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lenticchie di Castelluccio con avanzi di pollo arrosto e patate al forno

Castelluccio lentils with leftover roast chicken and baked potatoes
[cliccare il link per andare alla versione in italiano]

For our Thanksgiving dinner, I roasted a chicken, one of a batch locally and organically pasture raised by our friend Don (a.k.a. the accidental chicken farmer). The recipe for the roast chicken (pollo arrosto) is not mine but Thomas Keller's and was described in this guest post. Hence, there was no leftover turkey in my fridge, but leftover chicken (avanzi di pollo) upon which to let my creative juices flow.

To go with the almost five-pound chicken, I roasted two lbs. of locally grown, organic fingerling potatoes. After carefully scrubbing the potatoes, I used my nebulizer to distribute olive oil over them, then added  a generous amount of finely chopped fresh rosemary leaves, salt and freshly ground black pepper, gave a good stir and baked in a pan at 375 F until done. We partook of the roast chicken and of the potatoes, but left a good quantity on the plate, to undergo some transformation before reappearing on the dinner table.

In a previous post, I have introduced you to lenticchie di Castelluccio, the small lentils that are grown in an area of my home region (Umbria). These are the lentils I grew up eating and the ones I like. I brought back some from my recent trip to Italy. The store in Perugia where I get locally grown legumes is called Bavicchi, in Via dei Priori (downtown), the road that starts under the arch surmounted by the clock (only the top part of the arch is visible in the photo, on the left). As an aside, the reason why I took this photo was because I love the windows of the Palazzo dei Priori. (And I hope you'll forgive me for taking the chance to show you another photo of my home town.)

Not sure what directed my thoughts towards lenticchie while considering solutions for my day-after dilemma, but once that happened, I did not stop until the pairing of the little legumes with my leftovers was a reality held in a bowl. I cooked a cup of lentils in two cups of water with an unpeeled clove of garlic (spicchio d'aglio in camicia) and a bay leaf, until tender (about 20 minutes), then let them rest (after removing the garlic and bay leaf) while I prepared the leftovers. I diced the chicken, saving bones and trimmings to make chicken broth, and then cut the potatoes into bite-size pieces (half-inch slices, actually).

I added chicken and potatoes (including the rosemary bits left behind in the bowl that held the potatoes) to the lentils together with half a cup of homemade vegetable broth and heated until everything was nice and hot. The addition of more broth would have pushed the dish towards the soup camp, but I was happy with a denser consistency. I adjusted the salt and served immediately. A perfect body- and soul-warming dish for a windy day, sunny, but chilly.

This is my submission for My Legume Love Affair - 17th Helping, the popular, legume-centered event that is the brainchild of Susan, The Well-Seasoned Cook and is hosted this month by Sra of When My Soup Came Alive .

If you cannot participate this month, you can check who is hosting the next edition of the event.

Hear me pronounce the words on the lenticchie di Castelluccio con avanzi di pollo arrosto e patate al forno audio file [mp3] or go to the lenticchie di Castelluccio con avanzi di pollo arrosto e patate al forno audio page for more listening options.

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Per i lettori italiani. Per la festa del Ringraziamento la tradizione vuole che si prepari l tacchino, ma io invece ho arrostito un pollo ruspante del nostro amico Don secondo questa ricetta, e l'ho accompagnato con patate "fingerling" bio cotte al forno (intere) con rosmarino, sale e pepe. Visto che eravamo solo in due, di avanzi ce n'erano a sufficienza per un piatto creativo con le lenticchie di Castelluccio.

Ho cotto 200 g di lenticchie in poco meno di mezzo litro d'acqua con uno spicchio d'aglio in camicia e una foglia d'alloro, poi le ho lasciate riposare mentre tagliavo il pollo a cubetti e le patate a pezzi (di fatto, a fette, dal momento che le patate "fingerling," come dice il nome, hanno la forma di dita). Ho poi aggiunto pollo e patate alle lenticchie (dalle quali avevo rimosso aglio e alloro), insieme a 250 ml circa di brodo vegetale. Ho scaldato tutto ben bene, ho aggiustato il sale e ho servito subito le lenticchie fumanti.

insalata di pollo con labneh

chicken salad with labneh
Roasting a whole chicken for two means having a certain amount of leftovers (avanzi). Making chicken salad with avanzi di pollo arrosto is not really creative, but using labneh to season it is probably not as common as using, say, maionese (mayonnaise).

