ROAST CHICKEN LES PARESSEUX & PUMPKIN FLAN@THANKSGIVING SIDES@DORIE@ FRENCH FRIDAYS

 Every body loves a good roast and so do i!!
When Dorie named this Les Paresseux ,she meant for lazy people , u put the lovely roast in , set ur timer and take it out rite at dinner!!

 Well for me ,while it was in the oven the first time round ,i was busy making Potato gratin ,and the second time Pumpkin flan and on both counts doing the dishes!!lol

 These are pics of my second round of the roast....
This one has the home terrifically aromatic with bursts of very flavorful air,wafting around,so welcoming ,so delicious and fantastic, as a roast is!!
THis recipe is a total keeper and it comes together so beautifully too!!

 We begin with seasoning a chicken [well cleant at that], inside out with salt and pepper.

Well, i stretched the salt and pepper a bit and seasoned it with some gourmet salts and peppers rite from Hawaiian red salt to Himalayan pink salt  [exotic but jus a bit is enuf]....

and eurasian black salt to  pure ocean salt ....

And Sel de Guerande to smoked salt ....ahh, yup, all these lend to the character to my roast, i know , i jus got this stuff and couldn help using them all , a little bit each....

And the smoked salt is so smoky...in a good way.....

Did i go overboard for the peppers too , i dont know , but i had Habanero pepper flakes to Chiptole   pepper flakes...

And Le Corden blue whole peppers too....

You need to make this in a dutch oven , and for the first time i broke in my new dutch oven [thannkkk u mom], cool and for the second time , for experimentation , i used a metal tray!

And rub the insides of the oven well , with olive oil , for once ,i wasnt using portuguese olive oil:-)

Lods of herbs and onions/shallots came together to add more character to this chicken!

A well seasoned and herbed chicken ,marinated barely for an hour the first time and overnight the second [yeah so far have baked this twice,on demand:-) ]

Ahh , yeah ,thats a shrimpy u see there, along with the liver , i added 1 single shrimp and beef too [i am known to mix seafood with meat by the way and i dont seem to mind]

So besides the rosemary ,sage, parsley ,thyme and garlic , there were baby potatoes, cherry toms, carrots, brussels sprouts and  peppers too , to be tossed and seasoned wth salt,pepper and oil!

 Hearty sides assured!

 Dont skip on the baby potatoes, they are a must!!

And mushrooms too....dont u love them?

Garlic, whole heads cut into half, i added a head everywhere, in ,out and with the veggies and beef too...
Garlic makes everything better and lods of it ,even better....

 i was tempted to zest some lemon for both , the chicken , ie green lemon and for the Pumpkin flan ,the yellow lemon!

I love this trick ,Dorie teaches us here, about placing a bread at the base of the dutch oven before placing the chicken, the bread soaks up all the delicious juices and crisps up later, perfect for the liver u must add to the cavity, mash it up ,serve it with the bread , with a mash of the roasted garlic too and a chop of chives...

Must add that first time ,my bread didn crisp, but was wet , and i had lods of juices , coz i did add around 2/3rd cup or dry white wine.
But with terrific flavor with all the juices absorbed!
This is  a local bread picked from a local, hand made, wooden fired, brick oven, kinda bakery,

And the second time used 2 of these, from the same bakery ,but opened up!!

And i added a Chilly too, whole dry red chilly , mommy always adds one for the portuguese goan flame top roast ,which bdw, i make now too and quite often!

And second time added a few other chillies too, de seeded ,ofcourse!

Over stuffing the chicken and ready to go to roast.....i added the veggies along with the chicken ,though the recipe says to add it 45 mins later, but thats coz my oven takes a lonnnnggg time to kick over!

 

Already looks so goodddd, telling u of whats in store for u!!

Hey and do add some white wine before u pop that in the oven , it makes things all the more delicious and yummy!!

 Plus ,the juices of the marinade if any, this is the pic of the second round!!

Now is the time to use ur cute timer, my Mickey mouse is absolutely cute and i needede to set it to 45mins twice, i dont mind !!
Now im looking for a pink spotty timer, ok i know i dont need one :-(

Though the recipe calls for 90mins of baking , i took double that time for a smaller bird , but then my oven oven is always like that , so it all depends on ur oven !
Ahh, food safe kitchen twine is the best thing that happenned, to a roast chicken!!
Honestly ,for the second time it held the legs together beautifully!

