It’s nice to be back in my kitchen. The kitchens and kitchenettes I had access to in CA were all for want of a French knife, a wooden slant edge spatula, a decent chopping block, or something. But who’s complaining.. ..Not me said the flea..

Here’s posted for you the entire ingredients and preparation for this dish. A few things different from Gringa’s poulet sopa, notably, and something I’d fallen out of habit of using, is lemon peel. In advanced nutrition with Dr. Ettinger she regaled the class of limonene–a phytochemical found in lemon and citrus fruit peels–and its anticarcinogen properties. So as sort of a resolution, I resolve to grate lemon peel on all my dishes. The lemons in question for todays dish are from Farm Fresh Produce in Salinas, CA, which I’ll write about next up for you. I bought and smuggled back to NYC several small and medium Meyer lemons. At 0.25 and 0.50 cents a piece, would make them a staple in the prandium larder, but no such prices are ever found even at my dear Fairway. This saddens me as I love to eat slices of them with drops of honey. I was also feeling fine herbes (parsley) and yellow onions instead of cilantro and shallot.

Dry roast chicken soup

Four skinless, no antibiotic/no hormone chicken legs and thighs
A bakers dozen red and white baby potatoes (Mine are minuscule; cut yours in half if they are bigger than an inch)
Two medium-bigger carrots cut in three and thicker pieces cut in half
Three medium-smallish turnips, cut in three and thicker pieces cut in half
Three or four celery stalks cut in three or four pieces
One medium yellow onion, peeled, cut in half between poles and thin sliced
About a handful of washed fine herbes (flat leaf parsley), fine chopped
Olio
Grated fresh peel of Meyer lemon from Farm Fresh Produce in Salinas, CA
Kosher sel
Piper nigrum
Crushed red pepper
One quarter to one half cup of water

Use a cloth to wipe a coat of olive oil at the bottom of your roasting pan. Place chickens in there and coat them with olive oil, sel, piper, and crushed red pepper. Grate lemon peel on chickens. Cover and put in an oven preheated to 450°F. Let the chickens roast & seal for about ten to fifteen minutes. Meanwhile mix the red and white baby potatoes, onions, carrots, turnips, celery, and fine herbes in a large bowl with olio, sel, piper, and crushed red pepper. I also grated lemon peel into the bowl and mixed with a wooden slant edge spatula. Take chickens out of the oven and pour veggie mix over top of the chickens. An extra carrot I basted with olio and put on top; this I’ll share with the poodles. Turn the oven down to 325-350°F and let it all slow roast for a good long-ish while, about fifty minutes to an hour.

Before the oven..

After a slow oven..

As my plans to drive to CA were foiled by scheduling and fiscal-ing, I did not have the chance to go to North Dakota or Missouri to buy long grain wild rice. I’ll go this summer when I tour back to CA. In the meantime, I bought a whole grain brown rice and making a cup to go with the dry roasted chicken soup. This is perhaps another of my resolutions, to incorporate long grain (and whole grain brown) rice into my prandium. It’s a fine source of protein and better in terms of its limiting amino, which is not an issue here as we are eating chicken.

Whole grain brown rice

I more or less followed directions on the package

One and a quarter cup of whole grain brown rice
Two and a half cups water
A pat of butter

Combine contents in a pot and bring to a boil. Stir, cover tightly, turn heat way down, and let simmer for fifty minutes.

Serve yourself a dish with a glass of seltzer.

Buen provecho..

Addendum.. Related to yet another of mine resolutions, I did not peel the carrot, turnip, and potato skins. I am herein making a point of eating the skins of well-scrubbed root vegetables and apples. I almost always peel the apple skin because the bite is akin to chalkboard scraping to my teeth. It’s time to toughen them up for the long haul..