Why labneh? Because of a photo of it that I saw in this post by Lucy of Nourish Me. The image of a snow-white ball nestled in white cheesecloth stayed with me and inspired me to follow the instructions on this page and get my own snow-white mass of labneh. I decided to be daring and used non-fat, organic yogurt.

The process of draining yogurt to make labneh was a bit messy. Hanging the wrap of cheesecloth and cloth inside the fridge required the building of a contraption that made access to a section of the fridge difficult for 24 hours, not an ideal situation. Next time I'll be better prepared, and I will use only cloth.

Fortunately, the contraption worked and I got my mass of soft, creamy, deliciously tart labneh. Having never tasted labneh before, I have no idea how my rendition compares to the real thing, but I am not worried: in any case, I like the result of my effort.

The first thing I did with it is sprinkle its surface with slivered fresh basil (basilico). I made a tomato sauce to go with it and the pairing was wonderful. Then came the pollo arrosto, and its leftovers, and the idea of using some labneh as an ingredient of my insalata di pollo.

The chicken being quite tasty of its own, I didn't add much to the salad: a rib of celery, finely chopped; a handful of toasted walnuts, finely chopped as well; a few leaves of lavender mint (menta) and pineapple sage (salvia) fresh from my garden, plus some more basil (besides that already on the labneh), all finely slivered; and a generous sprinkling of freshly-ground black pepper. I spooned some labneh over the diced chicken until the balance of flavors seemed right. The salad made a satisfying dinner.

Warning: I am actually not done with the aftermath of the pollo arrosto, so expect another post on the subject.

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Readers of this and many other blogs have learned that Sher of What Did You Eat? died recently of a heart attack. In memory of Sher, Lia of Swirling Notions has organized an online fund raising for WomenHeart, the National Coalition for Women with Heart Disease. Visit this page to find out the details of Lia's initiative.

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Hear me pronounce the words on the insalata di pollo con labneh audio file [mp3] or go to the insalata di pollo con labneh audio page for more listening options.

pollo arrosto per Paz

roast chicken for Paz
I wrote a guest post for Paz, of The Cooking Adventure of Chef Paz, describing my first attempt ever at preparing pollo arrosto. Fear not, the adventure has a happy ending.

Hear me pronounce the words and expressions on the pollo arrosto audio file [mp3] or go to the pollo arrosto audio page for more listening options.

pâté di fegatini di pollo

chicken liver pâté
The version of this dish I am referring to here is typical of central Italy and is eaten spread over small slices of lightly toasted bread, called crostini. Crostini con pâté di fegatini di pollo are traditionally served as an appetizer and they are featured in the menu of many restaurants. I recommend you try them if you find yourself in the area, and maybe compare the different local versions. It is also possible to purchase fresh pâté in stores.

I grew up eating the variation common in Umbria, the region where I was born. My mother would make pâté di fegatini for special occasions, using her hand-powered tritacarne (meat mincer) to mince the cooked fegatini. She has not made them in a long time, though, because she prefers the recipe a friend of hers uses, which apparently is rather complicated, and includes, among other ingredients, anchovies, capers and a salsiccia (pork sausage). All the added ingredients are detectable when you taste pâté di fegatini, so the liver flavor is not pronounced.

In Italian liver is fegato. Fegatino is a diminutive form of the word. And since we are talking about internal organs, let me also mention the word rigaglie, meaning giblets. Another dish my mother would sometimes make is sugo con le rigaglie di pollo (tomato sauce with chicken giblets) and use it to season her handmade tagliatelle.

[This post was inspired by Lori Lynn's recent post about chicken liver pâté]

Hear me pronounce the words on the pâté di fegatini di pollo audio file [mp3] or go to the pâté di fegatini di pollo audio page for more listening options.

pollo arrosto alla Julia Child

roast chicken à la Julia Child
The time is a few years ago and the place is my mother-in-law's apartment in the Chicago area. My mother-in-law is watching TV when we arrive: she is enjoying the program, so we start watching it too. On the screen there is Julia Child preparing a chicken for roasting. That was my first and only encounter with her. Julia's manners and her interaction with her partner, Jacques Pepin, made me overcome my natural aversion to watching television. That was also my first and only encounter with a food program. I don't watch TV of any kind, so this has nothing to do with food programs in particular.

