Letters from an Aspiring Sous #21
Lemon chicken
Hi there — this is Alex again! Why the impromptu appearance? Well, Nicholas has been busy this week packing our entire apartment. Delicately wrapping dishes, transporting car-fulls of plant babies and wine bottles, and putty-ing the holes left by the few photos we hung this year. #boyfriendoftheyear am I right? To quote my mom, I’m so grateful for Nick!
What have I been doing this week that I have ample time to write this newsletter? Vacationing in New Hampshire! After Nick got his first dose of the vaccine and the CDC released new guidance for fully vaccinated people, I felt like I needed a spring trip back to the live-free-or-die state. My dad’s birthday is May 21st and since Nick and I still hadn’t secured housing at the time, I thought screw it, I’m booking a trip! Before Nick and I traveled to New Hampshire last summer, there were weeks of planning and lengthy discussions about everyone’s level of comfort with masking and quarantining, visiting inside or outside, hugs or no hugs. This time, given that the entire pod is now vaccinated, I booked my ticket and didn’t actually tell my parents. Yay for science.
I landed on Friday morning at Logan Airport to waterworks from my mom. We made the drive to New London while my dad was doing some birthday rock climbing. He pulled into the driveway and stared at me sitting in the yard. I waved. He also burst into tears. Two-for-two!!! Worth every minute of pandemic travel.
We spent the week sleeping in late (just me), cooking, enjoying being outside by the fireplace and the lake, and spoiling their pandemic puppy (just me, again). Spring in New Hampshire is a lovely season — there’s rhubarb, warm days and cool nights; the barbecue takes it’s rightful place on the patio after a long winter in the garage. It’s also black fly season, so not all sunshine and pies.
When my family is together, there is a lot of collective cooking happening — the kitchen is a very busy place. This week that kitchen produced rhubarb cream pies, mushroom pizzas and a few loaves of bread, among other things. I think of my dad as the OG chef of the family. He was cooking constantly when I was growing up, always experimenting with some new recipe. In hindsight, I was his sous! So for this week’s recipe we are going with a Papa Steverson classic that embraces this hot East Coast almost-summer vibe and places me back in my sous role.
(Greg’s) lemon chicken
Ingredients
Whole 4-5 lb chicken
3 lemons
Sea salt and pepper
A charcoal grill (preferred but not required!)
Step 1. Season the chicken the night before you want to grill. Zest 3 lemons into a small bowl, then mix with salt and pepper to taste. Rub this mixture under the chicken skin all over the bird. You can separate the skin from the meat by gently pulling up on the skin near the entry of the carcass or bone; then use your hand to separate and spread the lemon mixture. Don’t be scared to get into the nooks and crannies. Stuff the chicken with the whole lemons.
Step 2. Place the chicken in the fridge to rest for 12-24 hours before grilling. If you are being lazy or lack foresight, prepare the chicken in the morning and it will still be delish by dinner (we did ours around 9am on the day of grilling, for reference).
Step 3. Fire up the grill! If you don’t happen to have a rotisserie attachment for your Weber, you can also spatchcock or butterfly the chicken (check out this how-to). Place the chicken off heat for 45 minutes to 1 hour. You want an internal temp of at least 160 degrees by then. Look at that crackly skinned beauty!
Step 4. You can caramelize the lemons from the carcass on the grill. Let them cool and then juice into a bowl with a splash of olive oil — voila, a delicious sauce!
Step 5. Have the grill master in your life carve the chicken after resting for 10-15 minutes. Snag a couple of pieces before sitting down to eat because as the hard working sous, you deserve it.
