Mark Bittman's Quick and Easy Recipes from the New York Times (22 page)

1.
Put the oil in a large, deep skillet over medium heat. Add the shallot, garlic, galangal, and chile and cook, stirring frequently, until the vegetables are tender and the mixture pasty. Add the turmeric, coriander, and sugar and cook, stirring, for another minute. Trim the lemongrass stalks of their toughest outer layers, then bruise them with the back of a knife; cut them into sections and add them to the mixture along with 1 cup of water.

2.
Add the chicken and turn it once or twice in the sauce, then nestle it in the sauce; season with a little salt and pepper to taste. Turn the heat to low and cover the skillet. Cook, turning once or twice, until the chicken is cooked through, 20 to 30 minutes. (You can prepare the recipe in advance up to this point; cover and refrigerate for up to a day, then reheat before proceeding.)

3.
Uncover the skillet and raise the heat to medium-high; turn the chicken skin side down. Let most (but not all) of the liquid evaporate and brown the chicken just a little on the bottom. Stir in the lime leaves or zest and nam pla; taste and adjust the seasoning as necessary, then garnish and serve, with white rice.

VARIATIONS

This type of preparation is used with many different foods in both Thailand and Vietnam, and most of them not only adapt perfectly to this recipe but are faster to prepare.

• Use boneless chicken, cut into chunks. Cook for only about 5 minutes after adding the chicken and bringing the liquid back to a boil. Or leave boneless breasts or thighs whole; cooking time will be about 10 minutes for breasts to 15 minutes for thighs.

• Use whole shrimp or scallops or a combination. Cooking time will be about 5 minutes from the time the liquid returns to a boil.

• Use chunks of boneless or bone-in pork like lean pork chops.

Boneless pork will cook in about 10 minutes (from the time the liquid returns to a boil), bone-in in about 20 minutes.

• Use chunks of firm tofu, which will cook through in 3 to 5 minutes.

• Use vegetables in the dish: quartered peeled onions, roughly chopped bell pepper, or chunks of zucchini; add them along with the shallots and other seasonings.

MAKES 4 SERVINGS

TIME: 2 HOURS, LARGELY UNATTENDED

UNLESS YOU’VE MADE
your own duck confit, you may never have cooked duck legs by themselves; but in many ways they’re superior to both duck breasts and whole birds. They’re quite lean, and just a quick trimming of the excess fat is all that’s necessary. And, given proper cooking—that is, long, slow cooking—they become fork-tender and richly flavorful, reminiscent of some of the “lesser” cuts of beef and pork, like brisket and cheek. Finally, it’s easy enough to cook enough legs for eight—which is hardly the case with whole duck!

1.
Trim all visible fat from the duck legs, then lay them in a large, broad skillet; they can overlap if necessary. Turn the heat to medium and add all the remaining ingredients except the parsley. When the mixture reaches a lively simmer, turn the heat to low and cover.

2.
Cook, checking occasionally—the mixture should be bubbling gently when you remove the cover—until the duck is very tender, about 1½ hours. Transfer the duck to a warm plate and cover (or put in a very low oven), then turn the heat to medium-high under the remaining sauce. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the mixture is reduced to a thick, saucelike consistency, about 10 minutes. Spoon over the duck legs, garnish, and serve.

MAKES 6 SERVINGS

TIME: ABOUT 3 HOURS, LARGELY UNATTENDED

THERE IS NO
more celebratory food than goose, but when it is roasted it is difficult to carve and can be disappointing. Braising it, especially with fruit, is a different approach that works brilliantly.

Any dried fruit can be used in this preparation, but dried pears hold their shape better and are a little less sweet than prunes and apricots; there’s no reason you can’t substitute, however, or combine.

1.
Turn the heat to medium-high under a casserole or deep skillet at least 12 inches across; a minute later, add the goose pieces, skin side down. Cook, rearranging the pieces now and then so that they brown evenly, until nicely browned and rendered of fat, 10 to 15 minutes. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and turn; brown for 2 or 3 minutes on the meat side. Remove the goose and pour off all but a tablespoon of the fat.

2.
If you’re using it, cook the bacon in the same skillet over medium-high heat until brown and crisp all over, about 10 minutes. Add the onions, bay leaves, and thyme and cook, stirring occasionally and seasoning with salt and pepper, until the onions are softened, about 10 minutes. Add the dried fruit and cook for another minute or two, stirring occasionally. Add the wine and raise the heat to high; cook until the wine is reduced by about half, 5 minutes or so.

3.
Return the goose pieces to the skillet and turn the heat to very low.
Cover and cook (the mixture should be bubbling, but barely) for at least 2 hours, turning only once or twice, until the goose is very tender. Add the vinegar, sliced fruit, and a good grinding of black pepper and cook, stirring occasionally, until the fruit is tender, 10 to 15 minutes. Taste and adjust the seasoning.

MAKES 4 SERVINGS

TIME: 20 MINUTES

HERE’S HOW TO
keep a skinless, boneless chicken breast moist while giving it a crust, without using a lot of fat. This technique relies on two properties of the chicken breast that make it more like fish than like other meat: it cooks quickly, and it contains a fair amount of moisture. This enables you to start cooking the breasts with just a bit of fat over fairly high heat to begin browning, then lower the heat and cover the pan, which not only allows the meat to steam in its own juices but maintains the nicely browned exterior (on one side anyway). If you use mass-produced commercial chicken, the results will be somewhat cottony. Free-range or kosher chickens are usually considerably better.

