This has to be the coolest cookbook I have ever been given. What
could be better than a cookbook for children… in French?!
My friend Heather had this in her collection, and somehow knew I
would love it for its perfect existence, and because I would actually cook from
it.
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| “Children and poets like to disobey. If you are mean, disobey and be good. If you chew your nails, disobey and eat the good food painted by Michel Oliver. Your old friend, Jean Cocteau, advises you. 1963″ |
The cover alone captured my heart, but when I discovered the
introduction was written by Jean Cocteau, I was amazed. Seriously, how cool is
that?
I promptly flipped through, making mental notes of which recipes
I would make. I stopped looking when I got to the salt-roasted chicken.
I’ve been served – and made – salt-roasted fish before, and it
was really quite good, but using this method for a chicken? Well, why not?
When I made salt-roasted whole fish, the salt crust was made with
salt and egg whites. Not a difficult recipe by any means, by this salt-roasted
chicken really is child’s play.
Quite simply, you put the chicken in the pot on a bed of salt,
put salt around its sides, then cover it with salt. Cover and bake, and –
voilà! – a truly succulent bird!
No, the skin is not browned and beautiful, but we aren’t supposed
to be eating that anyway, right? The meat is incredibly moist and flavorful –
perfect served as a roast, and a great method for getting perfectly-cooked meat
for chicken salads, Crumble au Poulet, or sandwiches.
I served this with a chilled bottle of 2015 Rosé de Léoube, which
I found on sale. It was a terrific pairing and I am grateful to Jérôme Pernot,
of Château Léoube for telling me that roasted chicken was a good choice for his
wine. You can read more about this pairing on the Provence WineZine.
As you can see, I served this with sautéed haricots verts and
Madeira-braised carrots. If the chicken was lacking in color, the veggies made
up for it.
La Cuisine est un Jeu d’Enfants by Michel Oliver is available to
buy used online. It is a gem and wonderful for both children and adults.
Poulet au Sel – Salt-Roasted Chicken
Heat the olive oil in a nonstick skillet (that has a tight-fitting lid) and sauté the carrots for a few minutes, shaking the pan frequently to roll the carrots. Add a splash of Madeira and cover tightly, continuing to shake the pan frequently until the carrots are tender and well caramelized on all sides – about 15 minutes.
Serves 2
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| “Delicately break the salt crust to get the chicken out.” |
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John | heneedsfood
April 1, 2017 at 4:04 pmWhat a fab book! The salt would surely make the flesh incredibly moist, and you know what? Chicken skin is meant to be good for you now. I read about it somewhere recently, so it must be true. Good or bad, I eat it anyway.
Enjoy your weekend! We're in Medellín now about to do some sightseeing before the storms hit.
Cocoa & Lavender
April 3, 2017 at 1:22 pmI always eat the chicken skin if it is crisp and well-colored! But not this skin… the flesh, however, was amazing.
Have fun and don't get too wet!
Lois B
April 1, 2017 at 4:18 pmWhat a great recipe, and lovely photos! I'm coveting your gardening tea towel.
Cocoa & Lavender
April 3, 2017 at 1:23 pmThat is one of my many gifted tea towels, Lois, many of them given to be seen on the blog, but this one dates back 15 years! I believe it came from the garden center at Longwood Gardens.
Inger @ Art of Natural Living
April 1, 2017 at 6:14 pmWhat a fun project! A few years back I was watching the French News to try to get my college French back. This sounds like much more fun!
BTW, I roast chicken with (far less) salt rubbed into the skin all the time (see http://artofnaturalliving.com/2014/05/13/roast-chicken-lazy-way/). The skin comes out beautifully browned, though I fear my blood pressure goes up for a couple days after …
Cocoa & Lavender
April 3, 2017 at 1:24 pmI will have ot check out your post, Inger – and, yes, reading the French this way is a lot of fun!
Susan Manfull
April 1, 2017 at 11:42 pmThis looks so yummy. It makes me feel like spring and instills some confidence that it will stop snowing here at some point. The cookbook as you wrote, looks charming. Such a pleasure to read!
Cocoa & Lavender
April 3, 2017 at 1:25 pmMay is on its way, Susan – the snow will stop eventually!
Susan Manfull
April 20, 2017 at 8:08 pmIt came and went…quite cool again. I just noticed your recipe for carrots…was it there all along? THAT looks really good, too!
Cocoa & Lavender
April 22, 2017 at 10:43 pmI added the carrots at the request of a reader. So simple that I never thought to include it originally!
Chef Mimi
April 2, 2017 at 3:03 pmSo, you read French and Italian?!!!
