6 Ways to Use Up Leftover Wine

Everyday Cooking, fish, Fleish: Meat and Poultry, Useful Flavorings and Relishes, Useful Information, Wine and Vinegar 4 Responses »

Sep 202010

use up your leftover wine

The wine was good, but dinner’s over and there’s just a little left in the bottle. What can you do with it?

Keep it. Even a little wine does magic things to your cooking.

1. Make your own wine vinegar. It’s easy. You’ll need a clean glass jar and a bottle of commercial vinegar with the “mother of vinegar” – wisps of original vinegar-making material in it. Organic vinegars work best.

Pour the bottle of vinegar into your jar. Add any leftover wine to it. You can mix wines if you want, but the vinegar does taste better if you keep separate jars for white and red.
Cover the jar with cheesecloth or a paper towel. Secure it with a rubber band.
Store at room temperature, away from any open bottles of wine. You don’t want vinegar bacteria getting into your drink.
Stir once daily and start tasting after a week. Some vinegar will evaporate, so keep adding leftover wine.
Don’t be startled if a new “mother” starts forming at the bottom of the jar. This is a sign of good health. Once it’s firm, you can pick it out of the jar with tongs and give it away, compost it, or use it to start a fresh supply of vinegar.
Start using the vinegar when it’s gotten sour enough to suit you.

2. Blend up a wine vinaigrette. Leftover white wine makes an elegant, fresh-tasting salad dressing or sauce for fish, chicken, or vegetables. You’ll need:

1/3 cup white wine
1/4 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice (from 2 to 3 lemons)
1 teaspoon honey – if the wine is dry. If using a sweet wine, omit the honey.
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
3/4 cup olive oil

Blend the wine, lemon juice, honey, salt, and pepper in a bowl. Still blending (either with a fork, whisk, or the blender), add the oil, slowly.
Mix again just before serving.

That’s it. The vinaigrette will keep up to a week refrigerated.

3. Poach pears in wine. This dessert makes a welcome light ending to a rich meal. Use red or rosé wine. Follow this link for the recipe.

4. Marinate beef, chicken, fish, or tofu in wine. Use your judgment; red wine for red meat, white or rosé for chicken, white for fish or tofu. Keep in mind how the color of the wine will affect the look of the finished dish: will you mind if your chicken looks purple?

A simple marinade:

1 cup leftover wine, 2 tablespoons olive oil, 1 thinly-sliced onion, 1 crushed garlic clove, 1 tablespoon soy sauce, ½ teaspoon ground or freshly-grated ginger, a strip of orange peel as long as your forefinger, 1 bay leaf.

Lay the raw meat (or fish, or tofu) in the marinade. Refrigerate immediately till you’re ready to cook the dish. Note: Meat, chicken, and tofu may be marinated ½-hour to overnight in the fridge. Fish will “cook” and fall apart if left longer than ½-hour in the marinade.
Turn the ingredients over half-way into the marinating time so that they will absorb the flavors evenly.
Remove the marinaded ingredient from the liquid. Now grill, sauté, or roast your dish.
Don’t throw the marinade liquid out either. You can cook it down in a saucepan till it’s thick and spoon it over the finished dish for yet more flavor.

5. Use leftover wine as part of the liquid in tomato sauce or gravy. The perceptible “winey” flavor will cook out, but the sauce will take on a richness and depth that wasn’t there before. On the other hand, if you stir the wine in just a few minutes before you intend to serve, the the sauce will have a delicious winey top note to harmonize with the deeper, rich notes of cooked vegetables.

6. Freeze your leftover wine.Use sealable bags to store your leftover wine, even quarter-cupfuls, in the freezer. You can then break off however much you think you’ll need, as you need it.

Use up or freeze your leftover wine within a day if it’s been left out, or a week if it’s been re-corked and kept in the fridge. Wine that’s old and tastes unpleasant is only fit to be poured down the drain.

I love the taste of roast-lamb gravy enriched with a last-minute dollop of red wine. My grandmother, who studied the art of sauces at the Cordon Bleu (back in the 1950s), used to make roast lamb with wine gravy – and when I cook it like she did, vivid memories of summertime dinners at Grandma and Grandpa’s house come back to me.

