Adventures in the Kitchen

So on my grocery shopping spree Monday, I bought a pair of spring chickens to roast. Since Monday was a public holiday here in Singapore, my butcher shop was closed. But the grocery store was open, so I bought them there.
Warning: younger or more delicate blog readers may find this post disturbing.




Let me just say: be glad you don't have to deal with this stuff.




I was only mildly surprised to discover the chickens still had their heads,
but take a look at the indignity this poor fowl is suffering.
Sorry to be so graphic, but I had to share.





Well, I am proud to say that I simply sharpened my chinese cleaver and removed two heads and four feet. And then I made something truly delicious.




First, I made a compound butter: 2 or 3 tablespoons butter, a teaspoon each of chopped fresh herbs (I had rosemary, dill, and some basil harvested from our own plants which I planted for my DH on his birthday in August), 3 slices of turkey bacon, chopped (I would have used regular bacon, but it's so unusual to find the turkey variety in Singapore that I had to buy some), and 2 crushed garlic cloves all stirred together in a small bowl. This butter was then spread under the skin on each chicken breast.
Then I quartered a small red onion and put half in each bird's cavity. I tied the legs together with cotton twine, then placed the bird in a roasting dish. Next I poured a generous amount of olive oil on each chicken, laid some whole sprigs of herbs on the skin, sprinkled some more olive oil and then some dry white wine, and then some freshly ground black pepper.



These were baked at 450 for a half hour, then 325 for 15 more minutes.

I'm not exaggerating when I say they were probably the best roast chicken I have ever made. Totally worth the vivisection I had to commit.

I served them with fresh corn on the cob from Malaysia and roasted root vegetables: potatoes, carrots, parsnips and sweet potatoes with rosemary, quartered onion and sliced garlic all coated with olive oil and salt and pepper.

The dinner was so good, I had to come up with an equally good dessert. So I served perfectly ripe nectarines with vanilla ice cream and crumbled graham crackers, sprinkled with cinnamon.

I feel like such a genius.

The neat part was that we had such a nice breeze blowing through the house that I turned off the air conditioners and they've been off for hours. That NEVER happens. It's usually too humid for me, but it's so pleasant I almost feel like a real human being.

So, what's the occasion? None. Just felt like doing it.

But this post is entitled AdventureSSS (plural)

So, while all this was going on, I made up a batch of cookies I found the recipe for on the internet.

Here's the recipe. See if you can spot the adventure.

3/4 cup butter
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 eggs
Cream together. Add dry ingredients:

1 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt

Chill for 1 hour. Roll out and cut out shapes. Bake at yadda yadda yadda...Did you catch the error?

I'm standing there, in front of my KitchenAid, thinking this is a little too wet to roll out. Even if I chill it...


Where's the flour?

Well, I eventually ended up adding 4 cups of flour to make the right consistency. But the recipe never mentioned it.

I'll bake these off tomorrow and let you know how they are.