Urban Stew

Imagine: Your farmhouse, oceanside, surrounded by efflorescent lavender shrubs, brazen in the way they pump their perfumes into the currents of sunlight and the streaming mid-summer breezes. Fat, yellow bees collecting pollen from the silvery buds, the main ingredient in the manufacture of their balmy honeys, some golden and some so thick that it crawls like burnished amber from their indefatigable hives. Imagine the blue skies or gray, doesn't matter, the bramble dense with rabbits and stealthy serpents winding in and out of their earthy burrows. And there's a quietude so thorough that your thoughts are easily shuffled into their proper places and wholly free from the entanglement of urban hullabaloo.

Imagine that you, in your farmhouse, get to be exactly who you are, and you don't have to edit a thing.

Hind quarters of hen, graced with a plethora of lovely things

If I had a farmhouse I would make a lot of country stews, because they fit effortlessly with the landscape of coursing brooks and the trees that sway under the bellies of gliding black birds. Simmered things and slow food things remind me how I want to be, secretly, if I wasn't so thoroughly invested in my metropolitan ways. Alas, the only farmhouse I have is one in my mind, heavy stone the color of cockle shells, simple and small. The kitchen, oh, the kitchen... its windows, flanked by flaking, blanched shutters, like alert eyes they are, blinking into the tranquil mornings powdered by mists dragged in from the edges of the sea.

Today I decided to vacation at my farmhouse, escape, if you will, from the thickly peopled thoroughfares of L.A. proper, the sound of their honking horns. Already the lavender brushes away this hurried feeling, feelings of want so evident in a sea of plenty, and quite possibly too much. I know that we are supposed to be working with vegetables these few weeks, but I needed something comforting today and was compelled to deviate from the plan. It is a fine art, to be yielding, especially to the requirements of the soul.

Hence my urban stew.

This lovely dish is a snap to prepare, plus you get the added joy of pulling out your favorite clay pot. And as simmers away, promise that you'll take a moment to close your eyes and meditate your way back to your little house macerating in gusts of briny brume, peopled thickly with poppy blossoms and vigorous ants, a prolific copse of trees.

The best part of about our daydreams is that we can paint them any way we like. Here is how I painted mine.

Urban stew with sautéed chard & toasty almond slices

This dish will serve three, two if you have very good appetites. For the first order of business, gather together these few things:

For the Braise

- 6 chicken legs or thighs
- 5 or 6 shallots, enough that when sliced thin equals 1.5 cups
- 1/2 of a large fennel bulb, so that when sliced thin equals 1 cup
- Plump prunes, about 12
- Black oil cured olives, about 6
- 2 large garlic cloves
- Dry vermouth, a bit
- 1 cup rich chicken stock, preferably homemade
- Fresh tarragon, about 3 stems
- Fresh thyme, about 3 stems
- Fresh fennel frond, about 3 stems
- 2 fresh bay leaves
- 1 cup Fregola Sarda
- Sliced almonds, about 1/2 a cup
- A bit of flour, I used rye
- Salt and Pepper
- Olive oil, of course


For the chard

- 1 bundle of chard

- 1 clove of garlic, crushed

- Olive oil

- Dry vermouth

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Heat a bit of olive oil in your finest cazuela, or cast iron pan. Be sure that whatever vessel you use can be fitted with a proper lid.

Meanwhile, pat your chicken legs with paper towels so that they are very dry, then sprinkle with salt and pepper and give them a light dusting of flour.

When the oil is hot, add them to your cooking vessel and brown. Avoid crowding the pan at all costs or your legs will not caramelize. Accomplish this in batches if you must, and turn the legs as they brown, so that you achieve as much color as possible on all sides. If you are using a cazuela, there is no rush. Cranking the heat might crack it, so be patient. They will brown, I promise.

Meanwhile, slice the shallots and fennel on the thin side.

When the chicken is browned sufficiently, remove it from the pan and set aside. Deglaze the cazuela with a splash of dry vermouth, scraping up the brown bits on the bottom. When the vermouth has almost evaporated, get a glug of olive oil into the cazuela along with the shallot and fennel.

Cook over medium to medium-low heat until it starts to caramelize. When it's just about caramelized, slice your two cloves of garlic and add to the pan. Continue to cook until the shallots and fennel are amber.

While the veggies are caramelizing, you may as well work your herbs. I used tarragon, thyme and fennel frond. Pat the herbs with a towel till very dry. Damp herbs yield a mushy mess. Pull the leaves of the herbs from their stems and rough chop. When chopped, I ended up with about 1 rounded tsp. each herb. Set aside.

Slice your prunes and oil cured olives in half. Set aside.

Toast your sliced almonds, and be sure to watch the pan. They will toast quickly. I burned two batches before this one came out perfectly.

Back to the stove. When the shallot/fennel is caramelized, deglaze the cazuela with a splash of dry vermouth, and season with salt.

When the vermouth is all absorbed by the shallots, add the chicken legs and or thighs to the cazuela along with the herbs, olives, prunes and chicken stock. If you are using a cazuela, make sure the stock is warm before you pour it in. If it's very cold when you add it you may crack the clay.

Pop the cazuela's lid on, and get it into the oven. Braise with the lid in place for 45 minutes.

While the legs are braising, boil the fregola.  Add 1 cup of fregola to amply salted boiling water. Fregola takes an ungodly amount of time to cook. Mine took 20 minutes. So, start yours now.

Meanwhile, slice the ribs from the chard leaves.

Slice the leaves into ribbons, set aside. Now slice the ribs into neat pieces about 1/4" thick. Get into a pan with olive oil and sauté.

When they become half-tender, add the garlic and sauté for a minute more. Deglaze the pan with dry vermouth. When the vermouth cooks out, add the chard leaves with a splash of water and a spritz of olive oil. It will wilt in a couple of minutes. When it's just wilted, sprinkle with salt, remove from the heat and set aside.

Check your hen.

During the 45 minutes that your cazuela was in the oven, lovely things happened. The flavors amalgamated, the hen became meltingly tender, the prunes and olives began to dissolve into the stock, happily on it's way to becoming an unctuous sauce.

Turn the hen legs over, give the broth a bit of a stir. Now add your cooked fregola to the cazuela, nestling it into the broth. Pop back into the oven uncovered for 15 more minutes so that the fregola has a chance to absorb some of the broth, and the broth begins to reduce into a sauce.

When it's done, divide the chard between the awaiting bowls. Spoon some of the fregola and sauce over the wilted leaves, and arrange the hen legs over that.

Finally, sprinkle a handful of toasted almonds over the dish, and enjoy your urban stew!

Mangia bene, vivi felice!