Sautéed chicken livers with onions is an Italian classic, a dish straight from the pages of la cucina povera. Slow-cooked, deep brown caramelized onions pair incredibly well with rich, quickly sautéed chicken livers. It is not, however, the most visually appetizing dish – brown on brown – and that’s why it’s la cucina povera. There [...]

I haven’t been cooking Asian for a while, but recently I was making a large amount of chicken stock and decided to use some of it to make the recipe below. It’s from Hot Sour Salty Sweet, a cool travelogue-type cookbook that gives a great background on the cuisines of Southeast Asia, from Vietnamese to [...]

Chicken Riesling is a classic Alsatian recipe, found in brasseries and bistros all across that region of eastern France. It braises chicken in the Alsatian white wine Riesling, and garnishes it with a classic French pairing – pearl onions and mushrooms. Some heavy cream adds body and richness, and chicken stock rounds out the sauce. [...]

Tomatoes, olives, and anchovies – what a classic combination of the sunny Mediterranean. In this recipe, these flavors create a delicious pan sauce for sautéed chicken breast. Making a pan sauce is very easy. When the chicken browns, it sticks to the pan and little bits of flavor get stuck to the pan. These are [...]

This dish was inspired by the Larousse Gastronomique. The big book of (often not very practical) classical cuisine is full of very brief, often vague recipes that can be quite useful as a source of ideas. This past week I had on hand the breasts, thighs, and drumsticks of five chickens which I had purchased [...]

I enjoy complicated, multi-phase recipes involving a lot of advance prep. Its a good exercise in planning and organizing, and its great fun when all the elements come together and make up the dish. However, sometimes when I want to try something new I just look to books like Bon Appétit Cookbook for simple, easy [...]