The recipe is from Café Zuni, which is just over the bay, but it’s a pretty expensive joint, and doing it yourself is not too hard. Smitten Kitchen’s summary (which is what I linked above) suffices here, except I will make the following notes: (1) I only had 10 hours to salt the chicken, though 1-3 days is the recommended salting time (it still turned out quite good and I’ll do it right when I inevitably repeat this recipe someday). (2) It was very difficult to find a chicken quite small enough. To be fair, I only had time to look in one store (see the first note) but I went to Andronico’s which has fairly good meat selection. I managed to find a 3.68 pound free-range chicken, so that’s what I used. (3) Once in the oven (which you start at a whopping 475˚F) the chicken was very good at hissing and spitting and getting chicken fat all over the oven’s heating coil (oh how I wish we had a gas range) which led to a lot of smoke; long story short I ended up removing the batteries from our smoke detector.

As you can see, I served it with the bread salad (recipe also in the above link). For dessert, Brandon (my guinea pig for this dinner) and I had poached pears, also a first!

Pears poached in spiced vin santo

• 2 small pears (pref. d’Anjou) peeled, but not cored or stemmed
• 1 750 mL bottle of Italian dessert wine such as vin santo or marsala
• 1/2 cup of water
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 cinnamon stick, broken in two (this is harder than it sounds to do)
• 1 tbsp vanilla bean paste (or a real vanilla bean)
• 1/2 inch ginger root, peeled and finely chopped
• for serving: whipped cream or 1/2 cup mascarpone cheese, honey and powdered cinnamon to taste

Combine the wine, water, sugar, cinnamon, vanilla, and ginger in the smallest (but still deep) saucepan you can find. Bring to a boil on medium, then reduce to right below a simmer and add the pears (position them so that the liquid covers as much of the pear as possible). Cook for 20-30 minutes or until tender (so that it yields to a fork), rotating them occasionally so that they pears poach evenly. Once they are soft, remove the pears to a serving dish and reduce the remaining poaching liquid by half. Serve the pears standing up (you might have to slice off the bottom to make them stand) covered with the poaching liquid/syrup (strained, of course), and with a small dollop of whipped cream or honeyed mascarpone.

Anyway, now I have a leftover chicken carcass and poaching liquid. Probably I will turn the chicken into chicken stock and also chicken-and-barley stew. The poaching liquid will probably get added to hot apple cider to create INSTANT HOLIDAY CHEER. Science!

This recipe makes 1 serving for a hungry lunchtime George, or 2-3 side servings.

• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1/2 an onion, thinly sliced
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• HAM. I used about 2 slices of the unnaturally square-shaped pre-cooked pre-packaged ham you buy at the grocery store, but you can adjust (a) The amount of ham, depending on your daily ham needs, and (b) The quality of the ham you use. Pancetta (basically Italian bacon) would be ideal, but you would have to cook it all the way through (unless you live on the edge).
• salt and black pepper to taste
• 2 tsp brown sugar
• 1 pear, peeled, cored, quartered, and then thinly sliced (I used bosc, but I’m sure any pear will do.)
• white truffle oil, to taste (I used about 2 tsp I think. It’s optional, but tasty.)
• spinach (uh… about 3ish cups loosely packed I guess?)
• 1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
• crumbled gorgonzola (as much as you like! Any sharp cheese will do; I know some people don’t like blue cheese. Rolleyes.)

Heat the olive oil in a saucepan over medium heat, and when it starts to shimmer, add the sliced onion. Toss the onion in the hot oil until it is thoroughly coated, and then add some salt and pepper. Add the garlic and stir for about 2 minutes or so until it smells awesome. Then throw in the ham and brown sugar, and stir that until everything is well-mixed. Depending on how lean your ham is, you may have to add some water to keep stuff from being burny and overly sticky. Turn the heat down to medium-low, and let the flavors mingle. Throw in the pear bits and stir it again until everything is well-mixed, add salt and pepper to taste, and (perhaps) half of the truffle oil. Turn off the heat completely. It should look something like this?

In a large salad bowl, toss together the spinach, balsamic vinegar, remaining truffle oil (here you should substitute olive oil if you don’t got truffle), and gorgonzola. Combine the lurid ham-pear orgy with the spinach, mixing it well, and let the now-completed salad cool before serving (this will allow the gorgonzola to get a bit melty and creamy on the pearz). Then serve! Preferably with a toasty piece of naan, courtesy Henry.