Poulet au Porto

Roast Chicken Steeped with Port Wine, Cream, and Mushrooms

This is a dish that is simple, but time consuming.  The time consuming part involves roasting the chicken, which requires you to rotate, and baste the bird every 10 minutes for an hour +.  To save time, go to the grocery store and buy two rotisserie chickets.  Pretty much the same result.

The port-cream sauce is nice and artery clogging.  Towards the end of the process, you add some cognac (I used apple brandy instead) to the chicken and and light it on fire.  This is the first time that I have intentionally lit a dish on fire, which is fun.  Bit of advice, don't announce to the household that you are about to do this.  Assuming that you don't burn the house down, you can later brag triumphantly about your great kitchen prowess.  If I had told Mrs Rye that I was going to set the dish on fire, much stress would have occurred.  Instead, I got say, "Cool, never did that before."

"Did what?" she asks...

You got to love Julia Child for giving these instructions: "Avert your face and light the cognac."
Expecting a mushroom cloud Julia?

Good dish, a lot of work, the chicken finished earlier than I thought that it would and I did not get a chance to roast some veggies for a side dish; which led to frozen lima beans and corn getting microwaved at the last minute.
 

Poulet au Porto and Suffering Succotash!

3 cups = 1 bottle of wine, who knew?

It's Oscar time, and Mrs. Rye is squeezing a years worth of movies into 3 weeks, she recently watched Julie & Julia, and now I have to make Boeuf Bourguignon, the Julia Child version of course.

What's that have to do with a drinking site?  The recipe calls for 3 cups of red wine, which is ever so slightly less than a bottle of wine.

What's Boeuf Bourguignon?  The best damn pot roast that you've ever had.

There are two things that shocked me about this recipe?  I really can't believe that 3 cups is an entire bottle of wine.  Also, before I saw this movie, I thought Julia Child was French.  Turns out that she just spoke oddly.

My sauce should be finished reducing by now.  Bon Appetit!

Schäfer 2003 Pinot Noir - Auslese

This is a pinot noir from Germany that's very sweet.  Actually, it's quite Kool-Aidish.  I bought it to go with the paella for last night's dinner.  It's not sangria sweet, but it's in the ball park.  It's ok.  The seafood and spices bring out some of the structure in the wine.  Food and wine working well together.

Drinker, angry football fan, fantastic cook as well.

Needs to work on the photography though....

Cost: $8.99 for 500 ml, which is 2/3 of a normal bottle

Grade: C+