I hesitate to call this “oven-fried chicken,” because that title seems to demean it. The truth is, as much as I love a full-fledged fried affair once or twice a year, THIS is the fried chicken recipe I crave several times a month. This oven-fried chicken is as brown and crispy and juicy and flavorful as fried, but not as greasy, and easy enough to do on a weeknight (and for lunch the rest of the week).
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By Kurt Michael Friese
Among the many unique aspects of living in Iowa is our first-in-the-nation caucus system. Three years ago this week, on an outing with other campaign volunteers to plant trees for Earth Day, I had the honor of meeting a skinny, unknown, African-American, freshman senator from Illinois who had the audacity to believe he could be elected president. I had about three minutes to determine firsthand whether I wanted him to succeed.
So I asked him why, despite Iowa being an “agricultural state,” none of the candidates on either side were talking about agriculture. He told me he expected they would be, but that he preferred to talk about food and health. He then quoted chapter and verse from the previous weekend’s New York Times Sunday Magazine feature by Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma.
OK, I liked this guy.
When Barack Obama won the Iowa Caucuses and the White House, I had high hopes that our agricultural system would change overnight. Then he appointed Iowa’s former governor, Tom Vilsack, to head the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and my heart sank. Vilsack’s an OK guy, but he always had a politician’s tendency to ride the fence, and any time he did something helpful for sustainable agriculture, he did two more things for Monsanto or Tyson.
Then Vilsack appointed Kathleen Merrigan as deputy secretary, and hope sprouted once again. Merrigan helped develop USDA’s organic labeling rules while head of the Agricultural Marketing Service from 1999-2001, and later ran the Tufts University Agriculture, Food and Environment Program that gave rise to the Community Food Security Coalition.
A recent San Francisco Chronicle article reports how Merrigan, speaking on behalf of the Obama Administration, “outlined a broad array of efforts to elevate organic and local farming to a prominence never seen before at the sprawling U.S. Department of Agriculture.”
After roughly six decades of being the U.S. Department of Agribusiness, Merrigan is trying to put the “culture” back in the department. Her goals include stricter enforcement of the USDA organic label, more support for the Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food program to connect local farmers with consumers, and improving access to fresh, healthy food in so-called “food deserts.” These goals may sound like dinner table talk for some circles, but they’re a radical departure from the past and a gutsy move on Merrigan’s part. As the Chronicle put it, “Big growers were not thrilled.”
While a few decades late and far from a panacea, the USDA’s apparent epiphany is welcome news for those who care about real food. I believe a few useful next steps might be:
While we’re at it, there are always a few cabinet shuffles around the presidential midterm. Why not elevate Ms. Merrigan to Mr. Vilsack’s job? We can always hope.
Kurt Michael Friese is the founding leader of Slow Food Iowa, serves on the Slow Food USA National Board of Directors, and is editor and publisher of the local food magazine Edible Iowa River Valley. He’s also Chef and co-owner of the Iowa City restaurant Devotay, a freelance food writer and photographer, and author of A Cook’s Journey: Slow Food in the Heartland.
Skirt steak is a great choice for a weeknight meat craving: It cooks up superfast and takes great to rubs. A few slices served with a plateful of veggies (like our Romaine Slaw) and whole grains (like our Herb-Flecked Bulgur) brings something traditionally thought of as a nutritional no-no (steak) into a more nourishing category. Make up a big batch of the spice rub to keep on hand for even faster dinners on the fly.
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Chicken stock has a mellow quality that makes it particularly versatile in soups and sauces. This is a “white” stock, since it’s made with raw chicken bones. You can substitute the carcass from a roast chicken, like our Simplest Roast Chicken. This stock is purposely unsalted, since you will use it as an ingredient in other dishes–as a base for soups and sauces, for example, or to cook rice and other grains. Simmering the chicken bones extracts tons of flavor of a stock that’s a far cry from store-bought chicken broth.
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“Profits are measured in pennies,” one of my culinary school instructors often repeated to remind us of the importance of maximizing our use of ingredients. Smart chefs–those who want to stay in business–do this all the time and now, thanks to a stagnant economy, it’s a practice budget-conscious cooks are bringing home.
Here are a few suggestions to help you make the most of what you already have for inexpensive, healthy meals.
Make stock. This is a prime example of stretching your investment, especially if you’re spending a bit more on organic, heritage food. You can make stock from almost anything–vegetables, bones, shrimp or lobster shells. Vegetable stock is the easiest; you can use the trimmings for anything from aromatics (onions, leeks, and the like) to tough mushroom stems (try those in our Mushroom Stock). Avoid cruciferous veggies or dark leafy greens, which impart bitter taste. To make different stocks, use our Most Versatile Chicken Stock recipe as a guideline and substitute the main ingredient. The biggest difference is how long you simmer the stock: 30-45 minutes for vegetable or fish stock, three to four hours for chicken, and six to eight hours for beef. Of course, you can use other varieties of poultry (turkey or duck, for example) or meat bones (lamb, perhaps), but these have distinctive flavors that make their stock a bit less versatile.