The episode occurred at a time when I was not yet interested in cooking, so it was only later on that I realized the importance of the person and of the program I had watched. As a result of that encounter, for me Julia Child is inescapably linked to roast chicken. The image that is most vividly etched in my memory is that of a hand slid underneath the skin: I had never seen anybody preparing chicken that way. What I cannot get from my memory is whose hand that was. Has anybody seen the episode I am describing?

I don't remember anything else, most probably because we decided to start a conversation and turned off the TV. As a result, I don't know what a pollo arrosto alla Julia Child looks like. Later on I heard the story of Julia dropping a chicken on the floor and nonchalantly picking it up, then I read that the story is a myth and that nothing of the sort ever happened. I guess it is part of the price you pay for being famous, having an action attributed to you that people believe is in tune with your public persona. I am sure the chicken protagonist of the episode I am referring to did not end up on the floor at any time while I was watching.

I have recently written about pollo arrosto and the place the delicious dish had in my childhood (visit the earlier post to listen to a recording featuring the Italian words). The current post is my entry for the Julia Child Birthday Event, a loving tribute with a lovely logo organized by Lisa from Champaign Taste. I have found many references on the web to Julia Child's recipe for pollo arrosto, though none of the ones I read instructs to slide your hands under the chicken's skin to spread the seasoning. I chose a recipe from the Food Network, which sounds delicious and which I may one day soon try, since I have signed up for email alerts from Wild Chick Farm a local provider of organic, pasture-ranged chickens, from whom I have been buying incredible eggs for some time.

Here is the roundup of the event.

pollo arrosto

roast chicken
Talking about Sunday lunch (pranzo) in my previous post made me think of another dish that was only featured in that meal: pollo arrosto. We would buy it at a store, una rosticceria, actually 'the' store, because we had one favorite place. I am not sure whether it is still in business, but I hope it is.

As a child, I loved going with my father to the rotisserie to get the roast chicken: I loved the smell of the place and the look of the food that was made and sold there. I usually got to carry the warm bag with the chicken and would bask in the heady smell that came from it. I alternated between eating the breast (il petto) and the thigh (la coscia). I remember the taste of rosemary and the crispness of the skin. To this day, smelling rosemary reminds me of the pollo arrosto from my childhood.

If a person is a pollo, he or she is a simpleton, someone easily taken in. Something or someone that fa ridere i polli (literally: makes chickens laugh) is ridiculous, or acts in a ridiculous way. When I am able to predict exactly what my husband will do, he always asks me: "How did you know?" to which I answer: "Conosco i miei polli." Literally it translates: "I know my chickens" and it means that I am familiar with their ways, so I can predict what they will do.

Hear me pronounce the words and expressions on the pollo arrosto audio file [mp3] or go to the pollo arrosto audio page for more listening options.

polpettone

meatloaf
Polpettone comes from polpetta with the addition of the augmentative suffix -one.

I have never eaten either polpettone or meatloaf, because both are famous for being particularly demanding on our digestive system, a character I dislike in food. This defining trait of polpettone explains the metaphorical use of the word to describe something muddled and boring. Movies and books are at particular risk of being condemned as polpettoni.

Hear me pronounce the words on the polpettone audio file [mp3] or go to the polpettone audio page for more listening options.

polpetta

meatball
The word polpetta comes from polpa, meaning lean meat, with the addition of the diminutive suffix -etta.

Polpette can be made with meat or fish and are fried or stewed. My mother makes them with the boiled meat leftover from making broth. She fries them and the result is brown nuggets that are almost creamy inside and crispy outside. The next day she stews them in tomato sauce: what they lose in outer crispness, they gain in flavor with the aromatic tomato sauce.

I have never eaten spaghetti with meatballs and had never heard of them until I moved to California. Adding meatballs to pasta is a southern tradition and I grew up in central Italy. I have tasted, however, meatballs in the timpano, a pasta dish from Calabria, whose lengthy preparation is shown in the (highly recommended) movie "Big Night" (1996).

[This post is dedicated to Christine.]

Hear me pronounce the words on the polpetta audio file [mp3] or go to the polpetta audio page for more listening options.