Roasted Five Spice Chicken

Johanna and I were sitting outside of Little Vietnam Cafe just off of Clement Street in San Francisco, enjoying delicious Vietnamese food, the beautiful weather, and summer solstice, when I suddenly remembered that I had made no plans at all for that night's dinner. Perhaps you've had a similar experience; "mmmm... Green papaya salad; crispy, refreshing papaya shreds, zesty dressing, crunchy peanuts and sesame seeds. Mmmm.... grilled five spice chicken.... Dang! I have to go grocery shopping! What should I make tonight?"

So, as I considered the excellence of five spice, the Asian spice blend of star anise, cloves, Szechuan pepper, Szechuan cinnamon (cassia bark) and fennel, dinner formulated in my mind; I would stop at Berkeley Bowl on the way home and pick up some organic chicken thighs and figure out how to marinate them with five spice powder for dinner.

I consulted a few sources and formulated a recipe; Super tasty? Check. Fast? Check. Easy? Check. Ingredients already in my pantry? Check. In short, a winner, and another fantastic recipe to join the roasted chicken recipe collection. I will be making this dish again - and again.

Five Spice Roasted Chicken

3 pounds of chicken parts (I like thighs)
1/3 cup soy sauce
1 TB dry sherry or rice wine
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 TB five spice powder
2 tsp grated fresh ginger
4 cloves minced garlic

optional: 1/4 cup brown sugar
hot sauce to taste
1 chopped green onion


Wash and dry the chicken parts, and cut off any obvious excess fat, leaving the skin on.

Combine all of the marinade ingredients in a large container and stir to mix. Add the chicken parts, turning them to make sure they are well covered in the marinade. Cover the container and put in the refrigerator. Marinate for at least two hours, turning the pieces occasionally to ensure even marination. You can marinate overnight, which makes it that much more convenient, and will probably make it even tastier. (I'll do this next time and report back!)

Pre-heat the oven to 400 F, and take the chicken out of the refrigerator while it comes up to temperature. Spread the pieces of chicken on a roasting pan skin-side up (I used the broiler pan that came with my stove; it drains the fat away and helps the skin get nice and crispy.) Reserve any leftover marinade to baste the chicken with. Roast the chicken until it is done and the skin is nice and crispy, basting occasionally with the marinade, about 45 minutes.

Serve it with brown rice which has been cooked with chicken broth, and an aromatic white wine such as a Riesling. (We like "Big House White;" while you can get it in a bottle for about $8, you can buy a box of it, equivalent to 4 bottles, for $20. It's cheaper, keeps the wine from going bad, convenient, and earth friendly, as it uses so little packaging.)

Where can I get Five Spice Powder? Most grocery stores now carry it, and around here we can get a little box of organic Five Spice made by Spicely.

Garlic Lime Chicken

Joel has often described his youth in the suburbs of Detroit, when his mother, a highly intelligent and educated woman, (and reluctant housewife), described the preparation of the evening meal thus: "It is four o'clock, and housewives all over America are looking at a chicken and wondering what to do with it."

Well. My limes are so plentiful and ripe, they are falling off the tree, and I happened to have a couple of packages of organic chicken thighs in the refrigerator..... So I decided to try this recipe, which I found three pages away from the fabulous Philippine Adobo recipe I wrote of earlier. Uh, wow. Once again, a deceptively simple recipe, (this time invented by a Gourmet reader), creates a wonderful and complex dish. Delicious, pleasing to all family members, and super fast prep time. You have to do a little advance planning to get the marinade going for the right length of time, but otherwise, easy peasy lemon (or limey) squeezy. Gotta love that short ingredient list! And while it's in the oven, why not squeeze up any leftover limes and make a few margaritas?


Garlic Lime Chicken

Recipe by Bella Jarret of New York City, inspired by a box of limes she received from Florida. From The Gourmet Cookbook.

1/4 cup fresh lime juice
1/4 olive oil
1 TB minced garlic
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp freshly ground pepper
2 pounds skin-on chicken parts: 4 breast halves or 6-8 chicken thighs

Whisk together all of the marinade ingredients in a container just large enough to hold them plus the chicken. Wash, pat dry, and cut off excess pieces of fat, but be sure to leave on the skin. Add the chicken, turning to coat. Marinate, turning once or twice, for at least 2 hours, up to 8 hours.

Put a rack into the upper third of the oven, then preheat to 400 F.

Remove chicken from marinade (discard marinade) and arrange skin side up, without crowding, in a shallow baking pan. Season all over with salt and pepper.

Roast until just cooked through, 25 - 35 minutes.

Turn oven to broil. Broil chicken about 2 inches from heat until the skin is crisp, about 2 minutes. Serve with lime wedges, and brown rice cooked with chicken broth. The pan juices make a lovely sauce for the rice.

Variation 1: yes, you can use lemons. They are good, but not as good as the limes.
Variation 2: Take 1/2 bunch of fresh cilantro, wash and dry, and, using only the leaves and tender stems, pile under the chicken before you roast it. (I'm sure it would also be good as a garnish.)

Note: Any leftovers are easily reheated; microwave to heat, then re-crisp the skin with the broiler setting of the toaster oven. None of it has lasted long enough to try these ideas yet, but I think would be worth a try: on top of a composed salad, as a filling in enchiladas or burritos, added to a soup.....

Chicken Adobo

My dear friend Ted was partial to recipes which literally took days to prepare, and the baking of cakes which required a structural engineer. He adored Martha Stewart, whose recipes all seemed to start with the purchase of a special non-standard sized set of cake pans. (7" cake pans? What the...?) Just before he left us, he made a disparaging remark to me about Bon Appetit Magazine that will stay with me forever. "Fifteen Minute Recipes!" he spat contemptuously. "What on earth would I want with fifteen minute recipes? I want a recipe that is complicated, that takes a lot of time to make!"

