Friends With Fowl

When I was growing up I had a horrific relationship with chickens. I was a mere 3 ish and we were visiting relatives on their Connecticut farm. I was attacked by a 3 foot tall Rhode Island Red Rooster.  I don't know if he was jealous of my equally blazing red hair or he was just looking to pick on someone his own size; but there is a faint scar on my right cheek to mark the occasion.

A couple years latter I was planted on a farm in the Northwestern part of North Dakota where we raised pigs. Which may very well be where I began my love affair with bacon and slow cooked pork. We also had a few cows and what seemed like to me an unusually cruel amount of chickens.

As family life on a farm goes, we were all strapped with a slew of chores. I tried to navigate towards weeding in the garden, clearing rocks from the potato fields or slinging slop to the pigs; but occasionally my number would come up to feed the chickens. This would be an event I would stress over; right up there with does Phillip Baradi like me and will lemon juice really make these freckles go away!

The chicken and I were like a mosquito and the Gerber Baby; no matter where I was on the farm the rooster would find me and chase me. It was like a cartoon where my red hair was a laser attachment to the bird. My big brother found great joy in the whole thing and would out wit me and side with the rooster every time – like when I would run to the house for refuge; he would ensure the door was locked. We lived in North Dakota for God's sake – the only time our door was ever locked was to torture me! The chicken coop was attached to a garage and I would literally take a ladder and climb up the far side of the garage, walk across the roof of the garage and throw the food over the coop from the roof to avoid being seen by the rooster. But the damn bird would be waiting for me at the bottom of the ladder when I got back across the roof.

The whole experiment turned into a life long fear of all things fowl. When the Robins make there homes in my ferns on the front porch; I exit out the back. When I go to the zoo with kids and they want to see the Bald Eagle show I fain allergies. When a sparrow mistook my open screen door for an invitation; I hid in my car and called the landlord. The only consolation prize in the whole relationship has been the fact that I can cook chicken!

Today we are making braised, boneless chicken thighs w/ lime garlic buttered broccoli.

 Mise en place:

Skinless, boneless chicken thighs – seasoned w salt and pepper

olive oil

a couple of celery stalks, sliced

a shallot, sliced

about 25 mini carrots cut in half

½ lemon, quartered

sprig of Rosemary

a couple of sprigs of Parsley

3 cloves of garlic

broccoli florets

butter

¼ cup of white wine

½ cup of chicken broth

Chop your celery, carrots, shallot and press two cloves of garlic,

Add to pan with heated olive oil and lemon, rosemay and parsley

  

then add chicken, wine and broth, and a little more salt and fresh cracked pepper.

                             

Cover with lid or foil and place in 350 degree oven for 2 hours.

Once you remove it from the oven remove the thighs and place on your serving tray to rest. Then, remove the vegys, leaving the juices to make your sauce.

All you need to do is add some butter and flour to thicken the juices.

This is soooo yummy!

Now, you should have been steaming your broccoli just before making the sauce, so everything times out on time. Remember to immerse your broccoli in an ice bath after they have steamed to stop the cooking; this keeps the rich green color.

 For the lime garlic butter,

Melt butter with a small clove of garlic and about a ¼ teaspoon of lime zest or ½ teaspoon of lime juice.

Then you are ready to plate,

Delicious! Broccoli is so good for you and chicken thighs are so full of flavor, probably from all that chasing the freckle faced red head all those years!