Cocoa & Lavender
April 3, 2017 at 1:26 pmUm, yes… and German, and a wee bit of Spanish. I am no linguist, but I generally learn because of food – restaurants, markets, eliciting recipes from landladies abroad, and even from little old nonnas sitting on their stoops… the usual!
Kirsten Honeyman
April 2, 2017 at 3:16 pmCould you publish the recipe for the carrots?? Those look amazing!
Cocoa & Lavender
April 3, 2017 at 1:27 pmI will add an addendum to the post, Kirsten – they were so easy that I hardly felt they were worth posting!
Unknown
April 2, 2017 at 4:25 pmLove the story and love the dish. I really envy your carrots: what lovely colors! No yellow ones here in Italy, only purple and orange. Ciao ciao, ANna e Giovanna
Cocoa & Lavender
April 3, 2017 at 1:28 pmMultiple colored carrots are all the rage here now, and happily the flavor is really as good as the color. Thanks, my friends!
Pauline M
April 2, 2017 at 4:54 pmAmazing and makes me feel hungry now! This is the kind of book I need! Wonder whether it is available somwhere online ! Will check it out.
Cocoa & Lavender
April 3, 2017 at 1:29 pmPauline – this is available on Amazon.com. From ridiculously high prices to a couple of offers at $5. It is a fun book!
Marcelle
April 2, 2017 at 4:58 pmIt's so fun to get new cookbooks that "speak" to you. It look like a beautiful book, David. Basic brining gives meat and chicken such an intense pop of flavor and moisture. I can imagine that this salted chicken was totally falling off the bone! Beautiful pictures!! xoxo
Cocoa & Lavender
April 3, 2017 at 1:31 pmMarcelle – I imagine that the salt of a brine is about the same as this salt crust, although the crust keeps all the moisture inside. It is a fun wait to roast a chicken and, while the recipe says you can reuse the salt, I am not completely comfortable with the safety issues there!
Cheri Savory Spoon
April 2, 2017 at 6:04 pmWhat a cool book, seems like a fairly sophisticated recipe for a child compared to the ones I had growing up, lol. Looks and sounds delicious!
Cocoa & Lavender
April 3, 2017 at 1:32 pmMe, too, Cheri – I think it was mud pies for us! But, this was from the French, you know, so I guess my expectations were fro a pretty good level of sophistication.
Unknown
April 2, 2017 at 6:58 pmLovely book and to have Cocteau writing a little intro! …
excellent recipe: I remember what I was growing up in the seventies, food cooked "… al sale"/under salt was really popular (the most famous one being branzino al sale). I have never tried but I should, the problem is that good sea salt here in the UK is rather expensive and it would cost a small fortune/I guess I should try next time I am in Italy
+ on cookbooks for kids: can I suggest an excellent one, that is actually suitable for everyone and that it could become a minor classic: it is called Cooking with Coco, by Anna del Conte, the doyenne of Italian food here in the uk. Do u know her, David? She is as good as Hazan (and actually a food writer Hazan herself trusted very much, to the point that she asked Ms Del Conte to take over her famous cookery school in Bologna, when they (Marcella and Victor) left it…), but with a warmer tone. She is pushing 90 now and still producing excellent books. Her knowledge of Italian traditions and her taste are amazing. highly, highly recommended.
Cooking with Coco was written with and for her little niece Coco, but is not kid cooking at all – it's full of simple recipes that also kids and teenagers can cook but they are really good for adults too. Check her out, she is really special. ciao, stefano / italianhomecooking.co.uk
Cocoa & Lavender
April 3, 2017 at 1:38 pmStefano – baranzino al sale is still very popular here in the States. There are two restaurants within 10 minutes walking distance from my house that offer it!
Thanks for the recommendation – I have just purchased a new copy of Cooking with Coco, and am excited to try it! Until now, I have not known Anna del Conte and also look forward to finding more of her work. Ahhh, Marcella Hazan… another big loss for the culinary world this year. Thank you again for recommending this – I only wish it were in Italian so that I could improve my speaking/reading skills! Ciao ciao, David
Unknown
April 3, 2017 at 6:35 pm…I cannot remember if I have mentioned it.. I also have an Italian blog, should u want to perfect your skills 🙂 http://www.bbq.wordpress.com stefano
Cocoa & Lavender
April 4, 2017 at 2:29 pmStefano – I just clicked on your link and there was nothing there. What is the name of your Italian blog so I can search for it?
Nutmeg
April 3, 2017 at 1:48 amWe have made this recipe with fish several times and love it…need to move on to chicken. Thanks for the inspiration!
