Chicken in our pot, to hail the eve of the eve of the new year.

Wonder of wonders, we were still able to include fresh local tomatoes in the celebration (and they were not to be the last).

• four fresh 6-ounce thighs of their Cornish Cross breed from Cascun Farms, purchased at Eataly Flatiron, seasoned with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper, browned well in two tablespoons or so of butter inside a medium size oval enameled high-sided cast iron pot, then covered with aluminum foil (it needn’t be a tight seal) and cooked over medium-low heat, turning occasionally, until the internal temperature was 155-165 degrees, or until the juices ran clear when pricked with a fork, which turned out to be roughly 12 minutes, then transferred to a small oval platter, ideally warm, and covered with the foil again to keep warm while the sauce was completed, beginning with one shallot [from Norwich Meadows Farm and 2 small aji dulce seasoning peppers from Eckerton Hill Farm stirred into the pan and allowed to soften a little before about a third of a cup of good chicken stock was added, the heat raised to medium high, the liquid boiled and reduced quite a bit, or until it was the desired consistency of a sauce, when a generous amount of chopped winter savory from Stokes Farm was added and stirred in, the ‘gravy’ transferred to a glass sauce boat, from which some of it was poured over the chicken, which had been just been arranged onto warm plates

• ten or 12 twelve ounces of la Ratte potatoes from Norwich Meadows Farm, scrubbed, halved lengthwise, tossed with olive oil, salt, pepper, a pinch or two of crushed dried habanada pepper, arranged on a large well-seasoned unglazed ceramic Pampered Chef oven pan, roasted in the oven for 15 to 20 minutes at 400º, removed, arranged on the plates and garnished with chopped parsley from Phillips Farms

• two heirloom tomatoes from Eckerton Hill Farm halved through the middle, the cut sides sprinkled with salt, pepper, and chopped fresh marjoram leaves from Willow Wisp Farm, drizzled with a little olive oil, placed cut side up on a hot enameled grill pan which had been brushed with a little oil, grilled for 3 or 4 minutes, turned over and the cut side grilled for another minute, or a minute and a half, arranged on the plates and sprinkled with additional marjoram and a drop or two more of olive oil
• the wine was a California (Russian River) red, DRG Daryl Groom Russian River Valley Pinot Noir 2018, from Naked Wines 
• the music was more of the 2019 WKCR-FM Bachfestival, streaming

This is one of the four unglazed ceramic (stoneware) pans I use regularly (two large, one medium, one small), and I cannot say enough about how wonderful they are.

I use them mostly for roasting vegetables, but they’re also ideal for pizza, at least by my lights.

This one is the most seasoned of the four, in both senses (they should be washed as you would a good cast iron pan, that is, without using soap).

I don’t recall how I first heard about them, more than 8 years ago, but I bought mine on line. They are made and distributed by the marketing company, Pampered Chef.

Size didn’t really matter.

Until the package had defrosted, there was no way to tell how many pieces of steak it contained, or, of course, how much each weighed. Those numbers aren’t all important however, at least until it’s time to put the dinner on the 2 plates, when questions of aesthetics and fair apportioning arise.

As it turned out, the package held 3 pieces of sirloin cap (aka coulotte/culotte/picanha), each a different size. We would be 2 at the table that evening, so my solution to ensure portion fairness was to cut them all into halves, and then juggle them to see that each trio weighed the same.

The steak was delicious, and we each had our (modest) fair share, so aesthetics be damned, although the presentation doesn’t look half bad in the picture above.

• three pieces of sirloin cap steak from Sun Fed Beef in the Union Square Greenmarket, weighing approximately 13 ounces together, each divided into 2 pieces because they were all very different in weight, brought to room temperature, seasoned on all sides with sea salt and freshly-ground black pepper, seared for less than a minute on the top, thick, fat-covered sides inside a dry oval enameled heavy cast iron pan, the 2 long sides cooked for 2 or 3 minutes each, then removed from the pan the moment they had become perfectly medium-rare and arranged on 2 warm plates, topped with a pat of ramp butter (a leftover, frozen, from some made for a much earlier meal), the steaks allowed to rest for about 3 minutes before being served

