Our Daily Bread

It has been a whirlwind of activity in The Trinity Alps. I’ve lost three games of petanque and six games of gin so far. I’m working on losing gracefully.

In the last couple of days, we’ve hiked to a waterfall, caught dozens of trout, read books, fought over the hammock, looked for glow worms and chased a fox in the dark.
Here’s Kathy’s report: I’ve won six games of gin and won one game of petanque. I’m working on winning gracefully.

Yesterday, Kathy baked two loaves of French bread which we enjoyed with cream cheese topped with chile raspberry jam from Santa Fe and a lovely, crisp gruner vetliner. She shares the recipe here, a wonderfully simple method. The dough comes together in the food processor and rises there for an hour. A quick shaping and baking and voila: Bread as pretty as you'd find in a bakery.

Dinner was something special. We attempted Judy Rodgers’ (of Zuni Café fame) roast chicken and bread salad. Of course we adapted the recipe for the Weber but the results were every bit as good. Even bread salad haters Mike and Juan had second helpings. Use mustard greens if you can find them. If not, a nice peppery arugula will do.



Zuni Chicken with Bread Salad (slightly modified)
2 chickens

For the bread salad: serves 2 generously
• Generous 8 ounces slightly stale open-crumbed, chewy, peasant-style bread (not sourdough)
• 6 to 8 tablespoons mild-tasting olive oil
• 1-½ tablespoons Champagne vinegar or white wine vinegar
• Salt
• Freshly cracked black pepper
• 1 tablespoon dried currants
• 1 teaspoon red wine vinegar, or as needed
• 1 tablespoon warm water
• 2 tablespoons pine nuts
• 2 to 3 garlic cloves, slivered
• ¼ cup slivered scallions (about 4 scallions), including a little of the green part
• 2 tablespoons lightly salted chicken stock or lightly salted water
• A few handfuls of arugula, frisee, or red mustard greens, carefully washed and dried

Directions
Seasoning the chicken (1 to 3 days before serving; for 3-¼- to 3-½-pound chickens, at least 2 days):
Remove and discard the lump of fat inside the chicken. Rinse the chicken and pat very dry inside and out. Be thorough-a wet chicken will spend too much time steaming before it begins to turn golden brown.
Approaching from the edge of the cavity, slide a finger under the skin of each of the breasts, making 2 little pockets. Now use the tip of your finger to gently loosen a pocket of skin on the outside of the thickest section of each thigh. Using your finger, shove an herb sprig into each of the 4 pockets.
Season the chicken liberally all over with salt and the pepper (we use ¾ teaspoon sea salt per pound of chicken). Season the thick sections a little more heavily than the skinny ankles and wings. Sprinkle a little of the salt just inside the cavity, on the backbone, but don’t otherwise worry about seasoning the inside. Twist and tuck the wing tips behind the shoulders. Cover loosely and refrigerate.
Starting the bread salad (up to several hours in advance):
Preheat the broiler.
Cut the bread into a couple of large chunks. Carve off all of the bottom crust and most of the top and side crust (reserve the top and side crusts to use as croûtons in salads or soups). Brush the bread allover with olive oil. Broil very briefly, to crisp and lightly color the surface. Turn the bread chunks over and crisp the other side. Trim off any badly charred tips, then tear the chunks into a combination of irregular 2- to 3-inch wads, bite-sized bits, and fat crumbs. You should get about 4 cups.
Combine about ¼ cup of the olive oil with the Champagne or white wine vinegar and salt and pepper to taste. Toss about ¼ cup of this tart vinaigrette with the tom bread in a wide salad bowl; the bread will be unevenly dressed. Taste one of the more saturated pieces. If it is bland, add a little salt and pepper and toss again.
Place the currants in a small bowl and moisten with the red wine vinegar and warm water. Set aside.
Roasting the chicken and assembling the salad:
Prepare charcoal grill to cook chickens using indirect heat. When coals are hot place chickens end to end and cook covered about one hour and ten minutes or until a meat thermometer inserted at the thigh reads 165.
Preheat the oven to 450°.
While the chicken is roasting, place the pine nuts in a small baking dish and set in the hot oven for a minute or two, just to warm through. Add them to the bowl of bread.
Place a spoonful of the olive oil in a small skillet, add the garlic and scallions, and cook over medium-low heat, stirring constantly, until softened. Don’t let them color. Scrape into the bread and fold to combine. Drain the plumped currants and fold in. Dribble the chicken stock or lightly salted water over the salad and fold again. Taste a few pieces of bread-a fairly saturated one and a dryish one. If it is bland, add salt, pepper, and/or a few drops of vinegar, then toss well. Since the basic character of bread salad depends on the bread you use, these adjustments can be essential.
Pile the bread salad in a 1-quart baking dish and tent with foil; set the salad bowl aside. Place the salad in the oven after you take the chickens off the grill giving them 10 to 15 minutes to rest.
Finishing and serving the chicken and bread salad:
Tip the bread salad into the salad bowl. (It will be steamy-hot, a mixture of soft, moist wads, crispy-on-the-outside-but-moist-in-the-middle wads, and a few downright crispy ones.) Add the greens, a drizzle of vinaigrette, and fold well. Taste again.
Cut the chicken into pieces, spread the bread salad on the warm platter, and nestle the chicken in the salad.

French Bread (from Epicurious.com)
• 4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 1 teaspoon distilled white vinegar
• 2 teaspoons active dry yeast (from a 1/4-oz package)
• 1 2/3 cups warm water (105-115°F)
• 1 tablespoon olive oil

• Special equipment: 2 (17-inch-long) French bread pans (preferably dark nonstick); a razor blade or very sharp knife


Pulse flour, salt, and vinegar in a food processor to combine.
Stir together yeast and 1/3 cup water in a small bowl until yeast is dissolved, then let stand until foamy, about 5 minutes. (If mixture doesn't foam, discard and start over with new yeast.) With motor running, pour yeast mixture and remaining 1 1/3 cups warm water into flour mixture in processor, blending until dough forms a ball and pulls away from side of processor bowl, about 1 minute.
Cover processor feed tube and let dough rise until it fills bowl, about 1 hour. Pulse several times to deflate dough.
Generously oil bread pans with olive oil.
Turn out dough onto a work surface and divide in half (dough will be very soft). Press 1 half into a 10- by 8-inch rectangle and fold in the 2 short outer sides to meet in the middle, pinching edges together. Turn over (seam side down), then roll and stretch into a 15-inch-long irregular loaf. Put loaf, seam side up, in bread pan and turn to coat with oil, leaving loaf seam side down.
Repeat procedure with remaining dough. Let loaves rise, uncovered, in a warm draft-free place 30 minutes.
Put oven rack in upper third of oven, then put a large roasting pan with 1 inch of water in it on bottom of gas oven or on lowest rack of electric oven. Preheat oven to 450°F.
Make 3 shallow diagonal slashes down length of each loaf with razor. Bake loaves 30 minutes, then carefully remove pan of water from oven. Remove bread from pans and turn upside down on upper oven rack, then bake until golden and crusty all over, about 5 minutes more. Cool loaves on a rack.