Chicken Bones

Throughout all of my cooking experiments, I have a limited experience with chicken. Blame it on my on-and-off again vegetarianism or the fact that my dad always mans the grill at home, but the only way I have ever cooked chicken is (on my own that is) in a skillet on the stove top. What's more, is that I've always used skinless, boneless filleted chicken breast. In a way, I feel somewhat ashamed of my lack of creativity in this department. It was time for a change.

So one particularly boring day here in Manhattan, I decided to tackle chicken with bones. I really actually wanted to cook a whole chicken, but seeing how I only have one medium sized pot and one medium sized skillet, the whole chicken would just have to wait. At the store, I picked up two large-ish chicken breasts with rib bones. In my cookbook from Italy, I found a recipe for boiled chicken. Yes, boiled chicken isn't really that much more exciting than skillet-cooked boneless, skinless chicken breast, but it's all about baby steps, right?

I get home, plop my chickens into the pot with enough water to cover them, add in some carrots and onions. The recipe called for celery as well, and I really should have used it. However, I just can't convince myself that it's worth it to buy celery because I know I will use one stalk and then the next time I think about celery again will be when I'm wondering what that light green slime is in the back of the fridge. Since I like to avoid slime, I skip the celery. Anyway, I bring that up to a boil, cover it, and feel quite pleased that I've whittled away another hour of my time.

The chicken is supposed to cook for two hours, so I have two options: 1) go back to bed and wallow in my own self pity of how boring my life is or 2) cook some more. Since being in bed would require me to look out of my window reminding me that I'm in New York City, I choose the latter.

I open my fridge: olives, anchovies, garlic, bread, capers, basil. There has got to be some kind of concoction I can come up with from these items. I find a recipe for olive toast from Umbria and Salsa Verde from Emilia-Romagna. Perfetto!


Contents:
Pollo lesso

• Chicken
• Carrot
• Onion

Boil until cooked. Simplice!

Salsa Verde

• Basil
• Garlic
• Anchovies
• Capers
• Bread crumbs
• Olive oil

Chop finely and combine. Pour on top of chicken. Eat. My version of this is not entirely traditional because I lacked a few of the ingredients, mainly white vinegar. I also omitted parsley simply because I hate parsley.

Crostini di Olive

• Black olives
• Garlic
• Anchovies
• Capers
• Olive oil
  
• Bread

Chop this all (except for the bread) as finely as you can. Mix with a good amount of olive oil. Toast the bread until just golden brown and spread the olive paste on while it's still hot. The bread just soaks up the olive oil and perfumes the entire room. If you can prepare the paste ahead of time, the flavors will mellow together. It's super salty and savory - just what I like. Be sure to use really good black olives. The ones I used were cured, but fresh would be equally as delicious.

Although I never made it in my cooking class, I actually had crostini di olive when I was in Italy. It was Sunday night. My roommates and I had just returned from Cinque Terre (one of the most beautiful places on earth). We had no food in the apartment since we had been gone for three days, so Molly and I decided to go out to eat. Exhausted from hiking for the past two days along the Mediterranean coast (what a rough life I lead...) we didn't want to walk that far, so we picked a little restaurant in Piazza di Santo Spirito just a block from our apartment. I didn't enjoy my pasta dish (flaked salmon, arugula with some kind of bland cream sauce) but the free bread with olive paste was really good.