from Out There to your kitchen

One of the most sat­is­fy­ing things in the world, to me, is to eat some­thing tru­ly inspir­ing out there in the world, think on it for a day or two ( or between lunch and din­ner), and then recre­ate it in the cozy warmth of my kitchen, these Novem­ber days.  The fact is, if the sun is going to set at 4 p.m., I think the only recourse we have is to pre­tend that it’s din­ner­time, and cook some­thing elab­o­rate to keep us going.

It always helps in these moods to have a friend to inspire me, and on Fri­day, it was my pal Char­lie.  We met two years ago on a five-day inten­sive (as in no phone, no news­pa­pers, no cars, no escape) food writ­ing course in deep­est, dark­est Devon.  We became instant friends, engag­ing in what Char­lie calls “ban­ter,” in which we seem to do noth­ing but laugh at each oth­er’s wit.  Don’t you find that wit­ty peo­ple make you wit­ti­er?  I have to try that much hard­er, when I’m with Char­lie, to think on my feet and find things to laugh about.  It’s an addiction.

We always meet up and do food­ie things togeth­er, so we can expe­ri­ence that most deli­cious of tri­umvi­rate plea­sures: laugh­ing, and eat­ing, while talk­ing about food.  So Fri­day was “Mas­terchef Live” at the annu­al food fair in Olympia, the giant exhi­bi­tion space near us.  We met up in the spit­ting rain, fold­ed our umbrel­las and plunged into the melee.  First up: the live Mas­terchef cook-off between Celebri­ty Mas­terchef win­ner Lisa Faulkn­er, she of the famed deep-fry­er “Spooks” episode — I’m sure there were plen­ty of deep-fry­ing jokes when she first began the com­pe­ti­tion! — and last year’s win­ner, Dhruv Bak­er, a tru­ly inspi­ra­tional Indi­an-Eng­lish fusion cook.  Crispy-skinned sea bream ver­sus puff pas­try fish pie… such fun to see them cook LIVE!  A cou­ple of ter­ri­ble jokes led Char­lie to quip, “Bring in the Luft­waffe, there’s been a bomb!”

And lat­er in the morn­ing we saw Dhruv cook­ing chick­en bal­lo­tine, which sent me straight home to repli­cate it, as you see above.  After Avery’s and  my after­noon yes­ter­day shop­ping for the first of the year’s Christ­mas orna­ments, it was very pleas­ant to come home and mess up a clean, tidy kitchen with a com­pli­cat­ed-ish recipe. The word “bal­lo­tine” is French for “bun­dle” and that’s your goal, to make a love­ly chick­e­ny bundle.

Chick­en Bal­lo­tine With Marsala and Goat Cheese Sauce

(serves 4)

4 chick­en breasts, ten­der­loin removed and set aside

12 mush­rooms, chopped

3 stems fresh thyme, leaves only

1/2 shal­lot, minced

2 tbsps olive oil

1 tbsp butter

sauce:

1 tbsp butter

2 cloves gar­lic, minced

1/2 shal­lot, minced

1/4 cup Marsala wine

1 cup chick­en or beef stock

3 oz goat cheese

2 tbsps dou­ble cream

Lay each chick­en breast on a cut­ting board and pound with a mal­let until flat­tened.  Put the chick­en ten­der­loins in a food proces­sor and whizz until grainy.  Remove and set aside in a bowl with the fresh thyme leaves, then give the same food proces­sor treat­ment to the mush­rooms and shal­lots.  Mix all togeth­er with the chicken.

Lay each chick­en breast flat, and place 1/4 of the mush­room mix­ture on the breast.  Roll up and then roll up in a long piece of plas­tic wrap, like a sausage, or log.  Do this for all four breasts.  Twist each end of each log and tie in a knot.  Place in boil­ing water for 15 minutes.

