Come to the dark side

Will and I are a little like Jack Sprat and his wife: When we roast a chicken, he sticks to the leaner white meat and I go straight for the dark. I think it has more flavor and is far more tender than breast meat, and it's my favorite part of the bird. Still, I concede that the taste benefits are the result of more fat and as a result I rarely cook with chicken legs.

However, I do have a handful of recipes that call for thighs or whole legs. One of them, Moroccan braised chicken, has been lurking near the front of my recipe testing folder since I reorganized it in October. This recipe, out of Martha Stewart's "Everyday Food," appealed to me on two fronts: the Moroccan-inspired flavors and the fact that it's part of a menu with couscous and roasted carrots with lemon dressing. One of my many cooking flaws is I tend to forget to make side dishes, especially vegetable ones, so anything that incorporates the sides for me is a good thing. (Pun intended.)

The first thing to do was get Will on board. For one thing, he was doing the grocery shopping. He agreed pretty quickly, noting that he could always eat triple helpings of couscous. So I sent him off to buy the six whole legs the recipe required, along with carrots, prunes and couscous, and figured all was well.

Or so I thought, until he came back with a 12-pack of drumsticks. This baffled me, as we had discussed what "whole leg" entailed. For a little while, I considered using just the drumsticks, but decided the thighs might be a crucial part in flavoring the recipe (read, I like them better) and ran back out.

The first part of cooking involved removing the skin from the bird and then browning the meat in olive oil in two batches. In this case, that meant six drumsticks first and four thighs second. Either I put in too little olive oil the first time or too much the second, because the drumsticks stuck to the bottom of the pan like crazy and the thighs almost looked like they were deep frying.

Once the thighs were browned, it was time to drop in the large onion, halved and thinly sliced, and a 1/4 c. of water. The onion was no problem, but adding water to spitting hot oil? Are you kidding me? I decided to remove the pot from the heat first. Water in and pot back on the heat, I scraped up the browned chicken bits and added 1 tsp. turmeric, 1 tsp. ginger and 1/2 tsp Ceylon cinnamon.

Then I put the chicken back in the pot, managing to fit it all in one layer. At this point, I was pretty glad I wasn't dealing with six whole legs, because I wasn't sure they would have fit as neatly. I poured in two more cups of water and a large handful of pitted prunes. Once the water came to a boil, I reduced the heat, partly covered it, and turned my attention to the carrots.

The recipe called for 3 pounds of carrots, cut into 2 inch pieces and tossed with olive oil and cayenne pepper. I didn't want to weigh out the exact amount, so I just prepared two large carrots per person. I tossed everything on a baking sheet as instructed and popped it in the oven to roast for 30 minutes. By some miracle of timing, I also had 30 minutes left on the braising chicken. Was this actually coming together smoothly?

No, it wasn't. Because now was the time to zest the lemon for the lemon dressing and my zester had disappeared. It took 15 minutes and two adults searching to find it shoved to the back of a drawer where it doesn't belong. This is the sort of thing that presages a temperamental kitchen organization. Still, I got the lemon zested and juiced and only needed to add 2 tablespoons of honey...

... which had pretty well crystallized in the bottom of the honey bear. I didn't have time to properly warm and liquefy it, and was also at the point where the carrots were out of the oven (they could cool and the dressing could wait) and I had to remove the chicken to a platter, thicken the sauce and start the water for the couscous. Once I had that under control, I scraped out what looked like 2 tablespoons of honey, dropped it in the bowl I was mixing the dressing in and threw it in the microwave for 30 seconds. Worked like a charm.

Meanwhile, the sauce was very thick, perhaps too thick. I took it off the heat and poured it in a bowl. I finished the couscous and Will mixed in a little chopped cilantro. I tossed the carrots with the lemon dressing and miraculously, a complete meal was on the table.

THE VERDICT: This was pretty darn good. I don't know that the cilantro made much difference with the couscous, but the rest of the meal was great. The chicken was just right and the sauce was a little sweet, but a forkful of carrot in lemon dressing was a fantastic foil. Will was in favor of keeping it as a once-in-a-while dish, and Alex rated it a "Yum" -- but he wouldn't eat his carrots ("The lemon makes it too sweet," he said.) Keith, as usual, cleaned his plate. A definite, but once-in-a-while, keeper.

It's in the can

Whether it's what's on sale or the result of trying to pick hearty fall dishes, lately I seem to have pulled a lot of recipes involving canned tomatoes. I'm kicking myself a bit, because my tomato plants seem to be giving one last hurrah and last week I got several fresh fruits off the vine. But we used them right away -- as we should have, really, and they were good -- and here I am making another sauce thinking, "I wish I had enough real tomatoes to do this from scratch."

Next summer, I keep telling myself, next summer I will have more tomato plants and enough ripe ones at one time to make sauce.

But it is no longer summer, and I used canned tomatoes to make a chicken cacciatore.

I've been meaning to make this for about three weeks, actually, but kept forgetting to take the chicken out to defrost. I hate using the microwave to defrost things. The food never thaws evenly and you have some bits that are cooked while the rest is still rock-solid.

Yesterday, I remembered to take the chicken breasts out and let them thaw in the fridge. So when I took the meat out 24 hours later and found it covered in ice crystals and solid enough to break a tempered glass cutting board, I was more than a little irritable.

While it defrosted, unevenly, in the microwave, I did the rest of the prep work. The recipe said to dice the bell pepper. I chopped more than diced, but I liked the big pieces. I skipped over the part about fennel seed, it being one of those spices I don't use often enough to justify buying at this point in time. And, while Will and I like spicy food, the kids are still on the fence about it, so I used only a (generous) pinch of red pepper flakes instead of the full 1/2 teaspoon in the sauce, and left the jar out for adults to season their food as they wished.

The chicken browned nicely, although it seemed like too much oil was in the pan. I removed the chicken, added the pepper and herbs as directed and stirred them around. Then I poured in the tomatoes, wine and vinegar and the sauce smelled fantastic. I couldn't wait to try it. At this point, I realized the pasta water had finally come to a boil, so I let the sauce simmer while I dumped the spaghetti into the pasta pot.

I returned the chicken returned to the pan to cook through, which took about the same amount of time as the pasta. Again, the food smelled great, and it looked pretty good, too.

THE VERDICT: The sauce was decent enough, but didn't wow me as much as I thought it would based on its fragrance, and the chicken was a little dry. Will liked the sauce, going back for seconds, but thought the chicken was almost surplus. Keith and Alex said it was good, and they ate it. An on-the-fence recipe.