Well, that was Ted, alright. Of course, when he wasn't making these famously complicated dishes, he was fond of having a quick meal at the cheap Indian restaurant up the street, or having something equally convenient. Now, frankly, I like me a good fifteen minute recipe! I cook most nights of the week, and much as I love to dedicate many hours to braising a nice piece of meat, or an afternoon to making many pounds of sausage, I find there is a special beauty and satisfaction in a simple recipe that comes together quickly, but still has fully developed flavors.

This recipe for Philippine-style chicken adobo from the Gourmet cookbook is one of those beautifully simple recipes; it borders on the absurd that such a complex tasting dish takes so little active time to prepare. The marinade, which later becomes a wonderful sauce, comes together in about 5 minutes. You can set this up the night or morning before, leave it in the fridge while you're at work, and put it in the oven when you come home. Be sure to make a nice big batch of brown rice to soak up the flavorful sauce.

"Adobo" means spice rub, but an adobo in the Philippines bears no resemblance to one in Mexico. This version is typical of the Philippino style; garlic, soy sauce, vinegar and fresh-ground black pepper make a lively combination, and turn the meat a rich mahogany color.

Philippine-Style Chicken Adobo

from The Gourmet Cookbook

1/2 cup cider vinegar
1/4 cup soy sauce
1 TB minced garlic
2 Turkish (or 1 California) bay leaves
1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
4 whole chicken legs or 8 thighs (2 1/2 pounds total) rinsed, patted dry, cut into drumsticks and thighs

Accompaniment: cooked brown rice

1. Stir together vinegar, soy sauce, garlic, bay leaves, and pepper in a glass, lidded container just large enough to hold all of the contents. Add the chicken, carefully submerging and covering it with the marinade. Cover and refrigerate for at least 2 hours, up to 48 hours, turning the chicken occasionally to distribute the marinade.

2. Let the chicken stand at room temperature for 45 minutes before baking.

3. Put a rack in the center of the oven and preheat to 425 F.

4. Arrange the chicken pieces in one layer, skin side up, in a 13 x 9" baking dish and pour marinade over it. Bake until cooked through, 30 to 35 minutes. Transfer the chicken, again skin side up, to a broiling pan. Pour the pan juices into a small saucepan.

5. Turn oven to broil. Broil chicken about 4 inches from heat until skin is golden and crisp, 2 to 3 minutes.

6. While the chicken broils, skim fat from the pan juices and bring to a boil. Remove from the heat and discard the bay leaves.

Serve chicken and sauce with rice.

p.s. My daughter thought this dish was superfine.

Thai Chicken Coconut Milk Soup (Tom Kha Gai)

From the moment I first took a sip of this classic Thai soup at Manora Thai Restaurant in San Francisco, I was smitten. So rich, so creamy, so nuanced in flavor - a little spicy, a little sweet, a little sour, a whole lot of richness. But the flavor profile was so far outside my comfort zone, I never dreamed I could make it at home, especially not in 20 minutes with a short list of ingredients. I felt resigned to only eating it in restaurants.

But when an acquaintance kept talking about how she was going to whip up a batch for dinner for her family that night, after picking the kids up from swim class..... and then this recipe from a home cook turned up in Sunset Magazine's quick recipe pages - well, that demystified it quite a bit. I went for it. It was easy, it was fast, and it was delicious. All of these ingredients are available from a decently stocked grocery store. Don't be shy - you can do it, too!

Thai Chicken Coconut Soup (Thom kha gai or Gai Thom Kha)

adapted from Jiranooch Shapiro, Anchorage – Sunset Magazine, December 2008

1 can (14 ounces) coconut milk (Native Forest Organic is outstanding)

14 ounces chicken broth

6 quarter sized slices ginger

1 stalk lemongrass, cut into 1 inch pieces

1 lb. Boned, skinless chicken breasts or thighs

1 cup sliced mushrooms (preferably oyster mushrooms)

1 TB fresh lime juice

1TB Thai or Vietnamese fish sauce

1 tsp sugar

1 tsp Thai Red Curry Paste (Thai Kitchen is a good brand)

2 fresh lime leaves (optional - I pick mine in the back yard, but a good Asian grocery will have them)

Fresh basil and/or cilantro leaves for garnish

In a medium saucepan, combine broth, ginger, lemongrass, and chicken. Bring to a boil over medium high heat, then simmer until chicken is firm and opaque. Remove the chicken from the pan, and let it cool until you can easily cut it into 1” chunks. Using a slotted spoon or “spider” remove and discard the lemongrass, and optionally, the ginger, and discard them.

Add the coconut milk, chicken and mushrooms, along with the remaining seasonings to the chicken broth. Bring the mixture back up to a boil over medium high heat, then reduce the heat and simmer until the mushrooms are cooked and flavors are melded. Test and adjust the seasonings. Serve, garnished with herbs.

Notes from Christine: while this is a lovely outline of the dish, I like to add a little bit more of each of the seasonings; please feel free to adjust this according to your taste preferences. For the mushrooms, I prefer oyster mushrooms, but other choices are delicious too – shiitake, crimini, button....

More notes: the recipe author leaves the lemongrass and ginger in the soup and serves it that way. Personally, I just got tired of fishing inedible bits out of every bite of soup and devised the filtering plan outlined above to eliminate the problem. However, leaving them in most likely imparts more flavor to the soup, and faithful reader "Miss Nati" has reported how much she likes eating the ginger. You be the judge!