"Bacon?" I asked.
"Nope," the big bald guy answered proudly with a grin, "barbecued chicken!"
And he opened the little door and out came about half a chicken, a leg and lots of breast, nicely browned and covered in spices, shiny in its coating of fat.
Oh man. It looked awesome. The man graciously offered me a taste, but I was too shy to accept (foolish, I know). However, we struck up a conversation about food and I dare say I made a new friend in an office where I know nearly no one outside of my own department.
As anyone who knows me can attest, the kitchen is my favorite place to be. Some people procrastinate by obsessively cleaning the house; I look at cookbooks, marvel at the little jars of herbs and spices nestled in the cabinet, and if these acts happen to make me hungry, I might just see what I can put together with what's in the fridge.
Sometimes I experiment; sometimes I work with a recipe. Depends on my mood and what's on hand.
Making soup has always been my favorite thing to do. It's such a simple thing, greatly lacking the precision of baking. Just bring to boil some vegetables, maybe some meat, salt and pepper (usually all you need), something savory - garlic or dried or fresh herbs. And then a miracle occurs. Okay, a chemical reaction, but one that never ceases to amaze me: a bunch of solid stuff covered with liquid cooks down to make a broth, or with more time, stock. It fills my home with wondrous smells and, more importantly, feeds me.
But I digress...
I guess chicken has been on my mind quite a bit lately. A couple of weeks ago, David and I wanted to use some ginger sauce that I'd brought back from Singapore. We went to the butcher, bought a whole chicken and brined it for a few hours. After rinsing the bird, David stuffed the cavity with green onion and ginger and poached it. Neither of us had ever brined a chicken before, so we weren't sure if it made a difference, but the meat was just perfect -- tender, juicy, lots of flavor, with a slight hint of the ginger. The end result was Hainan chicken: small slices of chicken with two dipping sauces - the ginger sauce and another sauce made of garlic and chili sauce - along with rice that had been cooked in the chicken broth.
Delicious. And there was lots of broth left over that is probably still in David's freezer.
Now that's something that most of us seldom have. Homemade stock. Makes anything better, but the time investment can be off-putting.
I coveted this treasure and wanted a supply of my own.
So with chicken on my mind, I threw a couple of stalks of celery, a carrot, an onion, two cloves of garlic, bay leaves, thyme and a few sprigs of parsley in a pot with about four pounds of skin-on, bone-in breasts. I covered it all with water and watched as opaque circles of fat began to form on the surface. It began to bubble. Magic.
About half an hour later, I had exactly what I wanted, a nice broth that I'll use to make soup and lots of gently poached bird that I'll use for a myriad of good things.
Time well spent.