Cocoa & Lavender
April 3, 2017 at 1:38 pmHope you and Andrew enjoy it, Carolyne! Definitely a fun experiment!
humble_pie
April 3, 2017 at 3:13 amhello from quebec again
yes we had another big soft snowfall on april fool's day. Or rather, we woke up to it – poisson d'avril! – because it had fallen during the night.
re the chicken in salt, i'd very much appreciate a comment or 2 on the biochemical side, if that might be possible.
i almost never cook with salt but add it at the table, hence my ignorance. But i would have thought that salt would draw juices & moisture out of the tissues, i've always been told salt reacts with the proteins to make meats tough & stringy? it seems from the remarks here though, that the exact opposite is the case.
what really goes on at the molecular level when raw chicken meets its salt tomb? at 500 degrees fahrenheit?
i'm also of the school that meat should be cooked at a low temperature – no more than 325F – to ensure it comes out moist, tender & flavourful. In fact if i cudgel the memory, i seem to remember the prof saying something about protein molecules changing at high temperatures & becoming downright harmful to health (OMG, do they oxidize?) therefore, she said, frequent barbecue is disadvised.
in this recipe, we have a perfect chicken cooked at high temperatures inside a thick cocoon of salt, so obviously the biochemistry works differently than i had previously believed.
Cocoa & Lavender
April 3, 2017 at 1:43 pmSo sorry about your unfortunate poisson d'avril… I remember them oh, so well from my time living in Maine! And then when it would snow on Mother's Day – that was the last straw!
I have never heard the rules you share here – perhaps this method is some sort of hybrid that ignores all the rules, as this chicken was extremely moist, and I don't think the temperature of 500°F ever reached the chicken! I think it was protected from its cocoon…
I think it is time to discuss this recipe with my scientist friends at the university! Thanks for some good questions, Humble Pie (wish I knew your real name!).
humble_pie
April 4, 2017 at 10:01 pmi'm no university-based science wizard but perhaps i could hazard a guess …
the key step i think is the prolonged drying of the chicken before it goes under the salt. You have mentioned that you even dry your bird all day in the frig, without a cover.
the drying will be enough to set up a seal in the chicken skin, i imagine. The heavy salt surround would increase the seal in the membrane. Although normally salt will dissolve proteins or at least produce a hydrophobic reaction in raw animal tissue, the dry-skin seal prevents this from happening.
finally, it occurs to me that the high heat also speeds the sealing process. The cells composing the bird's skin shrink even faster, into a final seal which is dried out on the exterior (salt) side but mouthwateringly tender & juicy on the inside.
i'm wondering whether roasting in salt might be an extremely ancient cooking technique, might be related to roasting food in clay or sand. In some equatorial countries, cooking by roasting many hours in the sun's heat, encased in sand or clay, might have produced a tender edible piece of meat that was not dried into leather. In desert countries with few trees, the technique would spare having to find or use rare precious pieces of wood for cooking fires.
there's an atavistic sense to all this. It marries well with the idea of child's play. Altogether, a perfect launch to an april fool's day recipe i think.
All That I'm Eating
April 3, 2017 at 10:09 amWhat a great book, love the pictures and this recipe sounds delicious. You've made me hungry!
Cocoa & Lavender
April 3, 2017 at 1:43 pmAt least it's midday there, Caroline! It's pre-dawn here and I want some!
Sippity Sup
April 4, 2017 at 2:31 amOnce you get the salt roasting technique down you'd be surprised where you can use it. Potatoes are a natural, but tomatoes are my all-time favorite. That is until I try chicken! GREG
Cocoa & Lavender
April 4, 2017 at 2:30 pmTomatoes?? What a brilliant idea. I can only imagine the sweetness… Thanks, Greg!
Cecilia
April 4, 2017 at 4:14 pmWow, this is the best I've seen so far in this category. I like the pictures and the recipes! Thanks for the review. I will get it for me.
Cocoa & Lavender
April 4, 2017 at 7:42 pmThanks, Cecilia!
Frank
April 8, 2017 at 12:26 pmAll I can say is, French children must certainly eat better than ours do… but then, we knew that.
Cocoa & Lavender
April 10, 2017 at 2:28 pmYes, we did know that, Frank. Ah, to be a child in Paris…
Karen (Back Road Journal)
April 8, 2017 at 2:39 pmI've had the fish cooked in sea salt so I can imagine how moist your chicken had to be.
Cocoa & Lavender
April 10, 2017 at 2:28 pmIt is really moist, Karen – I think you will like it!
Ngeun
April 10, 2017 at 12:23 pmIt looks like a cute and fun cookbook with lovely illustrations to have around. A precious item indeed. Lol at the diving chook in its striped one-piece. The chook looks moist and moreish. Yum!
Cocoa & Lavender
April 10, 2017 at 2:29 pmThanks, Ngeun – and I just received the companion cookbook in the mail this weekend: La Pâtisserie est un Jeu d'Enfants! Can't wait to get started in that!