Poultry

Minces were quite popular in nineteenth-century American cooking. I often had minced chicken and turkey and sometimes lamb on toast as a child, and I always loved the simple, soothing flavor of those dishes. If you haven’t got cream sauce on hand, just use cream and let it cook down a little.

I use the same technique for broiling a chicken as I do for roasting it whole. I make a tasty mix of shallots, garlic, lemon rind, and herbs moistened with olive oil and rub that under the skin of the chicken at least an hour before cooking. The advantage of broiling is that it’s quicker, particularly if you do the preliminary under-the-skin stuffing in the morning. Then, when you get home, you have only to put the accompanying vegetables on a baking tray along with the chicken and you’ll have a full dinner ready in 30 minutes with lots of good left-over chicken to play with during the week. You can, of course, just get half a chicken (leg/thigh/breast piece) and have only a little left over, but I find the birds for roasting are apt to be plumper and more flavorful, particularly if you get an organic, decently raised chicken. And I like to have the gizzards, neck, and backbone for stock, and the liver for my own treat (see page 100).

Creamed soups are often used as a base ingredient in casseroles, and cream of chicken is among the most popular of choices. Trust us when we say that making this soup from scratch and using it in recipes will really make a huge flavor difference by highlighting the freshest ingredients and doing away with preservatives and artificial colorings. This soup is fantastic as a ingredient in recipes, but don’t be afraid to make it as a stand-alone dish as well.

If you are looking to save money, taking the time to roast your own chicken really can go a long way. Plus this foolproof method makes for a delicious chicken every time. After trying this traditional, scrumptious recipe, don’t forget to make your own chicken broth from the chicken bones, which are rich in flavor. Talk about more cluck for your buck.

So why make your own broth? The main reason is that you’ll get a richness of flavor in your homemade stock that you just can’t buy at the store. Homemade broth has an intense chicken flavor and an unbeatable smell. While the thought of making your own broth may seem intimidating, we promise that it’s not! In fact, it requires little attention once all the ingredients hit the pot.

Contrary to popular belief, chicken tetrazzini was served at many upscale restaurants throughout the United States in the early 1900s. The dish was inspired and named after the great Italian opera star Luisa Tetrazzini, and it was widely popular. In fact, it was so popular that home cooks everywhere began trying to re-create the famous dish in their homes, and it lost its appeal as a gourmet delicacy in fine dining establishments. Lucky for us at home, we can still enjoy this amazingly good comfort dish with our family and friends, unfettered by any unnecessary pretenses. Typically it is made with heavy creams and lots of butter, but we have found some healthier substitutions, such as low-fat cream cheese, which still provides the decadence and creaminess of the original. The opera isn’t over until the fat lady sings, but this much lighter version of a comfort food favorite will leave you enjoying the music!

All hail to the Queen! If you’re a fan of our Traditional King Ranch Casserole (page 41), you will love this lighter version, which delivers on taste but not on fat. We cut out the creamy soups to home in on the flavors from the green chiles and Rotel tomatoes. That’s not to say that this dish is super-spicy; it has a kick, but is overall very fresh. The cornstarch and broth mixture is called a slurry, and is used to thicken soups, stews, and sauces. Here are a few tips for making a slurry: Never add cornstarch directly to a hot liquid or it will lump; slurries should be 1 part cornstarch to 2 parts liquid, and, when stirred, should have the consistency of heavy cream; if you don’t have cornstarch, you can substitute flour—just use twice as much.

Tamales are a huge part of the Christmas celebration and tradition in the Rio Grande Valley, where Sandy was born and raised. As such, the holiday season simply wouldn’t be complete without eating copious amounts of tamales. Tamales are fun to make, but very time-consuming, so many people simply purchase them from a local restaurant. We go to Delia’s in Edinburg, Texas. Around Christmastime, they make about 25,000 tamales and become so busy that the doors are closed to regular customers and the police are dispatched to direct traffic. If your order isn’t in at least two weeks prior to Christmas, then you’re out of luck! Our spin on the tamale is a casserole that saves you both calories and countless hours of preparation.

Fruit in a meatloaf? What were we thinking? Trust us; we thought the exact same thing when Crystal’s sister, Cindy, suggested it one night in our test kitchen. But since Cindy is usually right (don’t even bother trying to play a game of Trivial Pursuit with her), we gave it a whirl and it worked! In fact, the sweetness from the mandarin orange brings an exciting new twist to this old-time dish. As soon as you try it, you’ll understand. Substituting ground turkey keeps the calories and fat in check, and when served with a side of stir-fried veggies and brown rice, this healthy meal is sure to become a regular household favorite.

