Mouthing Off

In this easy one-pot braise, you get the best possible combination:
crisp-skinned chicken and a luscious wine sauce.
© Lucy Schaeffer

Food & Wine's senior recipe developer, Grace Parisi, is a Test Kitchen superstar. In this series, she shares some of her favorite recipes to make right now.

One of the great perks of working at Food & Wine is that my kitchen is conveniently located about 15 feet from the wine tasting room. When Ray Isle and Megan Krigbaum, our wine gurus, have finished tasting a few wines, they often give us the nearly full bottles to cook with (uh, yeah, cook).

In true quid pro quo fashion, they eat what we produce and we drink what they discard (which is fine by me). Everybody’s happy! This quickly braised chicken dish calls for a bold, fruity white wine with a nice balance of sweetness and acidity, which is why a California Chardonnay, not too oaky, works extremely well. The acidity mellows the buttery richness of the chicken while toning down some of the sweetness of the parsnips. The recipe serves 4—in my case, my husband and I and our two kids, which works out nicely since it calls for an entire cup of wine, leaving just enough for my husband and I to enjoy with the meal. SEE RECIPE »

Related: More Braising Recipes
Chicken Thigh Recipes
Amazing Chicken Breast Dishes

This vinegar-braised chicken dish is elegant enough for entertaining and easy enough for a simple weeknight dinner. / © Jonny Valiant

Food & Wine's senior recipe developer, Grace Parisi, is a Test Kitchen superstar. In this series, she shares some of her favorite recipes to make right now.

I love using contrasting flavors and textures in dishes. Sweet and tangy leeks and peas and soft and crispy chicken and skin are all so lovely together. One of my favorite things is to toast thick slabs of country bread and serve this on top, letting all the gorgeous juices soak into the bread. SEE RECIPE »

Related: More One-Pot Meals
Fast Weekday Meals
Amazing Chicken Recipes

© Susan Spungen / Chicken-and-Avocado Soup

Instead of packing snacks for a road trip, The Smithsonian’s blog suggests roadside foraging. For many drivers and bikers, the idea conjures distressful images of The Beverly Hillbillies, but the fun guide reveals that travelers in places like Europe and Southern California can find luscious figs and fallen avocados that are not on private property. Most of us have to forage at supermarkets for the buttery fruit, but no matter where you find them, make sure to snag a couple extra. Two pureed avocados add silky richness to this fast Chicken-and-Avocado Soup with Fried Tortillas.

Related: Avocado Recipes
Fast Soups
Chicken Soups

© Rick Poon / Thai Chicken Soup

London is full of amazing restaurants, but Olympic athletes can’t entrust their diets to just anyone. The U.S. team installed its own nutrition center and dining hall with staff who know exactly what an athlete needs—like a recovery shake for an underweight wrestler or a calorie-packed dinner for an exhausted swimmer. But it’s not just protein shakes and plain pasta. The center provides a wide selection of foods so that the athletes will actually enjoy refueling. “About seven years ago, we took nutrition science and merged it with culinary arts, and we now call it our performance-based menu,” says the U.S. Olympic Committee’s associate director of food and nutrition services to Outside Magazine. “We’re the only country in the world that is providing this level of food service.” While there are burgers, a full salad bar, a deli and more, the most popular dish in the dining hall is a Thai chicken noodle soup. F&W’s version of the tangy, spicy soup uses rice instead of noodles and creamy coconut milk for a filling dinner that's also superfast.

Related: Delicious Chicken Soups
Fast Thai Dishes
Healthy Asian Recipes

© Stephanie Meyer / Chicken Skewers

Tonight, F&W contributing editor Andrew Zimmern will host the 100th episode of Bizarre Foods on the Travel Channel at 9/8 p.m. CST. The season six premiere will be preceded by an hour-long retrospective featuring highlights from Zimmern's quest to travel the globe and sample the world’s weirdest, tastiest and at times squirmiest foods (like giant coconut worms). In his Kitchen Adventures series for foodandwine.com, Zimmern likes to adapt some of his exotic finds into delicious, never-scary recipes for home cooks. He found inspiration for these Golden Coin Chicken-Shrimp Skewers with Peanut Sauce in Guangzhou, China, but likes to serve them Thai-style in lettuce wraps. They're the perfect finger food for a Bizarre viewing party.