• a generous mix of mostly red Kyoto carrots (pictured above) and some more familiar loose orange carrots of the same size, both from Norwich Meadows Farm, scrubbed, dried, sliced once lengthwise, rolled inside a large unglazed ceramic Pampered Chef oven pan with a little olive oil, salt, black pepper, more than half of a teaspoon of crushed Italian fennel seed, and a bit of crushed dried habanada pepper, roasted at 400º for about 30 minutes, or until tender, arranged on the plates and garnished with micro chervil from Two Guys from Woodbridge
• a few small Brussels sprouts from Migliorelli Farm, the last of a supply purchased late in December (Brussels sprouts are one more member of the terrific huge mustard family (Brassicaceae) that’s such a great boon for cooks in the winter), washed, trimmed pretty intensely by hand, and dried, tossed inside a bowl with a little olive oil, salt, and black pepper, plus a bit of dried  peperoncino Calabresi secchi, then roasted inside a small unglazed seasoned Pampered Chef pan, a medium size this time, until the sprouts were slightly brown and crisp on the outside

There was a cheese course.

• two cheeses, an Ardith Mae Farmstead, Columbia County, NY, camembert-style using 2 milks (goat from their own farm and cow from that of a neighbor, Liz Baldwin’s Shunpike Dairy) and an Eastern Connecticut cows milk, Cato Corner Farm Dairyere Reserve (aged one year)
• a garnish of micro red mustard from Two Guys from Woodbridge
• slices of a nutty whole wheat She Wolf Bakery miche from the bakers’ strand in the Union Square Greenmarket
• dried Calabrian (Amantea) figs from Buon Italia in the Chelsea Market

 

• the wine throughout was an Argentinian (Luján de Cuyo/Mendoza Province) red, Bodega Norton, D.O.C Malbec 2015, from Flatiron Wines
• the music throughout was Puccini’s 1896 opera, ‘La Bohème’, Bertrand de Billy conducting the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks and the Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunks, with soloists Anna Netrebko, Rolando Villazón, Boaz Daniel, Nicole Cabell, Stéphane Degout, and Vitalij Kowaljow [after two succeeding evenings with extremely popular operas, first ‘La Traviata’, and now ‘La Bohème’, I wouldn’t be surprised if some of our friends will be asking themselves, “Are those two all right?”]

The richest, gamiest game imaginable.

Wild hare, two days in a row! Well it was already there, and for several reasons it seemed neither advisable nor possible to push back cooking our second ration of this noble meat to another day.

We found 2 more pieces of shot, for a total of 4 between us.

