A Winning Recipe for Oscar Night

"Ligurian Chicken"

Who’s your money on for Best Picture?  Did you pick Gravity in the office pool?  Or maybe you are banking on actor favorite American Hustle to take the gold statuette?  Or perhaps after the Golden Globe Awards, BAFTAs, and various Guilds (Director, Writer, Actor, etc. etc.) you are just ready for this Oscar campaigning to be done with so we can get a jump start on watching the nominees for next year’s race.

No matter who you are rooting for, there’s a pretty good chance you will be part of the 40 million people who tune in Sunday night for the glittery dresses, tearful speeches, inevitable gaffes, and of course, those fateful envelopes.

And if you are cuddling up to the television for the evening, you are going to need something to eat.  Given how long this show runs, might I suggest something hearty enough for the long haul and comforting enough to soothe the pain of watching your favorites lose (or just losing the office pool)?

Typically food for Oscar viewing parties seems to run the theme of elegant cocktail affair, with snack food as dolled up as the starlets themselves- think truffled popcorn, caviar blinis, champagne cocktails, and gold-dusted chocolates.

But you don’t have to wear a cleavage bearing skin-tight dress and stand in front of the cameras, so why not embrace your comfortable digs, throw on some sweatpants and eat something a little more substantial?

As this year would have it, there is some good inspiration hidden in the award nominee lineup.  (No, I’m not talking serving astronaut ice cream in solidarity with Sandra Bullock.)

Between the gorgeous shots of Rome, haunting music, and existential crisis of the main character in Best Foreign Film nominee The Great Beauty, there is actually a recipe- a recipe that ends up being a crucial part of minor character’s personality sketch. 

At a dinner held in honor of a nun nicknamed “The Saint”, a self-absorbed, pampered Catholic Cardinal tries in vain to horde attention as he explains how to make coniglio alla Ligure, or Ligurian Rabbit.  As he walks through the steps of cutting the rabbit into pieces, browning each in olive oil, adding olives, tomatoes, and wine, I had a moment of recognition.  I know this recipe!  In fact, I have been making it for years. 

It all started with a similar recipe from a Jamie Oliver cookbook.  Rabbit, however, can be hard to find.  And though I’m a big fan, I understand some people can’t get past thinking “Thumper” when they see rabbit is on the menu.  So I adapted the recipe to work with chicken, a fine substitute and a universal crowd pleaser. 

Browning the chicken

Essentially, the steps I do are the same as the cardinal’s.  I start by dredging a quartered chicken in seasoned flour then brown each piece in a heavy pot (think Le Creuset) with a good amount of olive oil.  To the pot I add a sliced onion, garlic, pitted olives, chopped tomatoes, and rosemary.  White wine comes up to the sides of the meat and a lid goes on.  Twenty-five minutes later the house is fragrant, and dinner is made.  All you need is a good loaf of crusty bread to sop up the juices. 

All ingredients in the pot

In the movie, the cardinal’s grandstanding may have failed to impress the other dinner guests, but the recipe made an impression on me.  A few nights after watching the film I cut up a small chicken and made a pot of Ligurian Chicken.  John and I polished off a baguette dipping the bread into our bowls to soak up the rich braising liquid. 

There will certainly be well-dressed people on Sunday night who go home empty-handed.  And you might not win the office pool.  But when it comes to viewing party food, there's no excuse to feel glum.  With dish of movie-inspired braised chicken to dig into, everyone is a winner.

Another food that plays a prominent role is the blackberries that Solomon Northrop crushes to make a form of ink in order to write a letter in 12 Years a Slave.  Blackberries are not in season now, but if you can find a pint, a simple dessert of berries with maybe a dollop of whipped cream would be a fitting finish. 

Ligurian Chicken

1 small chicken, quartered

1/3 cup flour

1 tsp. salt

½ tsp. ground black pepper

3 T. olive oil

1 small onion, cut in half and thinly sliced

4 garlic cloves, lightly crushed

8 kalamata olives, pitted

2 Roma tomatoes, chopped

2 spring rosemary

½ bottle dry white wine

salt and pepper to taste

Quarter a small chicken or have your butcher do it for you, leaving skin on.  Mix flour with 1 tsp. salt and ½ tsp. black pepper on a large plate.  Dredge each piece of chicken in the flour mixture shaking off excess.  Heat olive oil in a large heavy pot over medium high heat.  Add breast pieces skin side down.  Cook until crisp and browned.  Turn over for a minute on the other side.  Remove to a plate and let rest.  Add thigh pieces to the pot skin side down.  When thighs are browned on the skin side, turn over.  Add onion and garlic around the chicken thighs.  Cook for 3-4 minutes until onion has begun to soften.  Nestle breast pieces and their juices back in the pot with the thighs and onion.  Scatter olives and tomatoes with their juices around the chicken.  Tuck two sprigs of rosemary in with the chicken.  Add wine until it comes ¾ of the way up the sides of the meat, but do not fully cover.  Bring wine to a boil.  Reduce heat to medium low.  Place the pot lid on leaving it slightly askew to let out some steam and allow the wine to reduce.  Cook for about 20-25 minutes until chicken is cooked through and liquid is slightly reduced.  Add additional salt and pepper if necessary to the sauce.  Remove and discard the rosemary.  Serve chicken with the braising liquid and a side of crusty bread. 

