september 21
the best roasted chicken
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Melon Salad with Mint and Honey
Roasted Chicken with Tomatillos and Cippolini Onions
Roasted Fingerling Potatoes
Sautéed Romano Beans with Tomatoes and Parmesan
Port Poached Pears with Crème Fraîche and Lace Cookies
Serves eight
T
eri Ueki of Teri Ueki Garden Flowers is famous for her freshly
picked, perky flower arrangements. She pours through seed
catalogues to find unique and unusual flowers to grow. Get to the
market early if you want to buy Teri’s flower arrangements; she
always sells out.
Teri also grows fine vegetables. A few years ago, she introduced
me to Romano beans, sometimes called Italian flat beans. Similar
to the common snap bean, Romanos come in green, purple and
yellow. Sweet and buttery, they’re broader and flatter than common
green beans. Best of all, they’re easy to cook. Simply steam or
sauté them for one or two minutes; be careful not to overcook.
This week’s chicken recipe blends Italian and Latin American
favorites: cippolini onions and tomatillos. Yellow, flat and sweet,
cippolini onions are favorites in Italian cooking. They’re firm enough to hold their shape through roasting,
and are visually pleasing on a platter. We find cippolinis at the Twin Brooks Farm stall. We combined the
onions with tomatillos for a Latin twist.
Many Latin American sauce recipes include tomatillos for their green color and tart flavor. Tomatillos
have a paper-like husk, and are easy to prepare. Four Frog Farm grows both purple and green tomatillos.
Before we cook with them, we use yellow, purple and green tomatillos as a centerpiece on the dinner
table. After dinner, we remove the husk, and pop them whole in the freezer to use at a later time.
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Melon Salad with Mint
and Honey
Toss tomatillos and onions with 2 tablespoons
2 summer melons, cut into 1-inch pieces
Season the chickens with 2 tablespoons oil, salt
2 tablespoons mint leaves, thinly sliced
2 tablespoons honey
Toss all ingredients together and serve.
Roasted Chicken
with Tomatillos and
Cippolini Onions
olive oil and season lightly with salt and pepper.
Set aside.
and pepper. Place 2 cloves of garlic and 2 sprigs
of parsley inside each cavity. Roast 1 to 1½ hours.
Halfway through roasting, arrange the tomatillos
and onions around the chickens and continue to
roast.
Remove chickens from oven and let rest 20
minutes.
Meanwhile, place tomatillos and juices from
the chicken in a food processor and purée until
Preheat oven to 375ºF.
smooth. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
1 pound tomatillos, peeled
large platter with onions. Garnish with tomatillo
4 tablespoons olive oil
Salt and pepper
To serve, carve the chicken and place slices on a
sauce and remaining sprigs of fresh parsley.
12 to 14 cippolini onions, peeled
2 whole chickens, about 4 pounds each
4 cloves garlic
8 sprigs of fresh parsley
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september 21
Roasted Fingerling Potatoes
Preheat oven to 375ºF.
Sautéed Romano Beans with
Tomatoes and Parmesan
3 to 4 pounds fingerling potatoes
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 tablespoons olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste
2 tablespoons butter, melted
Toss the potatoes with oil, garlic, salt and
pepper.
2 tablespoons butter
3 pounds Romano beans, cleaned
1 cup tomatoes, small diced
¼ cup parmesan cheese, grated
Salt and pepper
Place on a sheet tray and roast 25 to 35 minutes,
In a large sauté pan, heat garlic in butter and oil
Toss with melted butter before serving.
minutes.
until fork tender.
and sauté Romano beans until tender, about 2
Toss with tomatoes and cheese, season to taste
with salt and pepper.
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Port Poached Pears with
Crème Fraîche and Lace
Cookies
Lace Cookies
Port Poached Pears with Crème Fraîche
4 tablespoons all purpose flour
3 cups Port
1 cinnamon stick
3 cloves
8 Bartlett pears, peeled
1 cup water
¼ cup sugar
¼ cup crème fraîche
In a medium pot, combine Port, cinnamon stick,
cloves and pears.
Heat to a simmer and turn down to low to poach,
about 20 minutes, depending on the size of
the pears. When soft, remove from pot and
Preheat oven to 375ºF.
3 tablespoons butter
1 cup brown sugar
1 egg, beaten
1 cup ground almonds
½ teaspoon almond extract
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Beat butter and sugar together.
Add flour, egg, almonds and extracts and beat to
combine.
Place 1 teaspoon of dough on a buttered sheet
tray about 2 inches apart. Bake 8 minutes, until
edges are golden brown and cookies are crisp.
Let cool on a rack.
refrigerate to cool. (Pears can be refrigerated in
poaching liquid up to two days.)
After pears are cooled, remove them from liquid.
Set pears aside.
Bring liquid to a boil, and reduce by ¾ to sauce
consistency.
Cut each pear in half, and remove stem and core.
To serve, place a half pear in small bowl, put a
spoonful of crème fraîche in the center, then lay
the other half of the pear on top. Pour some of
the reduced poaching liquid over the pear, and
garnish with a lace cookie.
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