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Chicken with Maple-Mustard Glaze

12.08.2015 by J. Doe // Leave a Comment

My father is obsessed. This is his usual state; what varies from time to time is the object of his obsession. For a while, it was bread, and conversations centered on flour, yeast, and baking stones. Then he turned his attention to fermenting, and mastered kosher pickles so rapidly that his rabbi persuaded him to teach a pickling workshop at the Jewish community center, where he was billed as a local pickling expert, and attracted nearly 100 attendees.

Having conquered the pickle, he turned his attention to olives, announcing he intended to learn how to cure them. I replied, That sounds great – please send me some olives.

I was thinking, He’ll send me a jar of nice olives, and I’ll make a bowl of nice tapenade with them.

He was thinking, My daughter also wants to learn how to cure olives.

This is how, one Wednesday afternoon, I found myself opening a box filled with twenty pounds of fresh black olives.

I examined the unexpected treasure trove of lovely, plump little black olives, but learning to cure olives, or anything really, isn’t on my To Do list. I decided to simply eat them. Biting into one, I received my first and most important lesson in olive curing: If you don’t do it, olives aren’t edible.

This is why I spent part of a Sunday in December baking cookies, but not as many as I normally would, because I needed the rest of the day to weigh and measure olives, sea salt, and water into various containers, where they will soak together until the olives become, hopefully, edible.

In case you are wondering how many containers it takes to brine twenty unexpected pounds of olives, the answer is six: A cookie jar, three Tupperware juice pitchers, a French porcelain serving bowl, and a plastic Folgers coffee tub. Yes, I’m aware that I’m violating some Seattle code, making and drinking Folgers pre-ground coffee. But the coffee police haven’t come for me yet, and the big plastic tubs are awfully handy when large quantities of unexpected olives appear on one’s doorstep.

Like father, like daughter; he has his obsessions, I have mine. I have discovered maple syrup – not the stuff that comes in a squeeze bottle shaped like a lady, but the real stuff, that comes in a bottle with a tiny, useless handle on it.

The handle, I have learned, once served a purpose, and the syrup itself still serves many purposes, all of which I am determined to explore, and soon. I discovered this when I received a digital review copy of the Maple Syrup Cookbook, by Ken Haedrich. It’s a book I never would have picked up on my own, since I tend to view cookbooks focused on a single ingredient more as kitsch than cuisine. In this case, my preconceived notions were completely incorrect, much to my delight: Nothing about the recipes in this pretty book feels like a stretch, and I found myself attaching digital sticky notes to more than a dozen pages, as well as learning a little by reading the side notes.

For my first recipe, I intended to make the Maple Spice Cookies for a holiday cookie exchange, but The Child insisted I make my traditional Eggnog Cookies – It Isn’t Christmas Without Them, she said –  and I succumbed to her flattery. Instead, one evening when I had no particular plans for dinner, I made the simple roast chicken with a mustard-maple glaze. It isn’t fussy, and required no trips to the store.

It was lovely, with just a hint of sweetness from the maple syrup and a bit of bite from the mustard, lemon juice, and garlic. The flavors balance perfectly, and even The Child, who normally avoids any sort of mixing of sweet-and-savory on her dinner plate, pronounced it A Keeper.

The original recipe calls for the chicken to be grilled or broiled. I baked it, but felt it would have been better broiled, so I’ve included those directions. I used chicken thighs, rather than the cut-up chicken called for; use three or so pounds of chicken pieces, whichever sort you prefer, and adjust the cooking time accordingly. This would be wonderful cooked on a grill in summer.

I probably won’t take my obsession as far as my father might; you won’t likely read about me having a maple sugaring party or learning to tap trees. Then again, if the olives turn out, who knows?

 

Maple-Mustard Chicken

Chicken with Maple-Mustard Glaze
 
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Author: adapted from Ken Haedrich, The Maple Syrup Cookbook
Ingredients
  • 3lbs chicken pieces
  • ¼ cup pure maple syrup
  • 3 tbsp Dijon mustard
  • juice of ½ small lemon
  • 2 tsp soy sauce
  • 1 clove garlic, finely minced
  • ½ tsp ground pepper
Instructions
  1. Combine the maple syrup, mustard, lemon juice, soy sauce, garlic, and pepper in a small saucepan. Bring to a boil, and cook for about a minute. Remove from heat.
  2. Rinse the chicken parts and pat dry. Brush each piece of chicken with some of the sauce, using about half, and place in a bowl. Refrigerate for 30-60 minutes.
  3. Broil the chicken about 6 inches from the heat, about 15 minutes on each side, basting with the remaining sauce from time to time. Total cooking time will depend on the size of the chicken pieces; be sure the meat is tender and juices run clear, or check for doneness with a thermometer.
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Categories // The Joy of Cooking Tags // chicken, maple syrup, meat, mustard

Maple-Glazed Winter Squash And Apple Compote

02.06.2014 by J. Doe // 2 Comments

Before The Dog died, I decided it would be a good idea to order myself a gift, so that something would arrive to cheer me a few days after. The gift I chose for myself was Claudia Fleming’s regrettably out-of-print The Last Course: The Desserts of Gramercy Tavern, about which I keep hearing rave reviews, and it strikes me that a cookbook that is still being talked about ten years after it was published is probably a cookbook worth checking out. My library didn’t have a copy, and in late December, the cheapest used copy on Amazon was $140.

