Chris has been home nursing a broken foot and spending a lot of time on his I-Pad. During his virtual travels, he came across a recipe called "Chicken in Milk" by British celebrity chef and restauranteur Jamie Oliver. Since we have tried, and liked, cooking pork in milk in the past, Chris decided he would try this recipe, and surprised Amy with a nice chicken dinner after she had a long day at work last week.
While this quote appears on the website:
that is not what we found with this recipe. In fact, the sauce was unpleasantly lumpy from the lemon juice curdling the milk, and it was quite lackluster in flavor. We would definitely increase the amounts of ALL of the flavor-inducing ingredients (cinnamon, sage, lemon zest, salt, pepper) and remove the skin from the garlic cloves next time we make this recipe.
Which we will. Why, you ask? Because the thing we most certainly did love about this recipe was how tender the chicken was after cooking in the milk. Milk contains calcium and lactic acid, both of which help break down the protein in meat, thus creating a more tender consistency. We doubt anyone could follow this recipe and come out with dry chicken. Although they will not come out with crispy chicken skin, which is yet another fault with this recipe.
So, to sum up, this is the chicken in milk we made as per Jamie Oliver's recipe. When we make it again, we will create a new post with any and all of our own changes and our updated results.
Jamie Oliver's Chicken in Milk
minimally adapted from here
Ingredients:
1 whole roasting chicken (2-3 lbs.)
sea salt
freshly ground black pepper
olive oil
1/2 stick cinnamon
1 "good handful" fresh sage leaves
zest of 2 lemons
10 cloves garlic, skins on
2 1/2 cups whole milk
Preheat oven to 375 F. Season chicken all over with salt and pepper. Heat olive oil in a pot that is "snug-fitting" for the chicken, then brown it on all sides in the oil. Remove from heat and discard oil from the pot. Add remaining ingredients to the pot with the chicken, then place in preheated oven. Cook for 1 1/2 hours, basting often. Spoon sauce over chicken when serving.
3 comments:
I had this recipe on my folder to try, but suspected that it could have "issues". Your evaluation goes exactly in the direction of my fears... ;-)
I think it does have potential, right? Maybe removing the sauce and blending it, I used to do that with pork cooked in milk when the sauce looked unappealing. And opening the Dutch oven to crisp up the skin while dealing with the sauce?
do you think these would help? I am tempted to try it....
Yes, we think both of those changes could work.
Thanks!
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