Favourite Cookbooks

NOT happy today.

When I set up this shot, I discovered my camera is broken. When I look through the view finder, all I see is hopeless, dismal BLACK. I suppose I will have to take it to a camera shop to see if it can be repaired, but in the meantime, I feel like I'm missing a limb! Fortunately, I do have a standby "stunt" camera, so I suppose things could be worse.

Being that I am currently in Boston, most of my favourite books** are not with me right now. They are perched on the overloaded shelves in our house in Connecticut. I do, however, have a few favourite cookbooks here, so this is what you get to see: two by Ina Garten, Barefoot Contessa How Easy Is That?, and Barefoot Contessa Back To Basics, and Gordon Hamersley's wonderful Bistro Cooking At Home.

I have every single one of Ina Garten's cookbooks. I love her recipes. They are invariably simple to prepare, full of fresh flavour, and delicious -- what more could you ask for! Gordon Hamersley runs a superb restaurant here in Boston, Hamersley's Bistro. His Roast Chicken with Garlic, Lemon, and Parsley is truly life-changing. The first time I ate it, I felt like the woman in the scene in When Harry Met Sally, when she witnesses Sally's fake orgasm, and says "I'll have what she's having!"

Here's his recipe -- I promise you, it's out of this world delicious!

Hamersley's Roast Chicken with Garlic, Lemon, and Parsley

For The Marinade:

1 bunch fresh Italian parsley, well washed and coarsely chopped
3 garlic cloves, coarsely chopped
3 shallots, coarsely chopped
1 tablespoon herbes de Provence
1 teaspoon dried rosemary
3 tablespoons Dijon mustard
2 teaspoons kosher salt
2 teaspoons coarsely ground black pepper
6 tablespoons olive oil
Grated zest of 1 lemon

For Roasting the Chickens and the Garlic:

2 whole chickens, about 3 pounds each
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 whole head of garlic
1 tablespoon olive oil

For Making the Sauce and Serving:

1 1/2 cups chicken broth
1 lemon, one half sliced into 1/4" pieces, the other half juiced
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
Parsley

To Make the Marinade:

In the bowl of a food processor, combine the parsley, garlic, shallots, herbes de Provence, rosemary, mustard, salt and pepper. Pulse the ingredients together until finely chopped. With the motor running, add the olive oil in a drizzle and process until smooth. Fold in the lemon zest.

To Roast the Chickens and the Garlic:

Remove the giblets from the chickens and rinse the birds inside and out with cold water. Pat them dry with paper towels and put them on a rack in a roasting pan. Rub the marinade all over the chickens, patting it on with your hands, and using all of it for a thick coating. Season with salt and pepper. Cover the chickens with plastic wrap and let sit in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours and up to 4 hours. Or let them stand at room temperature for 1 hour. Heat the oven to 350 F. Roast the chickens until done, about 1 1/4 hours. The birds are done when the leg bone separates easily when twisted, a meat thermometer inserted into the thigh should register 165 F to 170 F.

Meanwhile, separate the garlic cloves from the head, but do not peel them (but do pull off any loose, papery skins). Put the garlic into a small baking pan in a single layer. Drizzle a little olive oil over the cloves and toss to coat. Sprinkle them with salt and pepper, cover with aluminum foil, and bake in the same oven as the chickens until the cloves are very soft, about 1 hour.

To Make the Sauce:

Transfer the chickens to a cutting board and let the birds rest for at least a half hour and up to an hour before cutting them into pieces. Pour off the juices from the roasting pan and degrease them. Add the juices and the chicken broth back to the roasting pan, place the pan over medium-high heat, and deglaze the pan by scraping up the browned bits stuck to it and reserve.

To Serve:

Carefully remove the chicken breasts from the bone, keeping the wings attached and leaving on as much skin as possible. Use a knife and pull with your hands; the breasts should come off easily. Carve around each leg bone to remove the leg and thigh in one piece. Arrange the chicken pieces, skin side up, in the roasting pan or in another baking pan shallow enough to fit underneath the broiler. (You can prepare the chickens ahead up to this point. They can remain at room temperature for a half hour before broiling. If you want to make them ahead earlier than that, refrigerate the chickens and bring them back almost to room temperature before broiling them.)

Move the oven rack closer to the broiler and heat the broiler. Place the lemon slices on top of the chicken. Pour the reserved pan juices and chicken broth into the pan, but not over the chicken. Set the pan under the broiler and cook until the skin is crisp and the meat has thorougly heated through, 8 to 10 minutes. Arrange the chicken on a platter or on individual plates, scatter the roasted garlic cloves over the chicken, and keep the chicken warm. Carefully pour the liquid from the roasting pan into a saucepan. Add the lemon juice and cook over high heat until the sauce is reduced by almost half and becomes slightly thickened. Swirl in the butter and season with salt and pepper to taste. Pour the sauce around the chicken, garnish with parsley, and serve immediately.

Serves 4 to 6.

** Some of my favourite books: Boris Pasternak's Doctor Zhivago, Thomas Berger's Little Big Man, David Guterson's Snow Falling On Cedars, Abraham Verghese's Cutting For Stone, Cormac McCarthy's The Road, Iain Banks' The Wasp Factory, and Pietro Di Donato's Christ in Concrete. This, however, is merely scratching the surface ...