Memorial Day Cooking

It looked like it was going to be a very quiet holiday weekend. But good fortune was ours as we were able to get Gaius Derf and Agent W over on short notice for a Memorial Day meal. I was inspired to try a new fashion of prepare chicken.

Marinade for Chicken

A lot of fresh garlic

Put in the blender

A lot of fresh sage

Sherry and Olive Oil

All goes in the blender with salt and whole black peppercorns

Butterflying the Chicken

Use a kitchen shears to cut out the backbone

Cut the ribs and wishbone out
The bird now sits nice and flat. It will cook more evenly and the white meat will be very easy to cut once it is cooked.

Put the chicken in a zip lock bag and add the marinade
Marinade for at least 4-6 hours

Don't waste the backbone and other pieces
Use them to make a little chicken stock

Garlic Mashed Potatoes

I put the garlic flavor into the potatoes via the butter
I put a lot of fresh garlic into butter and cooked it over a very slow heat, around 20 minutes

I have found that a potato ricer is the best way of getting really soft fluffy mashed potatoes

Drain the garlic from the butter and use in the potatoes along with the potato cooking liquid to get the consistency you want.

Provencal Green Salad

I used a combination of romaine and iceberg lettuce along with some escarole.
The herbs below are fennel greens, lavender, and oregano - all fresh

I cooked the chicken in the charcoal grill over indirect heat after searing both sides

Guess what...this is bottle Gaius Derf is opening is not the first bottle of wine of the afternoon

Chicken, mashed potatoes, and slow roasted leeks

Of course, none of our meals is complete without one of Wife's desserts - strawberry pie in this case