Think whole. Although the trimmings from fruits and vegetables are a fine addition to the compost heap or (in the case of veggies) stock, using the entire thing will add new flavors and textures to your cooking. Beets and beet greens are a good example. The sweet beets are delicious boiled, roasted or steamed, while the greens are a delightful quick-cooking alternative to spinach. Try Mama Kourtesi’s Beet and Green Salad and you’ll be sold on this concept. You can use fennel in a similar way, using the bulb, along with the pretty fronds as a garnish (save the stalk for stock).
Even animal products can be utilized this way. Poultry is one of the few items home cooks can buy whole, and it’s likely to come with giblets (heart, liver, gizzard, and neck), especially if you purchase heritage birds. Use these (except for the liver) to flavor stock, soup or gravy; the liver can go toward pate, like our Chicken Liver Pate. You can freeze the raw giblets for up to four months. Of course, you’ll want to save the carcass to make stock.
Smart leftovers. Thrifty cooks pride themselves on recycling leftovers in entirely new dishes. Day-old bread hanging around? Make it into breadcrumbs or, even better, bread pudding. Turn extra cooked rice into fried rice or rice fritters (try rice in place of quinoa in our Curry Quinoa Cakes).
Keep the fat. Home cooks tend to discard the fat rendered while cooking some dishes—like Revelationary Duck Confit. But that fat is full of flavor and worth saving (on the open market, duck fat will run you about a dollar an ounce). Use a tablespoon of duck fat in lieu of olive oil for a special spin on sautéed potatoes, or a touch of pork fat to crisp up leftover carnitas.
Those are just a few ways I’ve been making better use of ingredients lately. Now it’s your turn. What are your strategies? Share here.
A longtime editor, writer, and recipe developer, Alison Ashton is a Cordon Bleu-trained chef and the Editorial Director for NOURISH Evolution. She has worked as a features editor for a national wire service and as senior food editor for a top food magazine. Her work has appeared in Cooking Light, Vegetarian Times, and Natural Health.
Alison’s piece last week on egg labels got me thinking about how confusing it can be to evaluate foods. So I thought I’d distill some solid rules of thumb to help you choose wisely when in the packaged aisles.
Understand
The Ingredient List: On labels, ingredient lists are ordered by weight, which means there’s a large amount of whatever comes first. If “unbleached flour” is the first ingredient listed, you’re getting mostly refined flour. If it comes after a whole grain or somewhere in the middle of the list, then you know it’s not the primary ingredient.
The Nutrition Facts Panel: The purpose of the Nutrition Facts panel is to give a healthy range of major nutrients to consume during the course of a day—this much fat, that much vitamin C, this much fiber. The issue is, there are hundreds of other nutrients that simply aren’t listed and that can make us myopic in our concept of what makes food healthy. To add complexity, nutrients don’t act in a vacuum. They interact with each other. The bottom line? Use the Nutrition Facts panel as a guide, but don’t take it as definitive.
Avoid
These are the ingredients I try, at all costs, to avoid:
#1: Partially Hydrogenated Oil. There is no refuting the evidence that trans fats—which are the product of partially hydrogenated oils—are no good for us. As in, they can dramatically increase the risk of heart disease. Your best bet is not to buy—or eat—anything with partially hydrogenated oils (a label can have partially hydrogenated oil in the ingredients list yet claim 0 grams trans fats if it contains less than 0.5 grams trans fats . . . which can still add up to several grams of trans fats a day).
#2: High Fructose Corn Syrup. I have always been suspect of high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) simply because it shows up where it has no business being. In breads. In hot dog buns. In French fries. It’s one thing to debate whether HFCS is worse than sugar in a soda, where you’d expect a sweetener to be, and entirely another to have to remain vigilant against it infiltrating your pretzels. In any case, there is new evidence that high fructose corn syrup may indeed contribute to weight gain and is associated with illnesses like heart disease and diabetes. A recent study at Princeton University, in which rats fed water sweetened with HFCS became obese across the board (those fed water sweetened with sugar did not), hypothesizes that the culprit may be the chemical makeup of HFCS. Sugar molecules have an extra step for the body to metabolize whereas HFCS molecules are “unbound” and available for use immediately, which may explain why the body reacts differently to the two forms of fructose.
#3 Fillers and Preservatives. Nowadays, it’s no big deal to see an ingredients list as long as our palm. But how many of those ingredients are actually food? Watch out for lists that include a plethora of unfamiliar terms. They may sound intimidating and, strangely enough, credentialed for that very reason, but the truth is they’re most likely there to
Do any of these make the product better for you? No. In fact, several studies have revealed that many of these “food-safe” chemicals may pose health risks.
