Where We’ve Come From (Chicken Cynthia)

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Writing these blogs can be a trap.  I’ve been trying to document the good and the bad in my time in kitchens.  Consequently, there has to be time for reflection.  I’ve had to sort through a bunch of old bosses, recipes and bad trips, hoping to arrive at a coherent way to present my own culinary history in a way that is engaging, while also avoiding multiple statutes of limitation and never letting anyone know where all the bodies are buried.  It has not been easy.  I hope it has been fun for you.

I lived in Rochester, NY for a few years back in the early 80’s while a bunch of my friends were going to RIT.  At the time I was a competent American style cook.  I could use a knife, work a full board of checks, that kind of thing, but I really didn’t know much about real food.  I could make chili and thought that I was the man.  I got a gig working at a place called Casablanca, an odd hybrid rock and roll club/lunch spot/Greek restaurant.  It was run by three brothers, Bill, George and Chris Petsos.  Their father, Stavros cut meat and generally made himself useful.  Louis (use the French pronunciation) Bel Aire, a mean drunk, washed dishes in his Sméagol-like hole of a dish room.  His “precious” was the dregs of customer’s drinks which he would collect and swill, making him a meaner drunk.  As I hung around Casablanca, I learned their story and grew to respect them. 

Apparently their whole village in Macedonia had immigrated to Akron, OH on the promise of jobs sometime before WWII, a classic example of pull migration.  Like in The Grapes of Wrath the agent promised work never materialized, so the group packed up and moved to Rochester, where over the years, in spite of the difficulty of getting any decent fish, they pretty much took over the restaurant biz, running a few high end places on Park Avenue and dozens of bars and diners all over town.  The boys opened Casablanca in the late 70’s as a fancy place serving Mom’s recipes and stuff like flaming cheese.  Chris ran the kitchen, George the front of the house and Bill was the head guy.  They had a stipulation in their lease that they would be the only food service place in the big strip where they located, however landlords being the slime balls that they are, a TGI Fridays opened 20 yards away on a different parcel, immediately bludgeoning them with cheaper food, a shiny exterior and wall to wall advertising. 

They didn’t stand a chance.  Business dropped to zero.  Rather than pack their tents again, the Petsos brothers pivoted, opening a rock club that had surprisingly good food, considering that I was one of the folks making it.  They booked mid level acts like Johnny Winter, the Psychedelic Furs, John Hammond Jr. and the Legendary Blues Band on their tour after Muddy’s death.  Bands considered Rochester a payday between Chicago and NYC.  This is where I first heard Albert Collins, the Texas great, the “Master of the Telecaster” or “The Iceman” (because he cuts so deep into your soul), a beautiful, humble, sweet musician who toured with his wife.  She used to kiss me every time I visited backstage until Albert’s passing in 1993.  Most would have shuttered the place.  Within 6 months they were in the black.

The Chef, Christos, was demanding, however he treated me with great respect at a time when I was not as reputable as I am now.  I was not a very good cook at the time.  He went out of his way to teach me, helping me appreciate well-prepared food and by his manner demonstrating what it meant to be a cook.  I consider my time with Chris to be the beginning of my professional cooking trajectory and I’ll never forget his kindness when my closest friend died in a car wreck and I became completely unreliable for some time.  He continued to pay me, even when I didn’t show up for work.

I’d like to present one of Chris’s sauté dishes.  Even after all this time, it holds up well.  One time I heard an interview with Son House, the primal Delta bluesman who also spent some years in Rochester.  He was asked to play the song that reached furthest back in his memory and he banged out “Stack Lee,” about a paddle wheel riverboat from the 1840’s.  This is a dish that is imprinted in my DNA.  Like “Stack’ it is probably the earliest sauté that I remember and hasn’t lost its value.  Try it.  You’ll find it has simple ingredients, straightforward technique and a bright fruit flavor.  The recipe is for one, because that’s how we cooked at the sauté station.  You can easily expand the recipe. 

And thanks to Stavros and the Petsos brothers.

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Chicken Cynthia

1 5 oz. chicken breast, skinless

2 tbs. flour, seasoned with salt and pepper

1 tsp. salad oil

3 tsp. unsalted butter

6 green grapes, cut in half

10 orange segments

1 oz. white wine

1 oz. orange juice

1 tbs. chopped parsley (everything got parsley in those days)

salt and pepper

Deeply peel an orange, removing the zest and bitter white peel.  With a paring knife, segment the orange, cutting the fruit away from the membranes.  Reserve the segments, squeeze the membranes to get the juice for the sauté.