Pargiot: Chicken Thighs in an Almond Crust

Fleish: Meat and Poultry, Rosh HaShana, What's Cooking for Shabbos and Yom Tov 4 Responses »

Aug 302010

Okay, light eaters – here’s another easy dish for the Rosh HaShanah table.This features the juicier dark meat of chicken, covered in a nutty, herby, almond crust to protect it while baking. I fixed it for Shabbat so I could photograph it for you (before Shabbat) – but never said so to the Little One, who ate two.

It takes 10 minutes to prepare and about half an hour in the oven. Figure on 1-2 pieces per serving, depending on people’s appetites. The adults ate one each and were satisfied, but hungry growing young people in your house may want more.

The first thing is to get deboned chicken thighs (in Israel, Pargiot). The next thing is to prepare one bowl for the beaten eggs and another bowl for the crumb/almond mix.

Then…but I’m giving it away. It’s so fast to make, it’s fun.

Chicken Thighs in an Almond Crust

adapted from Al HaShulchan magazine, July 2009 edition

8 portions

Ingredients:

8 deboned chicken thighs

100 grams – 1/2 cup sliced, blanched almonds

200 grams – 1-1/4 cup dry bread crumbs

2 eggs

1/4 teaspoon soy sauce

2 garlic cloves, crushed

1/4 teaspoon crushed, dried thyme

1/2 teaspoon salt

freshly-ground black pepper

olive oil to drizzle

Method:

Preheat oven to 180° C – 350° F

1. In one bowl, mix the almonds and bread crumbs.

2. In the other bowl, beat the egs with the soy sauce, crushed garlic, salt, and some pepper.

3. Dip both sides of the chicken thighs in the egg, then in the crumb mixture.

4. Roll up and place each piece of chicken on a baking tray lined with baking paper. If lots of the crumb mixture has fallen off the pieces, just pat some back on.

5. Drizzle with olive oil. Cover all loosely with a sheet of foil. Don’t tuck the edges in. You want to keep the almond crust from burning, but to bake, not poach, the chicken.

6. Bake 30 minutes. The crust should be golden and the chicken tender.

Note: This dish reheats nicely on a hotplate or in a dry skillet over a flame-tamer. Keep the chicken tightly covered with foil when reheating, so it doesn’t dry out.

Turkey Breast Stuffed With Fruit and Nuts

Fleish: Meat and Poultry, Rosh HaShana, What's Cooking for Shabbos and Yom Tov 17 Responses »

Aug 182010

In my last post, I promised some festive recipes for Rosh HaShanah that sit easy on the stomach. Turkey breast, stuffed with dried fruit and nuts, and sometimes rice or couscous, fits the ticket. This is how you do it.

Buy, for 6 servings, one-half boneless turkey breast. Either ask the butcher to cut a pouch into it, or do it yourself at home. It’s surprisingly easy. The half-breast resembles a longish triangle. Insert a long, sharp knife into the widest part and carefully, not to poke holes in the flesh along the way, just slide the knife along till you have a pouch. Move it from side to side gently to enlarge the opening. The meat is very tender and will readily tear, so go slowly. That’s all there is to it; the turkey breast is ready to be stuffed.

Something to remember about cooking a turkey breast: unless you get it with the skin on, it will dry out in a blink, so protect it by using in a roasting bag, or make a bag of foil for it.

And before it goes in the oven, splash some good olive oil all over it to keep it moist, then season it with paprika, salt and pepper, and your favorite herbs. A little white wine or cognac, or soy sauce, or chicken soup, or a tablespoon of each in any combination, adds flavor and keeps the moisture factor up.

