Date I made this recipe:
May 14, 2017 – Mother's Day
Mom's Secret Recipe
File – More than 125 Treasured Recipes from the Mothers of Our Great Chefs,
edited by Chris Styler ("A portion of the proceeds from the sale of this
book is being donated to the Women's Commission for Refugee Women and
Children")
Published by Hyperion
ISBN: 1-4013-+0754-X;
© 2004
Recipe: Sweet 'n' Smoky Chicken – p. 207 (submitted
by chicken magnate, Jim Perdue)
Ann's Note: I had
another recipe on deck for Mother's Day, a Caramel
Cake from the cookbook/essay In My Mother's Kitchen. Alas, while on my third attempt to make
caramel for the caramel sauce, I burned my left hand something fierce and one
week later, have not been back in the kitchen at all. Since I am still in pain (burn is infected),
I shall turn my back on the recipe but will talk about the book at the end of
the blog.
All right then, this Mother's Day, I had a couple of options
in front of me and so finally decided upon the chicken recipe that was really
good and a caramel cake that sounded good but is still unmade because of my
kitchen accident. I must say, this will
forever be a memorable Mother's Day for me for all the wrong reasons!
Let's focus on the positive and talk about the cookbook Mom's Secret Recipe File. There is a lot to like in this cookbook and I
was challenged to select just one recipe.
Thirty three "celebrity" chefs submitted recipes for this
endeavor to aid the Women's Commission for Refugee Women and Children (how apt
for Mother's Day), and they include:
Lidia Matticchio Bastianich; Jaques Pepin; Marcus Samuellson; Anthony
Bourdain and Nieglla Lawson. What the
Table of Contents didn't include, and which irked, was a list of recipes
submitted by all these glorious personnel.
I hate that. It's a small thing,
but would it have killed someone – anyone – to put a name and then some
bullet-point mentions of the recipes at the front of the book? Rhetorical question, no need to answer!
Here were some of the recipes up for consideration:
- The Perfect Chocolate Dessert – p. 24-25 from Barbara Kafka
- Spinach and Sun-dried Tomato Strata – p. 67-68 from (editor) Chris Styler
- Spoon
Bread with
- Mushroom-Barley Soup – p. 177 from Mollie Katzen
- Poppy Seed Cake with Lemon Glaze – p. 251-252 from Susan Feniger
So there I was debating about the merits of one of these
over the others when I looked through the book again and well, the answer was
so obvious to me that I can't even believe I overlooked it the first time: Sweet
'N' Smoky Chicken.
The backstory: When
my mom turned 80, I made her a homemade birthday card (mini scrapbook) of
things that made me think of her and one section was called something like
"Jobs my mother could have had."
Included in that was the job of an FDA meat inspector because my
mother's fear of germs, especially salmonella from chicken, made her scrub the
crap out her kitchen lest we all fall victim to such a terrible illness. In no way, shape, or form, was my mother
going to be responsible for her children's food illnesses, no sir!
And this is why if you came over to our house when she made
chicken, you'd see her scrubbing away on her cutting board (a wooden cutting
board no less) with Comet cleaner afterwards, followed by a ton of dish soap
and hot water until she was assured that whatever might be lurking or fixin' to
lurk was dead and gone. I used to tease
her about it to no end until I started cooking and lets just say the apple does
not fall from the tree.
Given her rigorous efforts to ensure nothing wicked this way
came during prep, it should come as no surprise to learn that if raw chicken
was the enemy, undercooked chicken was kitchen Armageddon! If she cooked the chicken, it sometimes
bordered on overdone, something that irked my father to no end. Dad was a wildlife research biologist and a
very practical scientist, whose efforts to try to persuade my mom that
"It's fine," failed and failed miserably as did "Some gut
bacteria is good."
When my father cooked the chicken, which he did on a tiny
Hibachi grill using his own (and fabulous) BBQ sauce, my mother was all over
him with her nagging: "Are you sure
it's cooked? Well did you check? Well check it again?" (Note:
This was often before microwaves saved the day.)
Finally my dad had enough and so he wrote on a Post-it that
remained on the refrigerator until the day they both died, "Don't overcook
the chicken!"
