Pops De Milk

It used to be that most Saturday mornings I would wake up and fry two eggs and several strips of bacon. That tradition went on a little break when I began to eat only egg whites and no bacon. For the past month, however, I have not been dieting and so I decided to make two sunny side up eggs. Eggs are one of the simplest, yet most delicious, things to eat and I always enjoy admiring the bright yellow centres before I squish them with pieces of warm buttered bread. On Saturday morning I decided to not only add the usual salt and pepper but also a healthy dose of Frank’s Redhot sauce and some fresh cilantro. When I make fried eggs I like to cover the pan with a lid so the steam cooks the tops of the eggs faster. Jay hates this and prefers to let the eggs sit in the pan longer instead. But my way allows me to eat my eggs much, much sooner.

On Friday night I had the pleasure of watching Julie and Julia with my friend. We are both huge fans of all things related to food and this movie was perfect for our addiction. It was no surprise that the next day I felt inspired to cook French food. I pulled out my French Food At Home book by Laura Calder and I quickly began to choose meals for my weekly menu. Most importantly, I needed a meal for that Saturday night and I chose Housewife Chicken. This dish involved cooking in batches and a small amount of tedious preparation such as; peeling and breaking a head of garlic, peeling and cutting the ends of 18 pearl onions, dicing four potatoes, chopping a third of a pound of mushrooms and dicing a quarter pound of bacon. I seasoned the three pound chicken with salt and pepper and after stuffing it with the broken garlic cloves, I had to truss the bird (which is something I had never done). I had to look up a video on chowhound.com.

My first truss!

A great thing about this meal was that it was cooked in one single casserole (except I don’t have a casserole so I used a large enough pot). Before I started on the chicken I had to cook all the other ingredients in batches. First I melted about a tablespoon of butter and I cooked the bacon and onions for about 15 minutes, until the bacon was crisp. Once that was done I set that aside in a large bowl. I then added the mushrooms to the pot for about 5 minutes and then those were added to the bowl with the onions and bacon. I added a bit of olive oil to the pot along with the diced potatoes and cooked those for 25 minutes. After adding the potatoes to the bowl of onions and mushrooms, I put another tablespoon of butter in the pot and so began the process of browning the chicken. I browned it for 5 minutes on each side before finally lowering the heat and covering the pot with a lid for about 45 minutes. Once the chicken was cooked, I put all the ingredients in the bowl back into the pot with the chicken for about 10 minutes to allow it all to heat nicely.

When all was finally cooked, I was almost too eager and impatient to start eating and I nearly lost my interest in taking pictures of the chicken. Somehow I managed to control myself. This is one chicken I will most definitely make again.