Turkey Breast Stuffed With Fruit and Nuts

serves 6

Ingredients:

1 half turkey breast

1/2 cup mixed, chopped dried apricots, cranberries, raisins

1/2 cup mixed chopped nuts: walnuts, pecans, hazelnuts, pine nuts

1 small onion, chopped

1/2 teaspoon dried thyme or 1 teaspoon fresh thyme

1/2 teaspoon salt

freshly ground black pepper to taste

optional: 1/2 cup cooked rice

2 tablespoons white or light red wine, or 2 tablespoons cognac, or chicken soup, or a mixture of 2 teaspoons soy sauce with any of them

paprika

an additional 1/2 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons olive oil

A sprig of rosemary or two small bay leaves

A handful of scallions

1 peeled and slightly mashed garlic clove

Method:

1. Mix the fruit, nuts, optional rice, onion, salt, pepper, and wine. Stuff the mixture into the turkey breast.

2. Sprinkle paprika and additional 1/2 teaspoon salt all over the breast. Pour the olive oil over the breast and spread it on all sides. If any stuffing falls out, just scoop it up and place it under the breast when baking it.

3. Place the stuffed, seasoned breast in the roasting bag or in a tent of foil. Add the wine and the fresh herbs.

Close and puncture the roasting bag as per instructions. Or make the foil tent. Place the breast on a long strip of foil; pick up the edges of the foil at right and left and bring them together, pinching them at the top to make a tent-like package. Pinch one side closed but leave the other side open for ventilation so that you get roasted, not poached meat.

Bake at 350°F, 180°C for 1 hour. Check after one hour for doneness. If the meat still seems too pink, bake it another 15 minutes. Once you’re sure it’s done, remove from the oven at once. Let the meat rest for 10 minutes before serving.

Now: let’s say you were too nervous with the knife and wound up making huge holes all over the meat. Never mind. Slice it all the way open and just stuff the stuffing inside like this:

Fold one half over the other and press it down.

If it’s really flopping open, tie it up with kitchen string. The cooking juices will seal the pieces together again and the cooked dish will look like the photo at the top.

Here are slices of a turkey breast I stuffed with the optional rice:

This is excellent cold, too.

Roast Chicken with Yellow Plums and mango memories

Fleish: Meat and Poultry No Responses »

Jul 292010

image-roast-chicken-plums

When I bit into one of these attractive plums, I knew I’d made a mistake. It was plump and juicy. It should have been sweet. Surprise, it was sour. I stood there with the plum in my hand, wondering what to do with a box full of sour fruit. While I stood and pondered, the sour taste took me back in time to my my parent’s house in Caracas.

The house had a small, grassy back yard where my mother grew roses and hung a bird feeder on a pole. Two old mango trees with a hammock strung up between them shaded our outdoor naps. When my parents first took the house, both trees were infested with some tropical fungus and didn’t produce fruit. Mom hosed them down fiercely, twice a day, and eventually the trees healed and started producing mangoes again.

Lots of mangoes. We would just slice a sweet, juicy, ripe one and eat it over the kitchen sink. Left a wicker basket full of mangoes by the door and obliged any visitor to take some on their way out. There were so many, we discovered ways to serve them green. Did you know that you can substitute green mangoes for apples in pie? It’s delicious.

In the evenings after dinner, a neighbor or two would drop by and sit down with my Dad on the front porch. Mom would set shot glasses and a bottle of rum on a small table there, with a plate of sliced green mangoes. The men would dip the sour fruit into salt and savor their drinks with this piquant nibble. The ladies would sit slightly apart with Mom, usually drinking lemonade, sometimes beer. Once in a while one would get up and reach for a slice of mango biche.

Soft voices of women speaking Spanish, men chuckling together and smoking cigars. Warm night scented with jasmine. Green mangoes, rum, cool drinks. More peaceful times in Venezuela than now.

Well. A lot of memories sprung up from a mouthful of green fruit. But I still needed to do something with those plums.

And I had this chicken that needed roasting. I knew from the mangoes that the plums’ hidden sweetness would emerge with a dusting of salt, so I put them together, adding an encouraging drizzle of date honey as well. Then my eye fell on a big, sweet purple plum. I added it to the roasting pan. It turned the cooking juices a beautiful wine color.

Roast Chicken With Sour Yellow Plums

serves 5-6

Ingredients:

1 roasting chicken

1 tablespoon olive oil

1/2 teaspoon turmeric

1/2 teaspoon ground ginger

dustings of salt and white pepper

4 sour yellow plums, halved and pitted. Use sour apples or peeled green mangoes if no plums available.

