This recipe is something I thought up at the spur of the moment. I had a fryer chicken on hand and figured I needed to do something innovative with it. So why not split the sucker in half and sauté it with mushrooms? (which I also had on hand). The result wasn’t that bad. With rice, or a grain like couscous or quinoa, it makes for a perfect dish. You can even serve it over pasta. If you like the chicken as is, a good crusty loaf of bread would be ideal.

Note that the recipe calls for ¼ cup white wine of your choice. I normally prefer dry white wine. But, if you like something sweeter you can use a rosé, or Rhine wine or, if you have it around and want to splurge, sauterne wine or madeira.

Also, this dish (one chicken) yields 2 servings. In desired, you can double the recipe (with 2 whole chickens) and serve 4.

SAUTÉED SPLIT CHICKEN WITH MUSHROOOMS

Ingredients:

1 whole fryer chicken
½ cup butter
1 small onion, peeled and chopped
2 cloves garlic, peeled and minced
¼ pound mushrooms, washed and slice thinly
1 Tablespoon fresh, chopped fresh oregano leaves or 1 teaspoon dried
Salt and ground black pepper to taste
¼ cup white wine of your choice (see above)
2 tablespoons fresh chopped parsley

Instructions:

1. Rinse chicken under cold running water and pat dry with paper towels. Split into halves.
2. Melt butter in a large skillet or frying pan. Add onion and garlic and and sauté over medium heat about 2 minutes.
3. Add chicken halves, salt, pepper and oregano, and cook, turning, until chicken is browned. If needed, you can add more butter while browning.
4.  Stir in mushrooms.  Add wine, stir to mix ingredients, cover, lower heat to simmer 10 minutes. Sprinkle with parsley and serve immediately.
   Yield: 2 servings.

I always thought there was a classical French cuisine component to this dish. Reason being, it’s partly cooked in a rich white sauce which gives it that smooth, creamy texture. But it has that Caribbean slant to it: we prepare it with rum; and by that I mean Puerto Rican rum. The best there is.

It’s simple enough: halve the chicken breasts, season, dredge in flour and fry until lightly browned. Then simmer with heavy cream. That’s it. The secret ingredient is that you flame the chicken with dark rum to give it that unique taste. Don’t worry about getting tipsy on the booze. The alcohol content disappears and only the sweet rum flavor remains.

Enjoy this one. You won’t be disappointed.

PECHUGA DE POLLO CON RON (Chicken Breasts with Rum)

Ingredients:

4 chicken breasts, boned
Salt and pepper to taste
1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh thyme or 1 teaspoon dried
4 tablespoons butter
¼  cup dark rum
1 cup heavy cream
1 teaspoon paprika

Instructions:

 1. Rise chicken breasts under cold running water and pat dry with paper towels.
2. Halve chicken breast, sprinkled with salt, pepper and thyme. Dredge the halves in flour to coat them lightly.
3. Heat butter in a heavy skillet or frying pan over medium heat, adding more butter as needed. Add breasts and sauté until lightly browned
(they do not need to be cooked through to the center).
4. Heat the rum, pour over the breasts and ignite with a match. Add cream, cover skillet and simmer on low heat for 10 minutes. Add paprika and season to taste. Arrange the breasts on a warmed serving platter. Strain the sauce remaining in the skillet over the chicken  and  serve.
Yield: 4 servings.

NUMIDIAN CHICKEN

As a self described historian, I’m fascinated by foods from bygone eras. I love checking out old, ancient cookbooks. One of my favorites is attributed to Apicius, a Roman gourmet who lived in the 1^st century CE and who’s tome, De re culinaria or De re coquinaria  (On the Subject of Cooking) is one of the earliest cookbooks known to humanity. In it, Apicius notes the dishes enjoyed by the Roman elite during the reign of Emperor Tiberius.

The recipe given, Numidian Chicken (with modifications), is one of Apicius’ entries. Numidia was located in what is today Algeria; and had been a Roman province since 46 BCE. Obviously, Apicius considered their cooking on par with Roman cuisine since he included this recipe in his cookbook. Full disclosure: the recipe does contain ingredients that are hard to find. One of them is lazar root. an ingredient which is now extinct. The other is liquamen, a fish sauce that was used to salt dishes. To create liquamen today, even in a modern kitchen, is a long involved process that includes using fish blood. The only substitute I found online is simply mixing 1 teaspoon salt with 2 ounces white wine. I went with that. If you want it less, you can reduce the salt content to ½ or ¼ teaspoon.