 

That seemed kind of steep for a cookbook, so I waited, and sure enough, after Christmas, prices started to drop, a little each day, and then suddenly a couple of sellers dropped their prices by quite a bit, but then raised them again – on Amazon. But one of the sellers left his low price – $70 – on Abebooks, while copies were still selling for over $100 on Amazon – and after a couple of days and a little rationalization on my part, this seemed like a very good deal, and I bought it.

 

We’ll ignore the fact that prices continued to drop on Amazon, and if I’d waited just a week or two, I could have saved myself another $20. In fact, we’ll just stop looking at the prices. They don’t matter, because the cookbook arrived, and I had all the ingredients I needed to make the gingersnaps, and they were truly the loveliest gingersnaps I’ve ever made.

 

I had a big container of them waiting for Mr. Faraway when he visited, only to discover that although he seems to like nearly everything I make, he doesn’t like gingersnaps regardless of who made them, and now I’ve got a dinner guest and an ample supply of something that won’t pass as dessert after all.

 

I also have a large butternut squash that I bought for some reason – probably a very good one – and The Last Course has a recipe that I would have probably bypassed for the rest of my life, were it not for the fact that it calls for butternut squash, and I have one, and I need to do something fairly quick and simple for dessert.

 

Mr. Faraway says, I don’t really see how a vegetable can be dessert.

 

I point out that pumpkin can be pie, and that’s both vegetable and dessert.

 

Let’s give it a shot, he says.

 

He does all the dicing and peeling, while I manage the cooking for the recipe, which we made together as the spareribs roasted. I immediately hit a speed bump, discovering that I’m short by half the amount of maple syrup the recipe calls for, so we agree that swapping in some honey for the rest was probably the safest solution. It all smells incredible while cooking, and when the squash is tender enough to sample, we try it and discover it tastes just like pumpkin pie.

 

The combination of reduced maple syrup, honey, and caramel becomes quite intense, so the compote is very rich – a little goes a long way. Fleming suggests serving it with gingersnaps, which was not an option on that evening, or a pound cake, which would be delicious soaked in the syrup. We opted to serve it over plain vanilla ice cream, elevating it into a very special dessert. We agree it would be a super topping for any number of things, especially brunch-y things, and the following morning, we make a batch of Kate Smith’s Griddle Cakes, pouring the compote and syrup on top, for a true breakfast treat.

 

Maple-Glazed Winter Squash And Apple Compote

 

 

Maple-Glazed Winter Squash And Apple Compote
 
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Author: Claudia Fleming, The Last Course
Ingredients
  • ¾ cup maple syrup
  • 1½ cinnamon sticks
  • 2 whole cloves
  • 2 cups peeled and diced butternut squash (3/4 inch dice)
  • ¾ cup sugar
  • 1 cup peeled and diced Granny Smith apples (1/2 inch dice)
Instructions
  1. Combine the syrup, cinnamon and cloves in a pan with ¾ cup water, bring to the boil and reduce for 7 minutes, until slightly thickened. Add the squash and simmer until tender and partly translucent, about 10-12 minutes. Remove the squash from the syrup and set aside, and reduce the syrup for another 7 minutes. Strain, and set aside.
  2. Heat an 8-inch skillet and melt ¼ cup of the sugar, shaking the pan. Add another ¼ cup, melt, add the final ¼ cup. Heat until it reaches a rich golden brown colour. Add the apple chunks in one layer and turn off the heat. Don't stir. Baste occasionally as the apples heat and release their juices. To serve, add the apple and squash to the remaining maple syrup and heat through.
  3. Serve warm or at room temp.
Notes
I didn't have the correct amount of maple syrup on hand and didn't discover that small fact until cooking was underway. I substituted honey for about half the maple syrup and it was quite delicious. I like to use Grade B maple syrup (easily available at Trader Joe's and elsewhere) as I find it has a heartier flavor than Grade A.

I served this the first night over plain vanilla ice cream, and it was spectacular. The following morning, I served it over pancakes, and they were divine.
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Categories // The Joy of Cooking Tags // apples, butternut squash, dessert, maple syrup

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