SUNDAY

Roasted Chickens with Clementines & Pernod  |  Spring Tabbouleh

 

The mercury reached 80°F today!  We ate dinner tonight by candlelight, outside sitting under twinkle lights listening to the tide come in.  Please tell me it is NOT Monday tomorrow…

But let’s hit the rewind button on today…it did not begin as leisurely as it ended.  We were all up by 7:00am {not so bad on a weekday but for a Sunday, really?}…girls needed to get up to the barn and exercise their horses and return to Marin in time to get Maddie to her 12:30pm study group for school.  I needed to get our chicken dish marinating before Michael, Max & I  headed out to a noon baseball warm-up {for a 1:00pm game}.  Oh, and did I mention, I had three loads of  horse laundry to do?  Yes, that is right.   HORSE LAUNDRY, not human laundry {and yes, I have multiple loads of that waiting for me as well}.  Last weekend it was a horse show, this weekend we are on Day 4 of a four-day marathon of baseball!   I did, in fact, get the chicken squared away in the marinade before we left for baseball {like by a minute or less}.  When I eventually arrived home all I needed to do was prep the vegetables & the couscous for the salad while the chicken roasted…

Roasted Chickens with Clementines & Pernod  {adapted from Jerusalem, A Cookbook, by Yotam Ottolenghi & Sami Tamimi}

• ¾ cup Pernod
  
• 8 tablespoons olive oil
• ½ cup freshly-squeezed orange juice
• ½ cup freshly-squeezed lemon juice
• 5 tablespoons whole-grain mustard
• 6 tablespoons light brown sugar
• 2 medium fennel bulbs, quartered
• 2 organic, free-range chickens ~ cut up between legs, thighs, breasts {reserve wings for stock}
• 6 clementines, skin on & thinly sliced
• large handful of fresh thyme sprigs {I used thyme from my own garden!}
• 2 tablespoons of fennel seeds
• finely chopped flat-leaf parsley {I used parsley from my own garden!}
• salt & freshly ground pepper to taste

1. Put the first six ingredients in a large mixing bowl and add salt & pepper to taste.  Whisk well & set aside {this is the marinating liquid}.
2. Trim the fennel and cut each bulb in quarters.
3. In a large roasting pan, place the cut chicken pieces {skin side up} & fennel.  Pour the marinating liquid over the chicken & fennel.  Top with the clementine slices, thyme sprigs, fennel seeds & some of the parsley.  Refrigerate for a few hours or overnight.  Allow pan with chicken and fennel to come to room temperature for 1 hour prior to cooking.
4. Preheat the oven to 475°F.  Place the roasting pan with chicken, fennel, and marinating liquid into the oven and roast for 45-50 minutes, until the chicken is colored and cooked through.  Remove from the oven.
5. Lift chicken, fennel & clementines from the pan and arrange on a serving platter; cover and keep warm.

Now for the  Spring Tabbouleh…{adapted from 101 Cookbooks}

• 1 cup couscous, cooked according to package directions
• 1 bunch of asparagus, cut into 1/2-inch segments
• 1 cup peas, freshly shelled or frozen
• 2 garlic cloves, crushed to a paste with 2 big pinches of salt
• ½ preserved lemon peel, finely diced
• 1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 bunch chives, finely chopped
• ½ cup roasted & salted pistachios

1. Prepare the couscous according to package directions & set aside.
2. Heat olive oil in a heavy skillet until shimmering {but not smoking}.  Add asparagus and cook for 2-3 minutes.  Add diced, preserved lemon peel & crushed garlic to skillet with asparagus.   Cook for 2-3 minutes.  Add ½ of the chives & the pistachios to the skillet.  Remove skillet from heat.
3. Toss vegetables with couscous to form a salad or serve couscous with vegetables as a side/topping.

Our Sunday Dinner plate…

WOW!  That was a mouthful!  In the end, the chicken was probably the BEST we have ever had {and we have enjoyed some amazing chickens}.  So incredibly moist but it was the flavor combination of the Pernod {licorice-flavored liquor} with the citrus {orange & lemon juice, together with the preserved lemon} that set this dish apart from anything we have ever enjoyed in the past.