Roasted 1/2 Chicken with Asparagus Risotto (Camera tools we love)

Look at the Color of this Bird

This is not going to be a recipe post friends, just some notes about good eating from the home Kitchen. I will describe what I did so if you are adept in the kitchen you may work with what I am describing. If you are not good in the kitchen you may enjoy the photos and you are welcome to dinner with us here anytime

Last night Juliet and I dined on Roasted Chicken with a Meyer Lemon and Asparagus Risotto as well as quick marinated hot-house Cucumbers.

Juliet took this shot with her iPhone 4s with an olloclip lens attachment

The olloclip is an amazing tool for your iPhone as it gives the phone a macro/wide-angle/and fish-eye lens. I am impressed how much texture and detail the phone captures with only some edge distortion that could be cropped from the shot. I kind of like it. The Camera+ App for iPhone allows tons of creativity as the exposure is manageable as well as white balance. In effect these few tools turn the iPhone 4s into a powerful and discreet camera.

Nikon D7000 with 35mm 1.8 lens

I didn’t take the time to create a well-lit space last night so I used the camera settings to make this shot. F2.8 and ISO 400 here. Notice the lovely bottle of Venica & Venica Sauvignon Ronco del Cero’ 2010. This is one of my favorite producers from all of Italy and wines I sold for years. The talented wine writer Jeremy Parzen is a big fan of these wines and references a great meal with their Malvasia here. Their Sauvignon (Blanc) is classic red grapefruit and guava with a bright acidity that holds all the immense fruit in balance. The nose would suggest a more viscous wine, yet it is lithe and zippy across the palate. It paired very well with the butter and cheese in the risotto.

View from Above

I dry-brined the 1/2 chicken (an air-chilled organic bird from SPROUTs) for 48 hours using my homemade mint and basil salt as well as Old World Seasoning from Penzey’s and Vietnamese black pepper.

I tossed the chicken with grape seed oil and roasted the bird for 20 minutes at 475F in a cast iron skillet. I then shut off the oven and allowed the bird to finish cooking as the heat diminished another 20 minutes.

I removed the chicken from the oven and allowed it to rest partially tented for 12 minutes as I finished the risotto.

The risotto was a simple chicken stock base, dry vermouth and carnaroli rice. I cooked the lower parts of the asparagus in the rice for the final 12 minutes and added the tips for the final 5. I deglazed the chicken pan with water and added the chicken fond to the rice as well as 1/4 cup Meyer lemon juice for the final 2 minutes of cooking.

I removed the rice from the stove after 20-ish minutes (we are at 5400 feet in elevation here) and dumped 1 cup of parmigiano-reggiano cheese into the rice and allowed to melt 2 minutes before stirring and serving.

For the cucumbers, peel 1/2 of a hot-house “cuke” split lengthwise and de-seed with a spoon. Cut into bit size pieces, add some cider vinegar, killer EVOO (I mean really good or don’t even attempt this), more of the basil/mint salt, and a kick of Vietnamese pepper. Allow this to marinate 1 hour at room temp. It is off the chain and breaks up the fatty chicken skin and buttery, cheesy rice

When you eat like a King you can still look like a Blissful Barbarian

Juliet always captures my true self.

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