Semi-Zuni Dinner

The Zuni cookbook called out to me this week, so I bought myself a chicken and stuffed it full of some herbs from the garden.

Then I laid the trap.

Twenty four hours after being seasoned (48 would have been better) and an hour before bake time, the chicken came out of the fridge. It's important to let meat come up to room temperature before you cook it, to promote even cooking. Nobody likes a burnt outside and a charred center. For fowl, it's also beneficial to get the skin as dry as possible so the skin crisps instead of steaming. Here I'm using two fans to speed up the process. Brilliant, no?

Cream of broccoli soup is boring (and not from the Zuni cookbook), but an intensely garlicky float of white bean puree (not an actual recipe, but inspired by something Judy Rogers mentions in the book) was for me the star of this soup. Some chives, pepper, and a cracker smeared with roasted garlic completed the dish. I left some watermelon salad and Swedish meatballs unphotographed, since they've both been featured here recently (yes, I made fresh batches for tonight).

The chicken: always the star of the show. Tonight I proved that a Zuni chicken can be a four pounder, but that a three pounder is far superior in flavor and juiciness. The herbs and salt just don't penetrate a large bird as well. My first attempt at the bread salad was a success, because there's nothing like crispy bread drenched in meat juices and fat. Highly, highly addictive.

Mmm, dessert. Balsamic strawberry sorbet from the cookbook was as intensely berry flavored and delicious as others have reported, especially with this season's blood red farmers' market strawberries. Straus heavy cream with a dab of Penzy's vanilla extract made a great lightly whipped topping, and diced balsamic strawberries (slightly frozen) added freshness and crunch to the dessert. Quite possibly one of the best desserts I've made in the past few months; a winning combination of tangy sweetness and mellow fluffiness, and simultaneously decadent and healthy.