• a 12 ounce/325g saddle from the Scottish Mountain hare purchased from Ottomanelli’s in the West Village, on Bleecker Street just east of 7th Avenue, that we had enjoyed the night before (the back had been cut into 4 sections and already marinated, along with the other pieces cooked on Sunday, after which it was tightly wrapped and placed overnight in the refrigerator), brought to room temperature and placed, backbone side upwards, inside an enameled cast iron roasting pan just the right size for the 4 pieces, barded with 2 long rashers of streaky bacon from Millport Dairy Farm that had been parboiled for 2 minutes then rinsed in cold water, to remove some of the strong smokey flavor of the pork, each strip then cut into 4 sections in order to be more easily arranged lengthwise on top of the hare, fastened with toothpicks, the meat placed inside a pre-heated 425°F oven to sizzle for only 7 or 8 minutes, the temperature then turned down to 325°F, and the saddle cooked for only another 10  minutes or so, the meat removed and kept warm inside a small oven pan while the pan on which it had cooked was deglazed with a tablespoon of Courvoisier V.S. cognac, followed by about 8 ounces of a very rich stock (a mix of mostly a good low-sodium chicken stock with a wonderful full-flavored wine and vegetable ham stock created with this meal, and occasionally reheated to refresh it), boiled to reduce it by half, the heat turned down, the liquid allowed to cool slightly and then only about 2 ounces of heavy cream from our local Ronnybrook Farm Dairy added and stirred continuously over a flame until the sauce had thickened, the hare then arranged on warm plates on the top of the bacon slices and the sauce ladled over both, the plates finished with chopped lovage from Two Guys from Woodbridge [cook’s note: I think I would have been off adding the stock to the pan (but not over the meat itself) at the time the oven temperature was turned down, but in perhaps a smaller amount: this might have allowed the hare to cook more evenly, and also to be less well done and more moist, but I suspect all of this would have been more simple to accomplish had the animal just been larger..]
• a quince conserve from Wilkin & Sons (the quince and fig chutney I had made having been exhausted at dinner the day before)
• one 5-inch black futsu squash from Norwich Meadows Farm, scrubbed, halved vertically, the seeds and pith removed, cut into wedges just over one half-inch thick at the outside end and mixed by hand inside a large bowl with a relatively small amount of olive oil, sea salt, freshly-ground black pepper, and pieces of golden crushed dried habanada pepper, arranged on a large, unglazed, well-seasoned ceramic pan and roasted in the 425º oven on one side for 15 minutes, turned onto the other side and allowed to roast for 10 more minutes, removed from the oven and transferred to a large heavy copper pot in which 3 crushed cloves of Krasnodar red garlic from Quarton Farm and half a dozen large sage leaves from Whole Foods Market Chelsea had been gently heated  in a bit of olive oil, then gently mixed in with a wooden spatula
• more small Migliorelli Farm Brussels sprouts, from the large number I had purchased more than a week earlier, washed, trimmed and dried, tossed inside a bowl with a little olive oil, salt, and black pepper, roasted inside a medium-size Pampered Chef pan until the sprouts were partly brown and crisp on the outside
• the wine was a brilliant French (Bandol/Provence) red, Domaine Castell Reynoard Bandol 2013, from Copake Wine Works (and a great pairing)
• the music was a wonderful 1964 recording of Mozart’s ‘Die Zauberflöte’, Karl Böhm directing the Berlin Philharmonic and the RIAS Chamber Choir, with Evelyn Lear, Roberta Peters,  Lisa Otto, Fritz Wunderlich, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Franz Crass, Hans Hotter, Hildegard Hillebrecht, Cvetka Ahlin, Sieglinde Wagner, and Friedrich Lenz, among others

The meat was a leftover, from a roast, but everyone should have such leftovers! The green vegetable would have been at its best had I moved it from the crisper to the oven a number of days sooner, so, not as spectacular as it should have been, but I did manage to roast the root vegetable at just the right moment, and the chutney was better than it was the first time around.

• two ribs from a large smoked pork rib roast we had enjoyed with friends on New Years Day, heated for a few minutes in a little butter inside a large antique copper pot with some sliced Japanese scallion from Norwich Meadows Farm, covered, arranged on the plates, the little bit of the juices produced, plus some more scallion sprinkled on top
• more of the really good chutney prepared for the first appearance of the Kassler (quince, fig, shallot, garlic, cherries, brown sugar, apple cider vinegar, cardamon, peppercorns, candied ginger, and cinnamon stick)
• medium sized parsnips from Norwich Meadows Farm, sliced as French fries, tossed with olive oil, salt, pepper, and a bit of crushed dried habanada pepper, roasted for about 25 minutes at 400º inside 2 Pampered Chef unglazed seasoned oven pans, one large and one small, to avoid crowding them, arranged on the plates and sprinkled with chopped lovage from Two Guys from Woodbridge
• a number of quite small Brussels sprouts from Migliorelli Farm I had purchased a full week earlier, when I was afraid I wouldn’t find a green vegetable to serve over the holiday, washed, trimmed and dried, tossed inside a bowl with a little olive oil, salt, and black pepper, plus a bit of dried peperoncino Calabresi secchi, then roasted inside another  unglazed seasoned Pampered Chef pan, a medium size this time, until the sprouts were partly brown and crisp on the outside
• the wine was a French (Touraine/Loire) white, Vignoble Dinocheau, Pineau d’Aunis 2017, from Flatiron Wines, it was excellent, and an excelllent pairing; more about this interesting AOP here]
• the music was Rossini’s wonderful opera buffa, ‘Il Barbiere Di Siviglia’: Great fun, it was a 1989 recording with Giuseppe Patanè conducting the Orchestra e coro del Teatro Comunale di Bologna, with Leo Nucci, Cecilia Bartoli, William Matteuzzi, Paata Burchuladze, Enrico Fissore, and others