This week, have a close look at your labels.
Commercial fish sticks are loaded with fillers and preservatives. Make your own and you can avoid all that. I’ll often double this recipe and freeze half, so I have healthy fish sticks on hand for Noemi for busy nights. Just heat frozen fish fingers in the oven at 400 degrees F for about 15 minutes, or until cooked through.
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By Alison Ashton
Turning 30 is a big deal, whether you’re a person or an event, and it was certainly cause for celebration last month at the Natural Products Expo West in Anaheim, California. Its monster size–1,700-plus exhibitors and 56,000 attendees–was a reflection of how all things organic and natural have moved into mainstream. I revisited some of our faves from the Fancy Food Show and discovered new goodies you’ll want to look for too:
Revolutionary rice
Environment and flavor come together in Lotus Foods’ new SRI–One Seed Revolution rices. The company worked with Cornell University to introduce the System of Rice Intensification (SRI) in Indonesia, Madagascar, and Cambodia, which allows farmers to use up to 90% less seed and half as much water than conventional rice while boosting yields up to 100%–with no chemical fertilizers or pesticides. Varieties include Indonesian Volcano Rice (a nutrient-dense blend of brown and red rice), Madagascar Pink Rice (an endangered type that was preserved by one farmer), and Cambodian Mekong Flower Rice (prized for its floral fragrance). The rice is currently sold in 11-pound bulk bags ($31.79) and will be available in 15-ounce packages in the fall.
Gluten-free grows up
Expo aisles were chockablock with gluten-free everything, from cookies and crackers to pizza crust. Some still have all the appeal of a hockey puck, but many compare favorably with their traditional counterparts for texture and flavor. One winner was King Arthur Flour Company’s new line of gluten-free baking mixes for bread, cookies, brownies, cakes, muffins, and pizza crust ($6.95 each). The gluten-free chocolate cake was rich and moist with a light, tender crumb. Since gluten’s not a problem for me, I was also pleased to see King Arthur now offers unbleached cake flour ($4.50 for 2 pounds), which would work beautifully with our Chocolate Angel Food Cake.
Salty flavor, less sodium
NutraSalt Low-Sodium Salt ($3.99) hails from the Red Sea and Dead Sea. It’s 66% lower in sodium than conventional table or sea salt yet high in heart-healthy potassium, with an intensely salty taste. Since going to culinary school last year, I’ve been using a heavy hand with salt in my cooking. Now I can use this salt without sacrificing flavor.
Bag it
Now that you’ve made a habit of toting reusable grocery bags to the store, the next step is to focus on produce bags. Several companies make reusable produce bags, but I like the ones from 3B Bags ($7.50 for a three-bag set) made of a breathable mesh that’s fine enough to accommodate bulk-bin items, too. If you still use plastic trash bags and the occasional zip-top bag in the kitchen, look for Green Genius’s biodegradable bags; they’re priced competitively with national brands.
A longtime editor, writer, and recipe developer, Alison Ashton is a Cordon Bleu-trained chef and the Editorial Director for NOURISH Evolution. She has worked as a features editor for a national wire service and as senior food editor for a top food magazine. Her work has appeared in Cooking Light, Vegetarian Times, and Natural Health as well as on her blog, Eat Cheap, Eat Well, Eat Up.
This rice pilaf recipe is an easy side dish that uses red-and-brown Indonesian Volcano Rice, which is cultivated in mineral-rich volcanic soil and is high in magnesium, manganese and zinc. You can substitute any brown rice. We added seasonal fresh English peas for color; edamame, fresh green chickpeas or thawed frozen peas would work well, too. To cook fresh peas, blanch them in boiling water for 2 minutes or until tender but not mushy, drain, and rinse in cold water.
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Buying eggs used to be so simple: Grab a carton off the shelf, open it to check for any cracked shells and go on your merry way. These days, however, you need to interpret a myriad of claims on the label before deciding which carton goes into your cart. What do they all mean? Read on . . . we’ve got answers with this guide to eggs.
General Terms: There are a few terms that are found on the label of every carton:
Dietary Claims: When it comes to labels, sorting out a hen’s diet is almost as complex as defining our own:
Treatment: There are also a handful of labels that speak to how a hen—and her eggs—were treated both before laying and after:
By far our favorite choice for eggs though, and the least confusing of them all, is to find eggs from a local farmer (or, in Lia’s case, your own chicken coop). The taste and richness are unsurpassed.
A longtime editor, writer, and recipe developer, Alison Ashton is a Cordon Bleu-trained chef. She has worked as a features editor for a national wire service and as senior food editor for a top food magazine. Her work has appeared in Cooking Light, Vegetarian Times, and Natural Health as well as on her blog, Eat Cheap, Eat Well, Eat Up.
