God sometimes gives us unexpected gifts. Our gift has been a grandson who enlivens our lives and makes retirement very different than the one we anticipated. He is a special joy. And that's "Casey." In 2006 we fulfilled our dream of living in Italy for a year. It was every bit as wonderful as anticipated. This blog begins in 2005 as we prepared for that experience. Since then we have explored many places together. That's the "Travel." And finally, I am a person of opinions--spiritually, politically, on just about anything and that's the "Other Stuff." Welcome to my blog.

Thursday, May 09, 2013

Lemon and Tarragon Chicken

A couple days ago I was sitting in Scratch's chair while helping Casey with his physics--well, more like encouraging him as I know zip about physics. This is Scratch, our beloved, spoiled puggle.


As his chair is next to our floor to ceiling bookcase in my office, I perused some of the books on the bottom shelf and noticed a put out to pasture cook book..."Simply Italian" by Valentina Harris, a descendant of the Renaissance Sforsa family.

Flipping through the pages, while feigning an interest in physics, I saw a beautiful photo of a chicken dish. Normally, I flip right past chicken but this looked good. So, yesterday, I made it and tonight we had left overs. It was very good last night and even better tonight. Yummy good.

Lemon and Tarragon Chicken

25 g. (1oz.) unsalted butter
1 tablespoon olive oil
6 chicken joints
Salt and freshly milled pepper
250 ml (8 fl. oz) chicken stock
3 egg yolks
Juice and grated zest of one lemon
About 10 tarragon leaves, chopped

Heat the butter and olive oil together in a deep pan, then seal the chicken joints quickly in the hot fat. Sprinkle with salt and pepper, then cover with the stock...(I put in extra stock.). Turn the heat down, cover with a lid and simmer gently for about 45 minutes until the chicken is cooked through. (Think I did somewhat longer.)

Take the chicken out of the pan and arrange on a warm platter. Raise the heat under the pan and beat the egg yolks and lemon juice and zest into the remaining juices with a whisk. Pour this over the chicken and sprinkle with the tarragon (which really adds to the flavor.) Serve at once.
Serves 6

I used peeled boiled potatoes the first night and rice the next night. Both were good with the gravy poured over.

This is so simple but so good. Enjoy.

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