Preheat the oven to 400°.  Heat a 10 inch sauté pan on high.  Add the oil and 1 tsp. of butter.  Dredge the chicken breast in flour, coating it completely.  Brush off any excess flour.  Season it with salt and pepper.  When the butter has melted and turns a hazelnut color, you will know that the pan is hot enough to sear the chicken properly.  Add the chicken.  Cook on one side for 2 minutes, turn and cook on the other side for 2 more minutes.  Finish in the oven for a further 8-10 minutes, until the chicken is cooked through.

When the chicken is cooked, remove it from the oven and keep warm while you prepare the sauce.  Dab the grease from the pan with a paper towel.  Return the pan to the stove on high heat.  Add the grapes and the orange segments and the orange juice.  Reduce the juice by half, stirring to scrape up any browned bits stuck to the pan when the chicken cooked. 

Add the white wine and again reduce by half.  Remove the pan from the heat, put the chicken and any juice that has run out of it in the pan and stir in the remaining 2 tsp. of butter, slowly incorporating it with the pan juices.  Adjust the seasoning with salt and pepper.  Add the parsley and serve with rice pilaf.

Mirepoix Is Not a Childhood Disease! (chicken and vegetable puree soup)

What we are really doing as cooks is working to bring out the best in our ingredients.  Most of the time, you simply want to get out of the way of the food and let flavors shine.  That means using quality ingredients and easily understood technique that allows for clean, clear, unimpeded taste. 

Here’s an example.  When I teach soup making, we do a side-by-side test.  Using identical ingredients, we boil everything together in one pot and in the second we sauté the aromatics then simmer the soup.  It is a crappy v. good technique face off.  The boiled soup really does taste different.  It has a flatter taste.  It has less depth of flavor and the texture, its mouth feel, isn’t as velvety.  Proper procedure and good cooking technique matter.  When you sauté the aromatic vegetables, you build layers of flavor.

Today we’ll be working to understand the value of that classic French mix of aromatics, mirepoix.  This blend of chopped carrot, onion and celery is the flavor base for numerous stocks, soups and stews in the western tradition.  Like the Spanish sofrito or that Cajun combination of green bell pepper, celery, scallion and parsley, mirepoix provides a distinctive character which identifies the food as French.  Think of it this way, without ginger, garlic and scallions Asian foods would not have their great flavor complexity.  The same can be said for mirepoix.

Our recipe today is a variation on the soup that Cathy Farrell cooked for dinner last night.  She is a very good cook.  It is the perfect thing for a winter night, thick, rich with a huge, complex flavor.  Additionally, it is almost fat free and is packed with healthy vegetables, and if you must, gluten-free.  We had deep bowls of her soup with thick slices of crusty bread with butter.  The recipe makes a big pot, so do like the Farrells and have a bowl for breakfast or for lunch with a grilled cheese to dunk.

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Chicken and Vegetable Puree Soup

1 3# chicken, quartered

1 c. carrots, peeled and roughly chopped

1 c. onion, peeled and roughly chopped

1 c. celery, peeled and roughly chopped

2 white turnips, peeled and roughly chopped

10 oz. canned crushed tomatoes

12 c. water

3 tbs. chopped parsley

salt and pepper

Put a large, heavy stockpot on the stove on low heat.  Remove the thick fat from the chicken.  Put it in the pot and sweat out about a teaspoon of fat.  Remove the remainder of the fat, the part that has not liquefied, and discard it.

Increase the heat to medium, sauté the mirepoix (the carrots onions and celery) in the chicken fat until their aroma is released and the onions are transparent.  Add the turnips, sauté for about 5 minutes, until they soften.  Season with salt and pepper.

Add the chicken.  Season with salt and pepper and sauté everything until the chicken begins to brown.  Add the tomatoes and water.  Increase the heat to high and bring the soup to a boil.  Skim any proteins that rise to the top, reduce the heat to medium and slowly simmer the soup for 45 minutes, skimming occasionally.

With long handled tongs, remove the chicken and set aside to cool.  With a hand blender or food mill puree the soup and keep it warm.  Adjust the flavor with salt and pepper. 

When the chicken has cooled, remove and discard the skin and pick the bones clean of the meat.  Shred the meat into bite-sized pieces with your hands.  Return the chicken to the soup.  Save the bones for stock.  Bring the soup to a high serving temperature.  One final time, adjust the flavor with salt and pepper.  Stir in the chopped parsley before serving in large bowls.