I had a well roasted and browned bird and super crisp skin and super moist meat inside!
Give in to the temptation to brush olive oil /butter or both from time to time!!
Brushed the bread too with butter and olive oil!!
Ahh, bliss!

 The liver , mashed ,with chives and the shrimpy too, u can place it under a griller if that'll help!!!
I didn , coz it got wiped clean before i did!!

The beef was excellent too, the flavors super and the beef ,soft and jus rite!!!!

I skipped the beef the second time and added extra liver!And the liver well roasted was very substantial, on the crisped part of the bread!!

So the above is the 2nd one with the cilantro and below the first time with the chives!

I told u i mix seafood with meats and love it too!!

Setting stage for the fabulous roast!!!

I had to do absolutely nothing about the juices that collected, very flavorful , thick and a super gloss to the meat!

The roasted garlic is absolutely fantastic!!!

The roasted piece without the skin was good too!!

Oh the skin is soooo crackly crisp , remember the olive /butter brushing ...

And the insides remain super moist too....

 

Now for the summing up of the 2 methods, i love both!!

The first ,in the dutch oven , and a rather large one for a small bird, produces lods of juices and gravy , but my bread didn crisp , got nice and soggy and souped by all the juices, yet i had lods of gravy!

Now about the crisping ,i think if i placed it a little differently ,as i did in the baking tray today , it might work!

And the baking tray one , was drier ,and by that i dont mean the meat was less moist ,in any way!!

But there was barely any gravy, though i did splash a little wine now and then, but there was enough to keep u going and well!

Flavors , both were way too terrific!!

And went well with mashed potato does the way i did the toppin for the HP here!

PUMPkiN FLaN

 For the first time i had Potato Gratin with this and this time ,i decided on some Pumpkin Gorgonzola flan, by the way a confession , i have never had gorgonzola and didn find it yet either so i went in for a soft cheese , philly cheese [really] ,but i loveee Philly cheese!!


All u do is put a 15ounce pumpkin can +3L eggs + 2 egg yolks [yeah lods of egg]+ 1/2 heavy cream [lite cream, d only one easily available here,worked fine for me]in a blender and whirrrrrr.
I did sub some of the cream for coconut milk!

Season with salt and pepper, and i added garlic,some chicken stock cube, and lemon zest too and thats that!
FOr step by step pics of how to make pumpkin puree go here, i always make pumpkin puree at home [never mind if i have only jus begun dng that], we find not those cans here!!
And this is what it looks like after whirring!

Butter whatever cups ur using really well,coz Dorie says so and butter makes everything betta!!
And a little extra butter wont hurt:-)
And the philly cheese!

Divide between 6 custard cups, divide 3.5 ounces of the cheese ur using among them .....sprinkle the tops with 2tbh chopped walnuts ....

 And pepper too... i added freshly crushed pepper atop instead of with the mix!
My flan ,wasnt as yellow ,coz the pumpkin i got this time wasnt as yellow:-(
and no, we find none of the canned ones here:-(

And bake in a preheated oven @ 350 , in a water bath , for around 35 to 40 mins, honestly this totally depends on ur oven , mine takes way longer and my oven was already preheated to 400 for the chicken!
And though Dorie suggests on the side of under baked ,i love very v well baked , n i got it well browned coz the oven was already roasting the chicken at high heat!!
A drizzle of golden syrup is good!
Yeah,a dash of golden syrup atop  caramalised beautifully so do add in some more later!

And u can jus leave them there , in the water bath , they will continue cooking, to check , a knife inserted should come nice and clean!

Thats it, easy peasy and goes real well with the chicken too!!

Dig in ...ur gng to love it.....

For more suc delicious recipes u gotta buy Around my French Table ,by award winning Author ,Dorie Greenspan, and this book has/is cracking the charts too!!

And the next natural step ,to ensure ur family , has lods of french dinners and u wanna cook ur way thru it , u have to join French Friday with Dorie ,started by Laurie [ofcourse that rhymes so cutely].
It so so muc fun to bake /cook along a group, with the months 4chosen recipes !!!
Im posting this a bit earlier coz i have a couple of things i wanna put up before thanksgiving and need to space the posts:-)