A recipe by Mike…… just in time for the upcoming chili cook-off (May 7, 2011)
Making a dish like this isn’t difficult but doing it takes a bit of a zen-like patience. Because many of the components are cooked separately and then joined, at the right time and in the right condition, – it’s really a two-day affair.
I’ve broken the steps into day one and day two.
The first day, you need to do five things:
1.) Cook the chicken and remove the meat
2.) Make chicken stock
3.) Make a roux
5.) Roast your garlic
4.) Soak your beans
DAY 1
Ingredients:
A chicken, 4-5lbs will do
1 Medium-large onion
1 Medium-large carrot
1 Stalk of celery
1 Medium-large head of garlic
1 lb. of Dry white beans
1 tsp. Whole black peppercorn
4 oz. Unsalted butter
4 oz. All-pupose flour
~4 Tbs. Olive oil
Kosher salt
Freshly-ground black pepper
Cook Your Chicken
Pre-heat the oven to 375 deg.
Thoroughly rinse the chicken, inside and out, and pat dry with a paper towel (or two).
Place the chicken, breast up on a wire rack with a drip pan underneath and truss it up with some string to keep the wings and legs in tight with the body. It will cook more evenly this way. Drizzle the top of the chicken with olive oil and then generously salt and pepper both inside the cavity and the outside. Roast for about 90 minutes or until the juices run clear when the skin is pierced by a knife tip. Remove from the oven and set aside to cool.
After the chicken has cooled enough to not burn you as you’re handling it, remove the meat by hand. Cover the meat with plastic wrap and set it in the fridge until needed the next day. Take the skin and fatty pieces and chop them up for the dogs.
The picked carcass will be needed to make stock.
Make the Chicken Stock
(There are many variations but the stock I describe will work very well for this dish and many others.)
Rough chop the onions, celery, and carrot. This should produce about 2 Cups of onion along with 1 Cup each celery and carrot.
(The ratio of 2:1:1 makes this what the French call, mirepoix. Mirepoix is important for building layers of flavor. You will, in fact, create and use a mirepoix twice in this recipe.)
Chop the chicken carcass up into four or five pieces.
Get a large stock pot (8 qt. or larger) very hot, add a few tablespoons of olive oil and wait for the oil to “shimmer”. Add the chicken pieces to the hot oil and saute them until browned. Remove the large pieces and set them aside for a few minutes. Add the onions, celery and carrots to the pot and saute them for a few minutes, allowing them to pick up some color. Put the browned carcass pieces back in the pot along with about a teaspoon of whole black peppercorns. Add about a gallon of water.
You should hear a richly satisfying hiss and bubble as the liquid hits the bottom of the pot. Scrape the bottom of the pot to free up all the tasty bits that have stuck to the bottom.
Now bring the stock to a boil and, as soon as it gets there, turn the heat way down so that the pot settles into a gentle simmer. Gentle is the key here. Stuff should bubble lazily to the surface and then listlessly drift back down. Simmering it hard will make the resulting stock cloudy and slightly bitter.
Simmer the pot for 2-3 hours, remove from heat and allow to cool. Separate the chunky bits from the liquid. You’ve now made your stock. Chuck the chunky and save the liquid in the ‘fridge.
Roast the garlic.
Pre-heat the oven to 375 deg.
Cut-off the tip top of the garlic bulb exposing the tops of some of the cloves. Sit the garlic top-up in any oven-proof container. (I use a small glass bowl, but you could use a metal measuring cup or something similar. It just needs to hold the garlic upright.) Drizzle the exposed garlic top generously with olive oil and pop it in the oven for about an hour.
Remove the garlic and let it cool. When cool enough to handle, squeeze the head from the bottom and the soft, (now) sweet cloves will push out like toothpaste from the tube.
Take some of the chicken stock liquid you prepared, about a 1/4 cup will be fine, and put it, along with the roasted garlic, into a blender.