1 large red onion, sliced

1 large, sweet red plum

1/4 cup sweet or semi-sweet white wine

2 tablespoons silan date honey, or maple syrup, or plain honey

Method:

Preheat oven to 350° F – 180° C.

1. Rinse and dry the chicken. Drizzle the olive oil over it, and rub it into the skin and flesh of the chicken thoroughly. Powder the chicken with the dry spices.

2. Place the chicken on the rack of a roasting pan. Put the yellow plums here and there around the bird. Scatter the sliced red onion over it. Place the purple plum on the rack so that it will cook and drip juice onto the bottom of the roasting pan.

3. Pour the wine into the roasting pan. Lightly salt the yellow plums, then drizzle the date honey or other sweet syrup over them. Pour a little olive oil over the onion slices to prevent their drying up.

4. Roast the bird for 1 hour, basting occasionally with the pan juices. Mix the juices up a little with a long-handled spoon or the tip of the basting tube, so that the red plum juice colors them. Make sure to baste the yellow plums with this; it gives them an appetizing reddish tinge.

When the chicken’s roasted through, remove from the oven, allow it to rest 10 minutes, and serve.

-image-roasted-yellow-plum

image-roast-chicken-plums

Lamb Osso Bucco

Fleish: Meat and Poultry 2 Responses »

Apr 252010

lamb osso bucco with fresh fava beans

Here’s the main dish I served at our Independence Day feast. Fork-tender and so savory – just how I like meat, on the rare occasions I eat it. And not hard to make at all. Your oven will do most of the work for you.

I liberally scattered fresh, green fava beans over the osso bucco. They were delicious, but a pain to prepare. You not only have to remove the beans from the pod, you have to make a slit in the waxy white covering of each bean and pop it out, by hand. The Little One got that job.

We ate them piled up on toasted slices of sourdough bread. Next time, I’ll use frozen favas, or just steam some green beans and serve them on the side.

You’ll need chicken stock or soup ready, and some red wine.

Lamb Osso Bucco

Serves 5

Ingredients:

1 kg. lamb slices cut off the neck, bone in – about 10 round slices

1 cup flour

1 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. pepper

4 tablespoons olive oil

1 onion, chopped

1/2 cup celery, diced

1/2 cup carrot, diced

5 garlic cloves, peeled and chopped

2 bay leaves

1 cup dry red wine

2 cups chicken soup

2 tomatoes, chopped

Method:

Preheat the oven to 300° F – 150° C.

1. Put the flour on a large platter and season it with salt and pepper. Drag each slice of lamb through the flour on both sides, coating it well.

2. Use a large skillet. Heat the olive oil a little, then brown the lamb slices on both sides. Set the browned meat aside on another platter.

lamb osso bucco, floured and frying

3. Using the same skillet and perhaps adding a touch more olive oil, cook the chopped onion, carrots and celery with the bay leaves. When the vegetables are becoming tender, add the garlic. Cook 1 minute more.

4. Raise the flame and pour the red wine into the vegetables, stirring gently to deglaze.

5. When the wine is mostly evaporated, add the meat and the tomatoes.

Now you can either finish the cooking in the skillet, if it’s oven-proof, or place the meat and vegetables in a baking dish. Either way…

6. Stir everything up, then add the chicken soup.

7. Place the skillet or baking dish in the oven. Cover it. Bake for 2 hours or until the irresistible aroma drives you to fork a piece right out the oven.

Serve right out of the skillet or piled up on a warm platter. Scatter with fava beans or not – but serve with a steamed green vegetable to foil the richness of the meat.

Meatballs with Swiss Chard

Everyday Cooking, Fleish: Meat and Poultry 1 Response »

Feb 162010

kurdish-meatballs-with-swiss-chard Sarah Melamed of Foodbridge put this recipe on her blog on January 25th, and I’ve cooked it twice since then. Even the Little One, who’s suspicious of vegetables, loved it. But – you know how it is – I adapted it somewhat. I made a double batch using dried herbs and white wine. Sarah’s recipe is the pure goods. My version is this variation.

