*Roasted Chicken and Mushroom Ragout

Say it with me… Rah-gooooo.

This aint yo’ momma’s jar of Ragu’, so don’t even go there.

This is one of my final exam first term projects. I wish all my homework was like this, because it sure tastes better than that freaking pencil eraser I’ve been chewing on all morning during math exercises… which did not help.

Not too sure if it would work, I somehow got a great contrast of sweet and savory with this dish with some unusual ingredients I had laying around. As any good cook will tell you, a recipe is merely a suggestion, not an exact mandate. Seldom will you go to hell for riffing a recipe with success. Like my instructors said, its better to ask for forgiveness later than to ask for permission ahead of time.

With that, I instruct you to get nutso with the mushrooms, herb it up, change out the wine or put a different starch on the bottom. And do NOT leave out the lemon juice. You will thank me for it once you realize what it is doing to your food. Your happy mouth will thank you for bringing to it all the flavors you have missed for years because you thought lemon was stupid.

Collect Yourself

Four chicken leg quarters, skin on

2 cloves of garlic paste, divided

1 1/4 pounds or so of assorted mushrooms (I used Cremini and white, as it was a dry run)

1/2 cup Demi glace or 1/4 cup glace*

1/2 cup Dry White Wine

1/2 cup unsalted chicken stock

3 tablespoons of Thick Soy Sauce**

Thyme sprig

4 shallots, minced

Cold butter, about 3 tablespoons, divided

Salt to taste

Polenta:

6 ounces dried polenta

1 quart of chicken stock

1 large bay leaf

Salt to taste

…and…

1 small butternut squash, halved, seeded and sprayed lightly with oil

Get It Done

(Once you toss everything in the oven, start your polenta.)

Preheat the oven to 375. Put the squash on a baking pan lined with foil cut side up, not down, as usual. You’re gonna let it bake until its still firm, but a knife can pierce it. It should not be falling-apart tender. You are making cubes out of it, not a puree’. Let it cool a little, cut off the skin and cube it into 1/2″ dice as best you can. Keep it in a warm place.

Lift up the skin of the chicken, rub it with one of the cloves of garlic and some kosher salt.. Roast it in the oven on a pan with a cookie rack until done, about 40 minutes. Let cool slightly and then skin it, take it off the bone and chop it into bite sized pieces. Throw it in the fridge until you are ready to finish the dish.

Polenta

Whisk the grains into cold stock, salt the water and taste it- if it is half as salty as you’d like it, stop there.  Add the bay leaf and one of the pureed cloves of garlic. Bring it to a boil and immediately lower the temperature to a simmer- this means the water should not be bubbling, but shimmering in the pot.

Use a silicone spatula and stir the polenta every two minutes or so. It cooks from the bottom up, so stirring is essential. Once it is mostly thickened , taste it and salt it again (and you had better NOT have bubbles of polenta shooting incendiary grains at you in every direction as you stir- this means you have to much heat goin’ on. Knock it off.). Test it for doneness by taking a few grains and pinching it between your thumb and index finger. It should mush with no problem and no teeny hard center left behind. Cover and let it sit off the heat as you do your Ragout.

Ragout

This is so easy, its scary. Don’t let the name or the word Demi Glace freak you out.

Melt one tablespoon butter in a stainless steel saute pan.  Saute the shallots for about a minute. Add the mushrooms and continually shake the pan to get them cooking. When they soften, after about 8 or so minutes,  lift the pan off the heat and add the wine (you will look stupid with no eyebrows). After the vapor cloud disperses, return the pan to the stove and add a pinch of that kosher salt. Let the wine reduce by half.

Add the glace/demi glace, half cup of stock and the thyme sprig. Drop in about two tablespoons of the thick soy sauce, stir and let it bubble down until its reduced by half. This may take up to 30 minutes or so. Keep stirring your polenta, go set the table or let the wine breathe.

Taste it. I bet if you add a pinch of salt, it’ll taste a lot better. If you add a small squirt of lemon juice, too, it’ll rock your socks off… and by little squirt, I mean, about 1/8 teaspoon. Once you have this flavor balanced, add the chicken to the pan, heat it up, coat the meat with sauce, and then find a corner to add the two tablespoons of butter. Constantly and gently, swirl in the butter until it melts and the sauce thickens a little, with a nice sheen to it.

Plate It

Make a mound of polenta, dig a shallow well, sprinkle the squash around the base of the polenta. Put a nice scoop of the ragout in the center of the polenta, add a little sauce. Sprinkle coarse salt over the squash, grab a fork and have at it.

*Demi Glace/Glace notes:

Traditional demi glace is half brown stock, half brown sauce, reduced by half. Glace is clarified stock reduced down to a gelatin consistency through reduction. You can find Demi glace in some finer chi-chi markets (City Market on 23rd in Portland, for one). You can make your own with good stock, a lotta time and energy. I happen to have my own glace stash. Know that bouillon paste is NOT a good substitute, as it is salted heavily and meant for dilution in water, not reduction in sauce.

**Thick Soy Sauce notes: This is NOT sweet soy, hoisin or anything other than thick soy sauce. It is not overly salty, it pours like molasses and it imparts a great color and unobtrusive flavor to the ragout. Please, I beg you, do not fuck with this ingredient.