Chicken Soup, Thai-Style

It's that time of year in New England. We want to hunker down, stay in, have a big bowl of soup, and go to bed early. We're in wool most days and we're shoveling out as often as not.

Still, there's something gorgeous about this time of year. The beech and birch trees, like bare white or gray poles, extend to the robin's egg sky. The crystal white snow is never dirty in the country, like that city slush of grime and God knows what, but instead is a pure canvas, brilliant and eye-popping. Even the chill is a morning pick-up. My first deep breath when I let the dog out is the moment I know I'm really awake. It's better than coffee!

Here's a six-serving soup I made for Bruce on a recent cold evening. Leftovers were terrific the next day! It's not an authentic Thai preparation but a good, old-fashioned, American soup, renovated with Thai flavors. It's one of the many soups in COOKING KNOW-HOW. It's sure to become a winter favorite at your house.

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Pickle Brined Chicken Breasts

What's that, you ask? Some lurid bit of recipe testing gone terribly wrong? What's left after the liposuction? Last year's gefilte fish?

Um, no. Those are chicken breasts in pickle brine. In other words, a quick and easy solution to the problem of boring and overcooked boneless skinless cutlets. (Oh, that nasty sharding! Oh, that tasteless nothingness!)

I was going to blog a lovely Arabic rice pilaf today. It'll have to wait until next week. Instead, I'm giving props to Bruce for this one. Necessity is not the only mother of invention. Laziness bears children, too.

Last night, he made boneless skinless chicken breasts for dinner. In case you don't know, they are my least favorite food, period, hands down, no questions, get out of Dodge, pull out my teeth and call me gummy. I find them pointless. I whine in their very presence.

So he came up with a pretty ingenious solution. Mostly to shut me up. But also to make them better. Ready?

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Chicken With Shallots And Kumquats

I love kumquats. But let's be reasonable: they're difficult to cook. They tend to roll around a skillet! But I'd go through a lot to get that spiky taste: fresh, vibrant, a spark of sunshine in the dead of winter.

And winter it is. It's snowing at our house. Has been for days. So we're hunkered down for the long haul. (Or at least until we have to be out the door early in the morning for a working trip into New York City.)

Let's just say this: it's hard to eat in season when your driveway is a skating rink. But kumquats fit the bill. Bright and divine, they're in our markets right now.

While Bruce was out teaching knitting the other night, I wanted to make a simple skillet supper that used kumquats to good effect. I knew I'd need to balance them with lots of aromatics and other big flavors. So here's what I came up with.

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Grilled Wings

Now that's a heap of wings! And a fine supper they made. As well they should: sweet, hot, spicy.

When I was a kid, we had fried chicken at my grandparents' house almost every Sunday we were there. My grandmother always tried to grab the wings. Even put them on her plate before she set the platter down on the table. And then there was always a show-down: she and her sisters, fighting for the wings. "Oh, Sis, let me have that. You take a breast."

I thought it was martyrdom, saving the best for everyone else. Um, no. Now I know it was rank selfishness--because a wing is definitely crunchier, juicier, fattier, and skinishier. (What would be the adjective for having more skin? Skinnier? That sounds way wrong for chicken wings.) It was one of my favorite parts of developing recipes for THE ULTIMATE COOK BOOK (which you can find here)--so we ended up leaving three recipes in that volume.

Anyway, Bruce made some wings last night on the grill because we had a momentary day of sunshine and warmth, into the low 70s.

Boy, were those things good.

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Curried Chicken Salad

Sometimes, life calls for a picnic.

I just read Jules Clancy's stone soup blog (check for it here) and she had ten tips for a perfect picnic, some of which really made me smile (such as: make sure you have the weekend papers in tow).

I can't think of a better time for a picnic. So we just put together this quick curried salad and are ready for a lunch that's calm, quiet, and just for two.

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Grilled Cornish Game Hens

What is it about the grill? Why is it so doped with male hormones? Is it because guys still don't want to get caught inside in the kitchen, somehow compromising their sexuality? (Uh oh, watch out he's got a whisk--he might be going gay!)

Or is it because of that open flame? I mean, what little boy didn't want to play with matches? (Me, actually, but then again, I liked whisks.)

No matter, because I'm all for the grill, even if it gets gendered in ways that make my head hurt. (I'll let you figure out which one of us grills: Bruce carries around a Leatherman and fixes plumbing leaks; I sit on my ample butt reading Henry James. It's a real puzzler, no?)

And while I'm at it, I'm all for Cornish game hens, even if they aren't game hens, or even sporting birds of any stripe, but cross-bred, Lilliputian chickens (which also makes my head hurt).

OK, to the recipe.

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Roast Rooster

Last night, we pulled The Ultimate Cook Book off the shelf and cooked up a capon--aka, a gelded rooster. Poor boy. He lost his balls at an early age because there was already another cock on the walk. (Easy, easy pun.) And so our de-cojones-ed kid plumped up like a castrato--thus to become one of life's more exquisite pleasures.

A capon is a great roast: moist but meaty, not as fatty as a chicken, not as dry as a turkey. Don't get me wrong: I love roast chicken. But the meat can get a little, well, soft. And in all honesty, it's the skin I adore. With a capon, I get it all: perfect skin, firm meat.

So here we go: a roasted ball-less rooster stuffed with potatoes and sauerkraut.

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Frenchified Chicken and Rice

I know what you're going to say: French? Chicken and rice? Zut alors!

OK, maybe you're not going to say that last bit. Still, I'll be the first to admit this dish isn't authentic. Rather, it's one of Bruce's whimsical creations: classic Burgundian tastes in a down-home, American casserole. In other words, darn good comfort food, my kind of thing this time of year. (Well, any time of year, but that's another story.)

Here's how Bruce makes it:

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