Meatballs with Swiss Chard

Ingredients:

1 bunch of swiss chard, washed

500 grams – 1 lb. ground turkey or beef

1 onion, grated

1 egg

2 tablespoons bread crumbs

1 teaspoon salt, or more to taste

1/4 teaspoon black pepper

1 teaspoon dried, crushed herbs: sage, rosemary, oregano, thyme – alone or in any combination.

Juice of 1 lemon (I used 1/2 preserved lemon instead)

3 cloves garlic

1 cup water or chicken stock

1 cup white wine

1 tsp. cornstarch

1 small bunch scallions

Method:

1. Cut away the hard white stem of the Swiss chard leaves. Reserve them.

2. Put the green leaves in a large pan without any added water. Cook, covered, over low heat till they wilt.

3. Allow the greens to cool and chop them finely.

4. Into a bowl, put the meat, egg, onion, chopped Swiss chard, bread crumbs and spices.

5. Mix, then knead till you have a firm, well-blended mix.

6. Prepare a skillet with a little oil on the bottom. Fry the meatballs for 5 minutes on each side, just enough to make them hold together and to give them a good brown color. Remove the meatballs to a plate and set aside.

7. Dissolve the cornstarch in a little water. To the still-hot frying pan, add 1 cup white wine and stir, loosening up any bits of meat. Add the dissolved cornstarch and stir, 1 minute.

8. Cut the white part of the beet stems into finger-sized pieces.

9. In a large pan, fry the garlic in olive oil for 2 minutes and add the lemon juice. Add the meatballs, white wine/cornstarch mixture, and beet stems. Add the 1 cup water or stock, and more if needed to cover the meatballs.

10. Cook, covered, 20 minutes or until the meatballs are done.

11. Uncover the pot and cook the liquid down to thicken it.

12. Chop the scallions and scatter them over the meatballs just before bringing them to the table.

Really good.

Another note: To accompany this, I made white rice that had 1 peeled, chopped tomato, 1 bay leaf, and 2 cloves of crushed garlic in it.

Curried Turkey Salad

Fleish: Meat and Poultry, What's Cooking for Shabbos and Yom Tov 7 Responses »

Apr 292009

I have a really awful confession to make. I’m going to say it right here on the blog. OK: this Independence Day…

I didn’t barbecue anything.

I know. I know. How anti-folklorico; how unpatriotric. All day, the enticing odor of grilled meat blew across the neighborhood and through my open windows. Everyone was barbecuing. And I served cold turkey.

It was pretty good, though.

*

Curried Turkey Salad

I serve this festive turkey salad on those searing summer Shabbatot when we’re all melting away and the appetite craves something light, varied, and cold. Today was hot enough.

Amounts are given only loosely because the final taste of the salad depends on the taste of the cook. But for 4-5 generous servings, start with a kilo of turkey breast, cubed as in the 3rd photo of the Passover Turkey Bites post. I ask the butcher to do this.

Best is to cook it in chicken stock, and that’s what I always do, but in a pinch, make a quick broth. Simmer water with an onion, a carrot, 2 large garlic cloves, 2 stalks of celery, salt, and some soy sauce for 1/2 hour and proceed.

Ingredients:

1 kg. cubed turkey breast

good-quality mayonnaise

fresh, fragrant curry powder

salt and pepper

2 healthy spring onions (scallions), thinly sliced

1/2 cup raisins, or mixed raisins and dried cranberries

1 tart green apple, washed but not peeled, and chopped into large dice

1/2 red bell pepper, diced

2 stalks of celery, thinly sliced

1/2 cup toasted cashews or peanuts

chutney, coconut, hot sauce, extra sliced scallions, nuts, and chopped red peppers – for later

Method:

1.Simmer the cubed turkey in soup or a quickly-made broth for 25 minutes, or till cooked through but still firm.

Note: strain the broth and cook rice with it, or save it for another purpose.