As Devo would have you do, – whip it good. (Actually, a few quick pulses will work just fine.) Take the resulting liquid (a kind of garlic sauce) and save it in the ‘fridge til tomorrow.
Make the Roux
Roux (pronounced like Kanga’s kid) is a blend of cooked fat and flour that’s used as a thickening agent. Though any fat would actually work, the fat most commonly used is butter and that’s what we’ll employ here.
Melt a stick (4 oz.) of unsalted butter in a small pan until bubbling. Add 4 oz. of all-purpose flour and blend together with a whisk or spatula. Once the flour and butter have combined into a cohesive mixture, cook for 2-3 more minutes to get rid of any raw flour taste.
Soak your Beans
Put the dry beans in a large bowl, cover them with water to about an inch deep. Let them sit for a few minutes stirring them occasionally, then dump the water. Do this several times and then, after submerging them under an inch of water again, let them soak overnight.
DAY 2
Ingredients:
1 Medium-large onion, diced
1 Medium-large carrot, skinned and cut into bite-sized pieces
1 Stalk of celery, again, bite-sized pieces
1/2 lb. Andouille Sausage, sliced into coins
Chicken meat (from yesterday’s prep), bite-sized pieces
Chicken stock
1 Cup Dry white wine
Roux
1/3 Cup Fresh Parsley, chopped fine
1 Tbsp Fresh Rosemary, chopped fine
2 Tbsp Olive Oil
Salt & pepper, to taste
Hot sauce, to taste
Get your stock pot on the burner and fire it up. Let it heat for a couple of minutes and then add the olive oil and wait for the shimmer. Add the sausage and push it around, getting it brown all over.
Remove the sausage pieces and set them aside. You’ll re-add them later.
Add the mirepoix (onions, celery, and carrots) and rosemary to the pot and saute for 5-6 minutes, moving it around and picking up some color. Salt and pepper the mirepoix. Add the soaked beans, the wine and the chicken stock. Bring the liquid, beans, and mirepoix to a boil and then reduce to a gentle simmer.
Now, go put in a DVD. The chili needs about two hours of simmer to get the beans tender. (You will need to return to your pot several times to skim the foam that forms on top. I use a simple strainer that I drag through the foam. If you scoop up some of the beans/mirepoix with the foam, just rinse those pieces off under the tap and return them to the pot.)
When the end credits are rolling, return to the kitchen.
Fish a bean out of the pot with a spoon and taste it to check tenderness. If it’s still a bit stiff, continue simmering. But, if you find it to be acceptably soft, it’s now time to add your roux. The roux, after a night in the fridge, will be about the consistency of play-doh. With a knife, slice off about 1/4 and cut that into smaller pieces. Add them to the still simmering liquid. Stir the pot to melt and incorporate the roux. The liquid will slowly thicken as a result. If the chili doesn’t get to the right consistency in 2-3 minutes, add some more until you get there. Save whatever you don’t use to thicken other stuff. The roux will keep up to several months in the ‘fridge as long as it’s wrapped.
You’re galloping toward the finish line at this point.
Add the roasted garlic sauce, chopped chicken meat, the sausage, and the parsley and stir it up (little darling).
Finally, adjust the flavor to your liking with salt and hot sauce.
This is a very flexible dish and will tolerate a lot of adjustment. If you want to add freshly chopped peppers, or lemon zest/juice, or omit rosemary, or substitute pork – go ahead.
Now for wine.
As for a wine, light to medium-bodied red with some zing is just what’s called for. I would strongly recommend a Grenache (Garnacha, if it’s from Spain) such as our Tres Picos Vinas Viejas (Old Vine). It has intense flavors of black raspberry, black cherry, and black pepper (a bunch of black things) along with enough body to stand-up to the chili.
Another solid recommendation would be a Cotes du Rhone, such as the Domaine Mordoree 2010. It’s a dark ruby with flavors of black currant and violet. Melted and fine tannins, this wine has a good finish and is an earthy match for the chili.