Amy Powell is a food and travel writer based in New York City. She is a graduate of Cornell University's School of Hotel Administration and the French Culinary Institute. Follow her on Twitter @amymariepowell

Raw Summer Squash Salad

Best Thing I Cooked This Week

Friends of mine recently signed up for a CSA share.  You know, that program with the mystery boxes. Community Supported Agriculture they call it.  Once a week people in communities all over America pick up or are delivered a cornucopia of local farmers delights- asparagus and peas in April, corn and tomatoes in August, and the usual assortments of greens and other good-for-you produce. 

But as my friends have discovered, more often than not, their box includes an abundance of certain vegetables that, though they may grow like weeds this time of year, are not part of their regular cooking repertoire for two adults and two children under the age of two.  (“Help!” She once wrote.  “What do I do with all these radishes?”)

On the upside, the couple has grown increasingly fond of some vegetables they would never have purchased in the past.  Kohlrabi, for instance, now regularly gets sliced and added to stir-fries.   

But sometimes, particularly in this abundant time of the year, the mystery box overwhelms their culinary imagination and leaves them facing an unused pile of produce with no clue what the next move should be.

After a recent visit I was the beneficiary of my friends’ excess, helping them to make a smoky eggplant dip out of an oversized version of the purple nightshade.  I also took home several summer squash and zucchini vowing to use it in a way that would be novel for me.

As a child, the texture of cooked zucchini and yellow squash led me to dramatic gagging episodes at the dining room table.  (I have only somewhat matured past that stage.) A raw salad on the other had would protect against any displeasing texture and bring new possibilities for seasoning with fresh herbs, nuts, and maybe even cheese.

The mandolin made quick work of the squash, slicing it into paper-thin sheets in a matter of minutes.  I then squeezed over the juice of a couple lemons and let the two hang for a couple of hours.  The acid from the lemon was just strong enough to gently soften the squash without disintegrating.  To finish dressing the salad it needed little more than good olive oil, salt, and pepper.  As I had some basil on hand I tossed in a good handful of torn leaves.  For crunch I threw in some slivered almonds.  Finally for a bit of tang, some crumbled cotija cheese.

That night a few girlfriends who were over for dinner gobbled the salad down.  Two days later, I made another batch for myself for a light lunch.  The combination of squash, cheese, nuts and herbs I settled on was delightful but I could have easily substituted pine nuts for the almonds, parsley or mint for the basil, and feta or shaved parmesan for the cotija and would have been perfectly happy.  Between the CSA’s, farmer’s market and friends’ personal gardens, I’m sure I’ll have plenty of chances to keep experimenting.

Raw Summer Squash Salad

Serves: 4

1 large zucchini

1 large yellow summer squash

2 lemons

3 T. olive oil

Salt 

Pepper

handful of basil, torn or cut in a chiffonade

1 oz. Cotija cheese (feta would be nice, as would shaved Parmesan)

¼ cup slivered almonds

Slice the zucchini and yellow squash thin on a mandolin or with a thin, sharp knife.  Squeeze the juice of two lemons over.  Let sit for a couple of hours until the squash has softened a bit and soaked up the lemon.  Toss with olive oil, basil, crumbled cheese, almonds, and salt and pepper to taste.  

Amy Powell is a food and travel writer based in New York City. She is a graduate of Cornell University's School of Hotel Administration and the French Culinary Institute. Follow her on Twitter @amymariepowell

Vacation Smackdown

 OR, How to Eat Your Way to a Holiday

Sri Lankan Pork Curry and Curried Green Beans

There are many ways to choose a vacation, but few (at least that I’ve heard of) involve a weekend-long smackdown.  Needless to say, John and I have never been the types to take travel lightly.  Our holiday destination this year wouldn’t just present itself in the form of a friend’s wedding, or family reunion.  No, our vacation location would have to work for it. 

Several months ago we had been tossing a few ideas back and forth for a late June holiday.  We knew some serious discussions would need to be had, and fast, if we were going to book flights and rooms before prices turned astronomical.  After batting around a few locales (Burma- monsoon season, Peru- winter, Nepal- too hot) we whittled the global list of possibilities down to a surviving two.  Sardinia has long loomed in our gustatory and beach fantasies and yet never had either of us set foot on those fabled sandy shores.  On the other hand, both of us had been to Sri Lanka, but we had such a good time on our last visit, we considered visiting for a second time in just two years.