2. Remove the cubes from the soup and put them in a bowl. Allow them to cool, covered.

3. In another bowl, put 4 Tblsp. of mayonnaise. You may add more as the process of creating the salad goes on.

4. Add 1 Tblsp. of curry to the mayonnaise and mix very well.

5. Add the cooled turkey cubes to the curried mayonnaise and mix.

6. Now start adding the other ingredients. Mix well and start tasting. More mayo? More curry? More raisins? Add it, mix, and taste again. When you’ve achieved the blend of sweet/savory/crunchy that you like, it’s ready. My family loves the apple in this salad, so I always make sure there’s a whole chopped apple in there. But they’re not crazy about bell pepper, so I only put in half of one. The only way to know is by continuing to add and taste till you’re happy with it.

If you’re not serving the salad right away, cover it tightly and keep it refrigerated till needed. It will keep 24 hours in the fridge.

Mound the salad onto a platter and scatter toasted nuts over it. Serve this with plain white rice, a leafy salad, and very cold beer.

Place small dishes of chutney and extra nuts, sliced scallions, raisins, coconut, and hot sauce around the table. Dig in.

Mafroum – Tunisian Stuffed Potatoes

Fleish: Meat and Poultry, Just Hungry, vegetables 23 Responses »

Nov 092008

This dish melts in your mouth with a truly Sephardic aroma and taste. It’s a filling, comforting winter food, too. This time I made it without the cabbage that the recipe calls for, but if you do add cabbage, it becomes a near-complete meal needing only rice or couscous to round it out. Since I was serving only four at the time I made this, you will see four potatoes in the photos, but the recipe is made to serve six. There was meat left over, out of which I made meatballs that cooked alongside the potatoes. It’s a lot of chopping, but the combination of meat and potatoes cooked on a low flame till tender in a delicious, spicy sauce, makes a dish well worth the effort.

You’ll need 6 bowls or containers, medium sized

Mafroum serves 6

Source: Fresh Flavors from Israel, a book from the Al HaShulchan magazine

Potatoes:

6 medium potatoes of uniform size, peeled

salt and pepper

flour

2 beaten eggs

Oil for frying

Stuffing:

500 gr. ground beef

1 cup chopped fresh parsley

1/2 tsp. salt and ground black pepper

* 2/3 tsp. Baharat spice

1/3 tsp. ground turmeric

1/2 Tblsp. sweet paprika

1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon

Chili pepper to taste

1/2 tsp. ground ginger

1 potato, grated coarsely, rinsed, and drained till dry

Sauce:

1 large, chopped onion

4 crushed cloves of garlic

4 stalks celery, coarsely chopped

3 Tblsp. tomato paste

1/2 cup chopped tomatoes

1 tsp. salt

One-quarter of a cabbage, cut into coarse chunks

Approx. 1 liter stock or water – I used chicken soup

3 Tblsp. each of fresh mint, parsley, and celery leaves, chopped

Method:

Prepare the potatoes:

Mix the meat and seasonings for stuffing.

Beat it well to mix thoroughly, or get in there with your hands.

Cover the seasoned meat and put it away in the fridge for half an hour, to allow the seasonings to penetrate.

In the meantime, get three bowls out. You’re going to chop the ingredients for the sauce.

Chop the large onion. Put it in one bowl.

In the second bowl put the chopped garlic and celery stalks.

Dice the tomato and put it in the third bowl.

Now prepare the potatoes for stuffing. Peel the potatoes, if you haven’t already, and slice each one almost in half. Leave the bottom uncut so that the two halves stay connected. Stuff the potatoes with the seasoned meat. Pack it in. The open side will show a thicker layer of meat than the inside. With your finger, neatly pat back any meat that spills out of the opening.

In a wide pan, heat the oil for frying.

Beat the eggs. Put about 1 cup of flour in yet another bowl and season it with s&p.

Roll the potatoes in the seasoned flour; shake them back and forth gently to cover them.

Now roll them in the beaten egg.

Fry the potatoes until golden, turning once. Tongs work better than a spatula for this.

Remove from the frying pan and put on paper towels to drain.

Pour out most of the frying oil. Saute the onion in the remaining oil, till golden.

Add the garlic and celery stalks. Fry for 4 minutes.

Add the tomato paste and chopped tomato. Stir, cover, and cook for 10 minutes on low heat.

Season with s&p again, lightly. Add the cabbage and stock or water.