Related: More Recipes from Andrew Zimmern
Street Food Adventures
Wild Seafood

© Tina Rupp / Chicken in Vinegar

Trading in one legendary epicurean inspiration for another, the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, NY will replace its Escoffier Restaurant with one named after French master chef Paul Bocuse. According to the Poughkeepsie Journal, the new restaurant will open next year. The old student-staffed project worked from August Escoffier’s authoritative resource Le Guide Culinaire, while the new will reflect Bocuse’s lighter cooking style. In keeping with his legacy, this fast Bocuse recipe for Chicken in Vinegar Sauce uses fresh tomatoes and mild vinegar for flavor in a traditionally ultra buttery French classic.

Related: Recipes from the French Masters
Healthy French Recipes
Fast Chicken Dishes

© Tina Rupp / Fried Chicken

In preparation for Independence Day, The Awl presents every president's favorite comfort foods as gathered from historical accounts, birthday dinner menus and recipe cards written by first ladies. While the list certainly shows changes in American taste—George Washington was a fan of sliced tongue while Barack Obama favors nachos—there's one dish that persists through the years: fried chicken (though squirrel was also popular through the late 1800s). It's listed as a preference of 5th president James Monroe, 26th Theodore Roosevelt and 33rd Harry Truman. This Super-Crispy Fried Chicken is brined overnight for incredibly juicy meat that makes a comforting meal in any house, white or otherwise.

Related: Best Fried Chicken in the U.S.
Presidential Indulgences
Fried Chicken Recipes

Courtesy 'Charred & Scruffed' / Grill Master Adam Perry Lang

Blogger and self-proclaimed “Barbecue Whisperer” Meathead has a bone to pick with beer can chicken. In a detailed attack on the Huffington Post, Meathead assails the popular summertime grilling method—in which a whole chicken is perched on top of an opened can of beer—as “a gimmick and a waste of good beer.” While Meathead makes a good case, arguing that the beer adds neither moisture nor flavor to the chicken, cooking a chicken on a can does have its advantages. In F&W's recipe, grilling guru Adam Perry Lang admits that beer vapors do little to the meat, but explains that propping the bird up vertically allows juices to flow over the breast, keeping the meat super-succulent—plus there's no special equipment required. And while it may be a waste of beer, the less you drink, the safer it will be to pull the whole thing off. See Meathead for a list of impending dangers.

Related: Grilled Chicken Recipes
Recipes from Grilling Experts
Tasty BBQ Recipes

© Quentin Bacon / Chicken Parmesan

Umami—a Japanese word that means "the essence of deliciousness," a.k.a the fifth taste, is now equated with glutamate, an amino acid found in some foods, but an Art of Eating essay published online yesterday delves deeper into the history of the once-elusive taste and its importance. According to writer Rowan Jacobsen, many cultures loved umami even before it was identified: The Chinese have soy sauce, Koreans devour kimchi, Australians use vegemite and Americans adore ketchup. By recognizing umami as a separate taste with its own identity, Jacobsen believes we open the doors to more delicious food combinations. “We can perceive it, think about it, play with it, and realize when it’s needed,” Jacobsen writes. “We can understand what anchovies and soy sauce have in common, and by understanding that, can appreciate their differences.” This Chicken Parmesan with Pepperoni features a triptych of umami-packed ingredients—Parmesan, tomato and pepperoni—in a quick weeknight dish.

Related: Italian-American Classics
Chicken Breast Recipes
Gooey, Cheesy Recipes