08.21.09
Clabber chicken and truffles
A properly roasted chicken takes me back to my youth. It also takes me back to when I was trying to figure out how to properly roast a whole chicken. There were about a dozen not-so-perfect roast birds before I balanced the temperature with the size, with the breed of the bird. Some have fat legs, some have a bigger chest. Some have extra fat, some have chunky skin. Some are air dried and hung, the bad ones (90% of the birds sold) get plunged in to iced water after they are killed and suck up water like a sponge.
Some are raised on a small farm and fed nice clabber and whey. They also eat whatever else they want. Those are the birds I serve at Evangeline.
Black truffles prosper during the winter months. They always have, they always will. When it is summer here, it is winter in Australia. There is a gentleman in Australia who, for almost 35 years, has tried to cultivate a black perigord-style truffle. He has succeeded, as has Tom in Tennessee. Tom harvests them during our winter months. They both have dedicated their whole lives to the truffle. These truffles are better than anything I have eaten in France…..harvested when I ask for them to be harvested. They don’t pass through two or three (or up to 10) sets of hands before I put them on a plate. Heidi at Vervacious brings the equal.
Perfectly roasted clabber fed chicken + freshly dug black truffles = simply amazing.
Next time you roast a chicken, REALLY roast a chicken. Forget the butter, thyme, lemon, parsley, ginger, basting, tweaking the temperature, EVOO, marinating, curry powder, paprika, stuffing, blah blah blah. Don’t open the oven door, don’t baste it. A proper chicken doesn’t need to be basted. Learn how to truss it correctly. The skin should crisp and the juice should simmer right under it. You can actually see the natural juices lazily bubbling away. Leave the butter out of the equation unless you have a sub-par bird. A nice chicken doesn’t need all of that stuff. Especially curry powder. Salt and pepper, a nice raw bird, high heat and twine. Roast it until it is juicy and done. Let it rest, turn it over and eat the oysters and pope’s nose first. The thighs and legs next, then the wings and shoulder blades. If it is a good bird, you can actually eat the breasts. That’s what we do at home. If it is a bad bird, make chicken salad. And we try to refrain from the chicken salad.
If you are lucky enough to secure some fresh black truffles, simply shave them over the rested bird. Once it is carved, shave again. But never….I repeat NEVER use a black truffle from a jar or a can for this. It is like using canned snails over fresh. Who does that? Saturated in brine and dirt. Rubbery and flat.
And remember, NFDB.