so. Rich got him his treat and returned to the table to find all of the green beans, split with the seeds eaten out of them. He had eaten the beans and left the pods! Rich said to me later that night that he had to give him the treat anyway, since Dominic had obviously done exactly what he said he would. He said it was too good to make him eat the rest.
Anyway, since I've actually done my menu planning again this week, we have all sorts of good meals ahead of us. Monday was the saucy meatballs; Tuesday, nacho breakfast; Wednesday was homemade herbed tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches (on homemade bread, thank you very much); tonight was the poulet au vinaigre; tomorrow will be melanzane al forno with garlic and olive oil pasta; Saturday will be Italian beef sandwiches on pane all'olio. I haven't figured out Sunday yet, because we don't have something I thought we did. Probably lamb and garlic sausage cooked up with onions, garlic, tomatoes and beer and served over rice with a salad.
These are the two onions, thinly sliced, in butter with the salt and pepper just added.
This is how they looked after they were cooked down and with the vinegar added. Oh, the recipe called for fresh tarragon, we didn't have any, but we had dried, so I cooked it with the onions.
The last of the chicken being dredged in flour. I added the salt and pepper to the flour, rather than doing it separately to the chicken to remove one step from putting dinner together.
Here is most of the chicken browning nicely in butter. I need to tell you about this butter, it is Jana Valley butter from New Zealand. It has a much lower water content than most American butter (unless you get it freshly churned or make it yourself), and is priced even lower than the grocery store butter, it is 8.8 ounces at $1.29. It is unsalted, and tastes very good. We buy it at the outlet store every time we are there, because you never know how long something like that will last. I think we will be picking quite a bit of it up the next time we go. I will take a picture of it in the wrapper and out, so you can go see if any stores near you carry it. It's lovely butter.
My plate just before we sat down to eat. I later went back and got more of the sauce to put over my potatoes. We have three drumsticks left with quite a bit of the sauce.
Oh! I almost forgot to tell this story. As we were eating dinner, Dominic reminded us of the story of him being about two and a half or three years old and eating green beans. I was at a women's meeting with two friends, and Rich was home with the boys (there was no Amira yet). Dominic was dawdling over his dinner, as usual, but he wanted a treat. Rich was in the kitchen getting a treat for Alexander and said that if he finished his beans, he could have the treat. Well, that motivated him, and he ate them up and told Rich so. Rich got him his treat and returned to the table to find all of the green beans, split with the seeds eaten out of them. He had eaten the beans and left the pods! Rich said to me later that night that he had to give him the treat anyway, since Dominic had obviously done exactly what he said he would. He said it was too good to make him eat the rest.
Anyway, since I've actually done my menu planning again this week, we have all sorts of good meals ahead of us. Monday was the saucy meatballs; Tuesday, nacho breakfast; Wednesday was homemade herbed tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches (on homemade bread, thank you very much); tonight was the poulet au vinaigre; tomorrow will be melanzane al forno with garlic and olive oil pasta; Saturday will be Italian beef sandwiches on pane all'olio. I haven't figured out Sunday yet, because we don't have something I thought we did. Probably lamb and garlic sausage cooked up with onions, garlic, tomatoes and beer and served over rice with a salad.
Labels: Family, Homemaking, Menu Plans, Tales from the Kitchen