Put the potatoes into the sauce, in one layer. Add the chopped mint, parsley and celery leaves. Put the lid on the pan, tilted to cover it partially. Cook over low heat for 2 hours or until the potatoes are tender.

Serve the potatoes over rice or couscous, with the sauce passed around separately if you wish.

* If Baharat spice mix isn’t available, mix these powdered spices to make your own. Blend well and keep in a tightly-lidded jar.

Baharat Spice Mix

1 Tblsp. cardamom

1 Tblsp. black pepper

1/2 Tbslp. allspice

1 Tblsp. cinnamon

1 Tblsp. dry ginger

1/2 Tblsp. nutmeg

Roast Chicken with Figs

Fleish: Meat and Poultry, Just Hungry, What's Cooking for Shabbos and Yom Tov 6 Responses »

Sep 192008

Late summer is when fresh figs are at their peak. We eat them halved and drizzled with sweet cream for a luxurious breakfast – baked like apples, with a little honey spooned over them – poached in a light white wine syrup. Or just rinsed and eaten as they are. It’s not a cheap fruit, and spoils quickly, too. I try to estimate how much my family will eat, and buy only that much. But this week I did overbuy. They were small purple figs, with a curiously tough skin, although their hearts were red and sweet. What to do with them figs? I decided to roast them together with the Shabbat chicken.

Rosemary and figs taste good together, so I reached into the fridge and pulled out a jar of rosemary-infused olive oil. Then I felt that something was needed to boost the sweetness of the fruit, which otherwise might go unnoticed in all the chickeny things. I might have used honey, but that’s too sweet; or pomegranate molasses, but that’s not sweet enough. Silan, which is date syrup, was the right choice. Lemon seemed logical in this dish. Finally, I had a big handful of basil that needed to get used up. I was set.

Not in the photo is the bottle of Silan. Lacking that Middle Eastern ingredient, you might use two tablespoons of warmed, dark honey. And if rosemary oil isn’t something you normally keep in the fridge, it’s simple enough to make. Just pour about 1/4 cup of olive oil into a small pan; add 3 or 4 twigs of fresh or dried rosemary, and put the pan over the gentlest heat for about 20 minutes. Better is to put the pan inside a larger pan containing boiling water for an hour, and let the oil soak up the rosemary flavor that way – in any case, keep the pan covered while the oil is infusing. Cool and strain the oil before storing it in a jar. It will keep 3 months in the fridge.

Roast Chicken with Figs

Ingedients:

1 whole, clean, roasting chicken

1/2 lemon

2 large cloves of garlic, chopped fine

2 Tblsp. olive oil infused with rosemary

1 Tblsp. coarse salt

Black pepper 3 or 4 grinds of fresh or 1/8 tsp. powdered

1 small bunch of basil leaves, taken off the stems

14 small figs or 8 large ones, halved and their stems cut away

2 Tblsp. plain olive oil, if you don’t have rosemary-infused.

2 Tblsps. silan or warmed, dark honey

a dash of Tamari soy sauce

Method:

1. Squeeze the juice of the lemon over the chicken. Rub the lemon half all over the chicken. Tuck the spent lemon half into the cavity of the chicken. Cover the chicken and let it soak up the lemon while you’re preparing the next steps.

2. In a small bowl, combine 1 Tblsp. of the olive oil with the garlic, coarse salt, black pepper and soy sauce.

3. Rub the oily mix well over the chicken. Sweep up any garlic pieces that my fall onto the roasting pan and scoot them under the chicken.

4. Stuff the basil leaves under the skin of the chicken, anywhere you can find or force room. When in doubt, just put any extra leaves inside the cavity of the chicken alongside the lemon half.

4. Pile the figs up next to the chicken. Drizzle them with the remaining 1 Tblsp. rosemary oil and the silan. It won’t hurt if some of the garlicky mixture for the chicken gets mixed up with them.

5. Tear off a strip of tin foil and fold it so that it covers the figs, but not the chicken. Let the tin foil lie lightly over the figs; don’t tuck it in around them. You don’t want the figs to cook away to nothing while the chicken roasts – the tin foil will protect them.

6. Roast at 350F – 190 C till the chicken is an irresistible golden color and the house smells divine.

Serve with rice or couscous.