Aunt Joan. Crystal’s aunt oozed charm and elegance. She always wore just the right dress or scarf. She was rarely without beautiful makeup and glam sunglasses. Her table was always set perfectly, and it was filled with foods that, for her young nieces, seemed exotic but tasty and comforting at the same time. The young ladies in Crystal’s family all grew up aspiring to be as lovely and sophisticated as Aunt Joan. We have modified Aunt Joan’s recipe for chicken divan by using it as a filling for crêpes. This recipe honors the beautiful and loving woman who graced so many lives and created so many special meals. Enjoy!

The Queens go “coo-coo” for Coq au Vin, a classic French dish of chicken cooked in red wine. An elegant but simple recipe, it’s a great entry point to the world of French cuisine, which is often less complicated than it seems. Since this chicken dish has a decadent sauce, we love serving it in a shallow soup bowl over buttered egg noodles that have been tossed with chopped fresh parsley. We also garnish the rest of the plate with parsley, as the bright green pops against the red wine sauce. So pretty and so tasty!

No special equipment needed here. Leave the paella pan at the store and let your casserole dish do the work. Packed with fresh seafood and accentuated with the alluring flavor of saffron, your kids may call this pimpin’ dish “The Bomb,” which means it’s good. This dish lives or dies by the freshness of the fish. The beauty of paella is that it is a flexible dish, so talk to your local fishmonger to get recommendations on the best catch of the day. If you don’t like seafood, the dish actually works really well without it, too.

When sick, people typically head straight for chicken noodle soup or some other mild-flavored, broth-based soup to nurse them back to health. Not Crystal. Oddly enough, when Crystal is feeling a little under the weather, she craves spice to comfort her. We’re talking hot-and-sour soup, pho with lots of Sriracha sauce, and her ultimate cure-all favorite, curry! Extremely satisfying, this dish’s fragrant spices alone will perk you right up. Serve over steamed jasmine rice or with traditional Indian bread called naan.

Tomato or cream sauce? Who says you have to choose? This casserole combines marinara and Alfredo sauces to create a lovely pink sauce. The cream balances the acidity of the tomatoes, while sophisticated ingredients such as prosciutto and capers add an inviting gourmet touch to the meal. This recipe is perfect for Valentine’s Day, first dates, or anniversaries. Not only will there be a pleasing blush to your meal, but perhaps to your sweetie, too!

It’s called a defining moment. For Madonna, it was “Everybody.” For Brad Pitt, it was Thelma and Louise. For us, well, it was our chicken pot pie that started it all. Now, we aren’t saying that we’re the next Madonna or Brad Pitt. But, in all honesty, you wouldn’t be reading this book if it weren’t for this recipe. As seen on Food Network’s Throwdown! with Bobby Flay, this signature dish is our claim to fame. It’s not just any old pot pie—oh, no. We took great care to bring this everyday comfort food to new gourmet heights. White wine, tarragon, and shallots are just some of the surprise ingredients tucked under a perfectly golden brown puff pastry. It’s the dish that made people sit up and take notice of us, and now it’s your turn to take the spotlight.

The King Ranch Casserole is as much a part of Texas history as the Alamo. So imagine when Crystal—originally from Georgia—marched into Sandy’s kitchen with some ideas on how to improve the dish. Yep, you guessed it. Disaster. You just can’t mess with Texas. Our recipe hasn’t budged from the original, which has been in Sandy’s family for as long as she can remember. Our fellow Austinites share the same love for this traditional recipe and have made the King Ranch one of our most popular menu items. Enjoy!

This is where you want to break out that lovely duck fat—the liquid gold saved from making Duck Breast with Dried Fruit and Vin Santo (page 152) or Cheater’s Duck Confit and Bitter Greens (page 154). If you didn’t remember to save the duck fat or don’t have any, you can certainly buy it. And in a pinch you can use olive oil. Duck fat is fabulous for frying because it has a relatively high smoking point (it can get really hot before it begins to break down), so it will make your potatoes golden brown and crispy on the outside, light and fluffy on the inside, and REALLY tasty. Save your duck fat; it’s worth it.

My mom used to make stuffed peppers, but I don’t like peppers. What I liked was the stuffing. So I’ve taken my mom’s recipe, tweaked it, and stuffed it in cabbage instead. I’ve also added chicken livers. The livers add an earthy richness that makes this dish super-special. If you don’t like chicken livers—or think you don’t—this is one time where you should get beyond the ick factor, accept that they’re worth adding, and move on . . . because this dish rocks.

When I worked at Savoy in SoHo, we had salt-roasted duck on the menu but we served only the breasts, so there was always an excess of duck legs hanging around. We’d eat the legs at our family meal, but after a while everyone was sick of them. Then one night, I was in a pinch for an hors d’oeuvres idea, and that’s when I came up with my cheater’s confit. As they say, desperation can be inspiration! My confit tastes just as good and authentic as a traditional confit, but it’s SOOOOO much faster. As far as I’m concerned, the time you save with my recipe is outstanding (this is one streamlined operation!) and so is the flavor.