Craft is my favorite restaurant in New York. It has simple, mouthwatering food and fantastic service – and best of all, no gimmicks or faux coolness. It’s just good. And it was five blocks from my apartment.

Anyway, this is not meant to be an advertisement for Craft. Tasting Table is doing a sous chef series and their first recipe is from Craft sous chef James Tracey, for Roast Chicken. I’m going to have to try this.

See the instructional video HERE

ROAST CHICKEN WITH SEASONAL VEGETABLES

JAMES TRACEY, CRAFT, NYC

Yield: 4 Servings

INGREDIENTS

For the Chicken

• 1 whole chicken (about 4 pounds)
• 1 sprig rosemary
• 6 sprigs thyme
• 1 sprig sage
• 8 medium garlic cloves
• 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
• ½ pound carrots, cut into ¾-inch pieces (about 2 large carrots)
• ½ pound turnips, cut into ¾-inch pieces (about 2 medium turnips)
• ½ pound rutabaga, cut into ¾-inch cubes (about 1 medium rutabaga)
• ½ pound of cippolini onions, peeled (about 8 to 10 onions)
• ½ pound of brussels sprouts, halved (about 10 brussels sprouts)
• 4 tablespoons (½ stick) unsalted butter
• Salt and freshly ground pepper

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat the oven to 350°. Stuff the chicken cavity with the rosemary, thyme, sage and garlic and season it liberally inside and out with salt and pepper. Using butcher’s twine, truss the chicken.

2. Place a medium roasting pan on the stovetop over medium-high heat and add the oil. Using tongs to move the chicken, cook the legs and thighs on both sides until the skin is golden brown, about 3 to 4 minutes per side. Remove the chicken from the pan and set aside.

3. Add the carrots, turnips, rutabaga, cippollini onions and brussels sprouts to the pan and cook, stirring occasionally, until the vegetables begin to brown at the edges, about 5 to 8 minutes. Return the chicken to the pan, add the butter and transfer to the oven. Roast the chicken, basting every 15 minutes, until the juices run clear when the thigh is pierced with a knife, about 60 minutes. Transfer the chicken to a large cutting board and let it rest for 10 minutes before carving. Remove two garlic cloves from the chicken and reserve.

4. Place the roasting pan over high heat and add the reserved garlic. Bring the mixture to a simmer, stirring frequently, and cook until the vegetables are glazed and the liquid has reduced by about one-third, about 2 to 3 minutes.

5. Transfer the carved chicken to a serving platter, spoon the glazed vegetables around it and serve immediately.

fishex.com

Guy Fieri made this dish – pappardelle pasta with scallops, lightly wilted argula, mushrooms, and a light drizzle of truffle oil – on his show recently and the way he made it just looked so yummy and easy. Perfect for a one-dish dinner party. Just make it, serve it, and voila, you’re done! Maybe buy a tub of ice cream for dessert if you’re really ambitious :)

Scallops are an ingredient I’m kind of terrified of. They seem so easy to over- or under-cook. Luckily, I found Tasty Kitchen’s extremely detailed tips on how to properly cook this intimidating ingredient:

1. Cook your pasta in salted water: Bring a big pot of water to boil and add enough salt so it’s slightly salty. This gives your pasta flavor and you’ll end up using less salt or sauce in your dish.

2. Everything ready to go: This dish cooks up so quickly that you really need to have all your ingredients prepped and close by. You don’t want the seafood to get cold while you’re furiously chopping tomatoes.

3. Dry seafood: Before you begin cooking, you really want to pat your seafood very very dry. And I don’t mean a sloppy dry. Use a couple of pieces of paper towel and really make sure that you blot all the moisture away. The reason this is so important is because seafood cooks really quickly. Any moisture on the seafood will end up steaming the seafood instead of pan-frying it.

4. High heat or low heat—no middle heat: Here’s my rule for cooking small pieces of seafood, like scallops, shrimp, or chunks of fish. Either go high heat or low heat, but not in the middle. The high heat will give you a wonderful sear, that charred crust that I will give up my Gucci purse for. A low, slow heat will gently cook the seafood so that it has a silky texture, but that’s for another lesson.

5. Don’t overcook your seafood: I know it’s obvious, but I do have to say it. For scallops and shrimp, they really only need a couple of minutes on each side. If you’re using small bay shrimp (about the size of a small marshmallow) – 1 1/2 minutes on each side or less.

I have to screw up my courage and just cook scallops eventually, because a) I love them generally, and now b) I really want to make Guy Fieri’s pasta dish.

This recipe from the Barefoot Contessa sounds easy and has a low number of ingredients that you probably already have in your kitchen – always something I look for in a recipe!

Photo by Quentin Bacon

Click here for the recipe page.

1/4 cup good olive oil

3 tablespoons minced garlic (9 cloves)

1/3 cup dry white wine

1 tablespoon grated lemon zest (2 lemons)

2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice

1½ teaspoons dried oregano

1 teaspoon minced fresh thyme leaves

Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

4 boneless chicken breasts, skin on (6 to 8 ounces each)

1 lemon

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
Warm the olive oil in a small saucepan over medium-low heat, add the garlic, and cook for just 1 minute but don’t allow the garlic to turn brown. Off the heat, add the white wine, lemon zest, lemon juice, oregano, thyme, and 1 teaspoon salt and pour into a 9 X 12-inch baking dish.

Pat the chicken breasts dry and place them skin side up over the sauce. Brush the chicken breasts with olive oil and sprinkle them liberally with salt and pepper. Cut the lemon in 8 wedges and tuck it among the pieces of chicken.

Bake for 30 to 40 minutes, depending on the size of the chicken breasts, until the chicken is done and the skin is lightly browned. If the chicken isn’t browned enough, put it under the broiler for 2 minutes. Cover the pan tightly with aluminum foil and allow to rest for 10 minutes. Sprinkle with salt and serve hot with the pan juices.