And this is how this phrase became the running joke in our
household. Let me just say that it
didn't end there though as she moved on to steak and hamburger. My dad (and I) love a rare steak and I mean
rare and I also appreciate a rare burger which really, if you think about it,
it steak tartare with a little char. My
mother, fearing total contamination, made my father broil her steak or burger
to medium if not medium well and wow, that was a source of contention!
"Ah, come on, honey, you're ruining the meat!,"
dad would bellow. "I am
not." "It'll be fine, you
won't die." "Well, I
might!" (You should know that whereas my dad often sounded like Star Wars character, Chewbacca when he bellowed, my mother
had the daintiest of voices sort of like Minnie
Mouse, making the whole exchange even funnier.)
And on and on and on they went but it was adorable. I am happy to report that my dad usually got
his way when it came to his steak (a beautiful sirloin that my mom would
"special order" – on sale, always on sale – from the butcher) but had
to give it all up when it came to the chicken which is as it should be.
This chicken recipe was delicious, but what really sold the
deal was the very last instruction to use a meat thermometer to check the
temperature (180°F in the thickest part
of the thigh) which was bloody brilliant even though today's chefs and home
cooks say "Of course." Back in
the day when my family's chicken-cooking efforts were at an all-time high (60's
and 70's), nobody thought to use a meat thermometer and we sure didn't have the
internet to fill us on advisable temperatures nor a microwave to cook it
further, so it was pretty much eyeball the sucker and hope for the best!
The other day I talked to my brother about the hilarity of
all this and we both marveled that nobody in my family ever got sick from
undercooked steak or chicken. Not once
because really, with my mother, would the germs even dare? Nope!
Here then, is a very good chicken recipe that was
"perfectly cooked" and would no doubt have made my mom (and dad)
happy this Mother's Day!
Sweet 'n' Smoky
Chicken – makes 4 servings
1 large onion, sliced
1 whole Perdue fresh young chicken (about 4 pounds), cut
into serving pieces, or 4 pounds of your preferred chicken part (Ann's Note:
I used two chicken breasts for half this recipe.)
2 teaspoons hickory-smoked salt (Ann's Note: you can make this at
home by mixing liquid smoke with sea salt and then letting it dry. I used 1 teaspoon of sea salt and then a few
drops of liquid smoke.)
¼ teaspoon pepper
½ cup ketchup
½ cup maple syrup
¼ cup red wine vinegar
2 tablespoons prepared mustard
Preheat the oven to 350°F.
Scatter the onion slices over the bottom of a shallow baking
pan. Place the chicken in a single
layer, skin side up, on top of the onion.
Sprinkle with the salt and pepper.
Stir the ketchup, maple syrup, vinegar, and mustard together in a small
bowl and pour over chicken. Bake,
uncovered, until a meat thermometer inserted in the thickest part of the thigh
registers 180°F. (Ann's
note: if you are using chicken breasts,
insert the thermometer in the thickest part of the breast.)
And now a word about the book I didn't use and the recipe I
didn't make. In My Mother's Kitchen is an essay with recipes. The book's subtitle is "Writers on Love,
Cooking, and Family," and while the essays were great, the recipes were
scarce. I counted 12 but I'm not sure it's correct as
there is no way to cross check; neither the Table of Contents or the Index
listed the recipe names.
I had been wanting to make a caramel cake for some time and
thought it would go well with the chicken.
In theory, this is correct, in practice, this is now a cake that I will
never bake because of my burn. And not
that I want to lecture you on kitchen safety, but one week after the incident,
my hand still hurts like hell. It was
such a stupid – nearly comical – event but one with lasting ramifications! So if you decided you want to attempt caramel
for this cake at home, please be careful out there.
Should you want to see the recipe for yourself, here's the
information:
In My Mother's
Kitchen – Writers on Love, Cooking, and Family – With contributions from
Ruth Reichel, M F. K. Fisher, Maya Angelou, Julie Sahni, Joyce White, and Nigel
Slater.
Published by Chamberlain Brothers
ISBN: 1-59609-209-2; © 2006
Recipe (that I didn't make):
Maya Angelou's Caramel Cake –
p. 22-23, included in her essay titled "The Assurance of Caramel
Cake."
Alternatively, it's also included in Hallelujah! The Welcome Table by Maya Angelou. I have not cooked from her book(s) yet (I
have two) although they are always " on my list."