While the chick­en poach­es, melt the but­ter for the sauce in a small fry­ing pan and fry the gar­lic and shal­lots till a bit browned.  Pour in the Marsala and cook until reduced to about 3 tbsps, just a lit­tle bit of liq­uid with the gar­lic and shal­lots sort of shiv­er­ing in the sim­mer­ing bit of liq­uid.  Add the stock and boil till reduced just slight­ly, then whisk in the goat cheese and cream.  Sim­mer low while the chick­en fin­ish­es cooking.

When the poach­ing 15 min­utes are over, heat the olive oil and but­ter for the chick­en in a large fry­ing pan.  Cut open the plas­tic-wrapped chick­en over the sink and drain well.  Place the unwrapped bal­lotines in the fry­ing pan and fry on each side, on medi­um heat, until brown all over, per­haps 3 min­utes total cook­ing.  Don’t over­cook or the chick­en will become dry.

When ready to serve, slice the bal­lotines into four slices per “bun­dle”, then driz­zle the sauce over.

GOR­GEOUS.

This dish is warm, savory, com­plex in fla­vor, reward­ing and quite pro­fes­sion­al-look­ing!  If you’re not cut­ting down on carbs, by all means serve with a large bowl of but­tery mashed pota­toes, but if you’re cut­ting down, try my new favorite side dish…

The new It Veg­etable.  Have you ever roast­ed but­ter­nut squash?  Or made it into a sleek, vel­vety creamy soup?  Or sim­ply steamed it, mashed it up with a table­spoon of but­ter, poured it into a dish and baked it?  Heaven!

We have been eat­ing it every way I can think of.  John would hap­pi­ly eat it every night, although we both agreed that lasagne with mashed but­ter­nut squash was a lit­tle… odd.  Good, and of course we ate it all, mind you, but… odd.  I think it was the unex­pect­ed sweet­ness, mixed in with savory fla­vors.  Part of my attempt to cut down on carbs, but not cut OUT.  So I sub­sti­tut­ed squash, for one lay­er of noo­dles.  Ah well, you won’t know until you try.

My week last week, crowned by fun with Char­lie, was full of friends.

There was my lunch with Elis­a­beth, an extreme­ly busy moth­er of two who nev­er­the­less made time to sit with me, over roast­ed salmon and rock­et at a local cafe, and talk… per­son­al­i­ties.  To what extent can we change ours?  Jung, she explained to me, felt that we could shift along our spec­trum of nat­ur­al incli­na­tions, and become, for exam­ple, more out­go­ing than we were nat­u­ral­ly.  How true I believe that is!  How John, who is rather shy nat­u­ral­ly, has expand­ed his inter­est in being social, to accom­mo­date me, and my love of hav­ing peo­ple around.  How Avery, who is nat­u­ral­ly a bit scat­tered with her belong­ings, has adjust­ed to the demands of a very asky school, and become organized.

Elis­a­beth’s just brought me a book called “Nur­ture Shock,” an Amer­i­can par­ent­ing book that asks a lot of ques­tions about rais­ing teenagers — to let them lie or not? to praise them for their achieve­ments, or only for their efforts? to make them SLEEP or let them suf­fer the con­se­quences of fatigue? — I was left exhaust­ed.  What was I doing wrong?  Then I looked at this face, and real­ized that the task of teach­ing me NOT to tell her how won­der­ful I think she is was beyond any book I had ever read.  She is, and that’s that.

But tremen­dous­ly thought-pro­vok­ing!  It seems that there is an acknowl­edged parental wish to praise, to com­fort, to make up for the pres­sures we know WE have put our child through.  Sort of an anti­dote to the sit­u­a­tions we sign them up for.  But also, there is a seri­ous the­o­ry that we don’t do our chil­dren any favors by unques­tioned praise.  Can there be unques­tioned sup­port, but with a bit of crit­i­cism?  I’m sure there can be.  I have to learn that.

How wise of Elis­a­beth to know I want­ed to think about these things, how lucky I am in my friends.  I only hope I make as much of a suc­cess with being a par­ent as I made with a chick­en bal­lo­tine… some­thing tells me it’s a bit more of a daunt­ing task.