With no clear champion between the finalists, John decided the best way to form a conclusion was to have the countries face off in a weekend-long analysis of the pros and cons.  We were having a vacation-off. 

Geographically and culturally Sri Lanka and Sardinia fall on opposite ends of the spectrum.  So to measure these against each other we decided on some clear categories for comparison- logistics (flight times, number of legs), cost (flights, hotels, in-country transport, expected food prices), and (obviously) food.  It is worth mentioning that because Sri Lanka and Sardinia are both blessed with the sort of fairy tale beaches one thinks only exists in the glossy pages of travel magazines, we called the beach requirement a draw. 

Surprisingly, even though Sri Lanka is a full 4000 miles further away from New York than Sardinia as the crow flies, it was not necessarily quicker to get to.  Limited flight times and the number of connections meant total travel time to either destination was about the same. 

As for cost, Sri Lanka would be the more expensive plane ticket.  However, we read enough travel blogs to know that we should expect to pay handsomely for mere decent accommodations during the Sardinian high season.  And food, well, even if a plate of pasta in Sardinia is cheap for Italy, nothing can beat the $6 per person curry and rice specials in Sri Lanka where dishes emerge from the kitchen in quantities no person in their right mind could finish.

Cookbooks used for reference in the cooking smackdown

That just left the cuisine.  Since we are not the types to travel to Thailand and end up eating at a German schnitzel restaurant, the local foods would need to be meals we not just tolerated but loved.  So it was we started the weekend with the Sardinian specialty, fregola, and finished the smack down with a Sri Lankan pork curry. 

The fregola I cooked slowly with diced tomatoes, sweet sausage, and chorizo.  I stirred in parsley at the end for a good herbal kick.  John lapped up his dish and declared that it should be a permanent additional to our household dinner rotation. 

Two days of research and debate later I was working on our pork curry lunch when it hit me.  I’d made up my mind where we should go this summer.  But first we needed to eat. 

Fregola with sweet sausage and chorizo

John had been out running errands and walked back into our apartment to find the powerful aromas of cinnamon, ginger, and lemongrass wafting from a wok where the aromatics were simmering away with cubes of lean pork shoulder.  I stood back from the stove as he leaned over to inspect my work and dip his finger in the sauce for a taste.  

“I think I know what we should do.”

He cocked an eye.  “Really?”

“Yep.”  I handed him a fork and he speared a cube of meat.  He tipped his head back and closed his eyes. A look of blissful meditation passed over him while he chewed.  He let out a slight groan and slowly fluttered open his lids.  “Want to guess?” 

A smile crossed his face.  “Well, if you’re thinking what I’m thinking right now….” 

The aroma of cinnamon, fiery heat of the curries, beauty of the white sandy beaches, and smiling faces of the people on this Pearl of the Indian Ocean were all calling our names.  For this year at least, the smackdown was settled and Sri Lanka declared the victor.

Sri Lankan Spiced Pork

(adapted from “The Exotic Tastes of Paradise” by Felicia Wakwella Sorensen)

2 lb. lean, boneless pork shoulder, cut into 1 inch cubes

Salt

Pepper

3 T. vegetable oil

3 shallots

1 inch piece of ginger

3 cloves garlic

6 curry leaves, or 3 bay leaves

2 inch piece lemongrass

2 inch piece cinnamon

1 T. paprika

1 T. ground coriander

1 T. ground cumin

1 tsp. chili powder

¼ cup white vinegar

1 ½ c. water

Pat pork cubes dry.  Season on all sides with salt and pepper.  Heat oil in a large wok over medium high heat.  Working in four batches, brown pork on all sides.  Remove browned pork to a platter using a slotted spoon and repeat with remaining uncooked pork.  While pork is browning, peel and thinly slice shallots. Peel ginger and julienne.  Peel garlic and finely chop.  Once all pork is browned and resting on the platter, add shallots, ginger and garlic to the wok (if wok is dry, add additional 1 T. vegetable oil).  Stir fry garlic and ginger for two minutes until fragrant.  Add curry leaves, lemongrass, cinnamon stick, paprika, coriander, cumin, and chili powder. Stir-fry for another 60 seconds until fragrant.  Add vinegar, water, and browned pork to the pan.  Bring to a simmer then cover with a lid and reduce heat to medium low.  Cook covered until pork is very tender, about forty-five minutes.  Remove lid and return heat to medium high.  Simmer until liquid has reduced to a thick sauce.  Taste and adjust seasoning with additional salt and pepper if desired.  Serve with rice. 

Amy Powell is a food and travel writer based in New York City. She is a graduate of Cornell University's School of Hotel Administration and the French Culinary Institute. Follow her on Twitter @amymariepowell