1.
Preheat the oven to 200°F. Heat the oil or butter in a 12-inch skillet over medium-high heat. When the oil is hot or the butter foam has subsided, season the chicken breasts well with salt and pepper and put them in the skillet, smooth (skin) side down. Turn the heat to
high, then cook for about a minute until the chicken begins to brown. Turn the heat to medium and cover the pan.

2.
Cook, undisturbed, until the chicken is firm and nearly cooked through, 6 to 8 minutes. Uncover the skillet and transfer the chicken to an ovenproof plate; put the plate in the oven.

3.
Over high heat, add the wine and stir and scrape the pan to release any bits of chicken that have stuck to the bottom; when the liquid has reduced by about half, add the tomato and cook, stirring occasionally, for about a minute. Add the capers, olives, and all but 1 tablespoon of the parsley and cook for a minute more, stirring occasionally. Return the chicken to the sauce and turn once or twice. Sprinkle with the remaining parsley and serve.

VARIATIONS

• Before adding the liquid in step 3, sauté a bit of onion, shallot, mushroom, or other chopped vegetable in the pan; proceed as directed, with or without the tomatoes, capers, and olives.

• For the stock or wine, substitute cream.

• Use chopped fresh basil or a few thyme leaves in place of the parsley.

MAKES 4 SERVINGS

TIME: 40 MINUTES

THIS TRADITIONAL CHINESE
dish is simple to make: You boil the soy and wine along with some water, ginger, and crushed sugar and add star anise and scallion for flavor. The chicken is boiled too—not simmered, really boiled—but only for ten minutes; it finishes cooking in the liquid with the heat turned off.

There are unusual but inexpensive ingredients that make this dish slightly better: mushroom-flavored soy sauce, which is dark and heavy; yellow rock sugar, a not-especially-sweet, lumpy sugar that must be broken up with a hammer before use; and mei kuei lu chiew, or “rose wine,” a floral wine that smells like rose water and costs two bucks a bottle. But don’t knock yourself out looking for any of these—I give substitutions in the recipe.

But if you can easily acquire them, do, because this sauce can be used time and again, as long as you freeze it between uses (or refrigerate it and bring it to a rolling boil every few days) and top up the liquids now and then.

1.
In a narrow pot with about a 6-quart capacity, combine the soy sauce, wine, 2 cups of water, and the star anise over high heat. While the sugar is still in its box (or wrapped in a towel), smack it several times with a hammer or rolling pin to break it up; it need not be too fine. Add the sugar and ginger to the liquid and bring it to a rolling boil.

2.
Add 6 of the scallions, then gently and slowly lower the chicken into the liquid, breast side down. (In a narrow pot, the liquid will easily cover the chicken; if it is close, just dunk the chicken under the liquid as it cooks. If it is not close, add a mixture of soy sauce and water to raise the level.) Bring the liquid back to a boil and boil steadily for 10 minutes. Turn off the heat and turn the chicken over so the breast side is up. Let it sit in the hot liquid for 15 minutes. Meanwhile, trim and mince the remaining scallions and preheat the oven to 500°F, if you like.

3.
Carefully remove the chicken from the liquid and serve it hot or at room temperature. Or place it in an ovenproof skillet or roasting pan. Roast for 5 minutes, or until nicely browned; keep an eye on it, because it can burn easily. In either case, reheat the sauce and, when the chicken is ready, carve it. Serve the chicken with a few spoonfuls of sauce on it. Put another cup or so of the sauce in a bowl and add the remaining scallions; pass this at the table.

VARIATIONS

• Poach other vegetables in the soy sauce for added flavor and to serve along with the chicken. Root vegetables, like carrots, turnips, and parsnips, are best.

• Cook cut-up chicken or Cornish hens in the same way; the cooking time will be somewhat less.

MAKES 4 SERVINGS

TIME: 2 HOURS, LARGELY UNATTENDED

HERE’S A SIMPLE
procedure for duck in which you first roast the bird and then braise it briefly. It keeps even the breast meat moist while making the legs ultratender. There are many options for the braising medium, but none provides more complementary flavor with less work than sauerkraut. The result is a moist bird with a sauce that doubles as a side vegetable. Although the cooking takes some time, you can practically ignore the duck as it roasts; if the oven temperature is moderate, it will brown more or less automatically and render its fat at the same time.

1.
Preheat the oven to 375°F. Prick the duck all over with a fork, then sprinkle it with salt and pepper and put it in a large, deep ovenproof skillet or Dutch oven that can later be covered. Roast the duck, checking occasionally to make sure it is browning steadily, for about 1½ hours. (If the duck is barely browning, increase the heat by 50 degrees; if it seems to be browning too quickly, reduce the heat slightly.) At that point it will be nicely browned and will have rendered a great deal of fat; pour off all but a few tablespoons of the fat and transfer the pan to the top of the stove. Don’t worry if the duck does not appear to be fully cooked.