The recipe itself is simple enough. It involves par-boiling a chicken (cut up), then roasting it. The final step is preparing an aromatic sauce with various ingredients and seasonings that are still available today. In Apicius’ time the idea was to pound the ingredients and seasonings. That is, crushing them (I guess in a giant mortar) then cooking to make a sauce that was poured over the chicken. It is not as complex as you think. For instance, instead of pounding the ingredients, I blend them in a food processor. One of the benefits of 21st century living. It just takes patience, and you have a meal a Roman Patrician would savor. Except, you are the Roman gourmand.

The dish goes good with rice, couscous, quinoa or farro. You can add a modern Italian bent to it and serve it over pasta. In our clan, we like it as is with a good crusty loaf of bread. With a fine wine, Italian or otherwise, you have a meal that Caesar and his contemporaries would find delicious—and so will you. Toga is optional.

Ingredients:

1 fryer chicken, 2½ to 3 pounds, cut into serving pieces
¼ teaspoon ground black pepper
1 cup dried dates
1 tablespoon pine nuts
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon coriander seed
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
2 tablespoons honey
1 teaspoon salt mixed with 2 ounces white wine
2 tablespoons olive oil

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
2.  Rinse chicken pieces under cold running water and pat dry with paper towels.
3.  Place chicken in a pan or pot with water to cover. Bring to a boil and cook 2 minutes.
4.  Remove from water and place in an oven proof dish (we prefer cast iron), sprinkle with 1/8 teaspoon of pepper, and bake 45-50 minutes or until tender.
5.  Meanwhile, place dates, pine nuts, cumin, remaining pepper, coriander seed, vinegar, honey, salt-wine mixture and olive oil in a food processor. Blend and mix well. Transfer to a medium saucepan and cook over medium heat for 3-4 minutes. If sauce is too thick, add 1-2 tablespoons of white wine to thin it. Or, if too thin, you can add a bit of starch mixed with water. Here, it’s a judgment call. I find that when I heat the sauce, it comes out on the thick side. Pour over chicken and serve, either in the oven proof dish or a serving platter.
   Yield: 4 servings.

This recipe I got from an old newspaper clipping years ago, when I was young and spry. The newspaper clipping termed it as “Orsini’s Polla Alla Margarita.” I went online and discovered that Orsini’s was a restaurant on West 56th Street in New York, It was owned by one Armando Orsini  and it had a 31-year run until 1984. Ostensibly, it was a favorite  hang-out in the 1960s of movie stars, celebrities and society people. It’s noted that the place was shrouded in “velvety darkness,” and Mr. Orsini would kiss the hand of his favored female customers.

The restaurant is long gone; but I assume the recipe is from Mr. Orsini’s repertoire. The recipe is very straight forward and it doesn’t give much in terms of the ingredients. For instance, it says “flour for dredging,” “olive oil,” salt and pepper, but it doesn’t give precise measurements. The recipe is for two but, I assume, you can double it for 4 or more.

So, today, eat like you’re a 1960s movie star and are rubbing elbows with the swells. For the record, the dish is delicious and not that difficult to prepare. It makes for a perfect candle-light dinner along with a good wine, red or white, or  even champagne.

POLLO ALLA MARGARITA

2 breasts of chicken, boneless
2 eggs, well beaten
3 tbsp. butter
½ cup white wine
½ cup dry sherry
4 slices mozzarella cheese
flour for dredging
olive oil
Salt
pepper

Coat chicken breasts in flour and then dip them into the beaten eggs. Fry chicken in hot olive oil until done and then drain on a paper towel. In a large pan, melt butter,  then add salt, pepper, wine, and sherry. Stir ingredients for a few minutes over medium heat until thickened. Then add the chicken breasts and place a slice of mozzarella cheese on each of them. Cover the pan and heat until cheese melts and sauce is reduced.
Serves two persons.