And because I have clearly not posted enough today:

[mamadeb]

Tonight's dinner is a semi-experiement. Semi because I made something similar before, but experiment because I'm experimenting. :)

I made Chicken Calvados. Calvados is apple brandy - distilled hard apple cider. It tastes vaguely of apples. We bought it to make apple-flavored chocolate truffles, and it happens to be one formulated for cooking.

So. I dredged two chicken leg quarters lightly in pepper, a little salt and flour, and browned it in olive oil. Removed it from the pan. Added finely chopped carrots, onion and celery and cooked until soft. Added the Calvados and flamed it (using my grill lighter for safety.)

That was so cool I cannot express the coolness. I have never flamed anything before. When the flames burned down (for lack of fuel), I put the chicken back in and added two cups of homemade chicken stock. I covered the pan, and brought the braise to a boil. Then I put it in a 350°F oven to finish cooking. Just before Shabbat, I'm going to strain the braising liquid and put it back over the chicken.

I'm serving this with mashed potatoes and green beans.

Comments

[sistercoyote.livejournal.com]

That sounds yummy. I have some apple wine in my refrigerator and may have to try something similar.

Last night I made home-made chicken soup by heating together pre-made broth, pino grigio, garlic, ginger, cinnamon, black pepper, cayenne pepper, Italian herbs and letting them heat while I chopped up the carrots that I then threw in and brought all that to a boil while chopping up the chicken and linguine.

Came out pretty tasty. I kind of wish I had remembered the apple wine, now, though

[kightp.livejournal.com]

Apple wine doesn't have enough alcohol to flame, but adding a glurg of it to the dish and reducing the liquid down a bit could be yummy!

[mamadeb.livejournal.com]

It came out okay (several hours sitting in the oven didn't help, but we really don't like eating earlier than eight, and Shabbat came in at 4:11PM) but I should have done a couple of things. One - I used too much stock. A cup would have worked better. Two - I should have found the time to reduce the braising liquid anyway. It mostly tasted like chicken soup.

Your soup sounds delicious.