Mouthing Off

Chicken Dance spotlights a fantastic Food & Wine chicken recipe every day.

“I don’t go away,” the tenacious Jamie Oliver tells his profiler in the September issue of Outside magazine. The beloved Brit, who transformed England’s school lunches with healthier, less processed foods, hasn’t quite swept across the US with equal success. But while low ratings endanger the viability of a third season of Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution on ABC, Oliver isn’t giving up on the American school system. He maintains his battle cry that delicious food can be quick and uncomplicated, and his Simplest Chicken-and-Leek Stew is no different.

Chicken Dance spotlights a fantastic Food & Wine chicken recipe every day.

This afternoon, superchef Marcus Samuelsson stopped by the Food & Wine Facebook wall for a live Kitchen Insider chat. We learned his secret-weapon spice mix (berbere), and the chef even dished on what he ate last night: Fried Yard Bird at his restaurant Red Rooster in Harlem. Samuelsson previewed that preparation in this Food & Wine video, calling it “the crunchiest, the crispiest, the best damn chicken in all of New York City.” It involves an immersion circulator, a piece of serious cooking equipment used to cook foods sous vide at a consistent low temperature. Samuelsson then fries the meat, twice.

It’s probably best to try his fancy bird at the source, but home cooks without high-tech kitchens can still experiment with double-frying in this recipe for Crispy Twice-Fried Chicken, from Samuelsson's fellow NYC superchef Zak Pelaccio.

 

Chicken Dance spotlights a fantastic Food & Wine chicken recipe every day.

Among the 14 household uses for beer listed by The Kansas City Star this week (via Food Republic): trapping slugs, cleaning gold and loosening bolts—“the acids in the beer may dissolve enough rust to allow you to get them loose.” While enlightening, the list skips our favorite purpose for beer (besides simply drinking a wonderful brew), which is cooking. Grill master Steven Raichlen spotlights a Brazilian black lager called Xingu in this summery Beer-Marinated Chicken recipe, but American suds like Samuel Adams Cream Stout and Deschutes Obsidian Stout work just as deliciously.

Chicken Dance spotlights a fantastic Food & Wine chicken recipe every day.

 

Today would have been the great Julia Child's 99th birthday. The revolutionary TV host and author of Mastering the Art of French Cooking brought French cuisine to American kitchens, along with a perfect roast chicken recipe, which she shared with Food & Wine in 1997. In the article, called "Chicken Divine" (not online), Child recommended "listening to the bird as it cooks and attending to its progress, salting and basting as needed."

Chicken Dance spotlights a fantastic Food & Wine chicken recipe every day.

A British publisher will release The Popeye Cookbook in October—a health-focused tome featuring plenty of spinach and olive oil to celebrate the sailor and his gangly paramour, Olive Oyl. “These recipes are meant to build you up, give you hair on your chest and immediate strength,” the firm’s marketing director told The Guardian this week. As appealing as that sounds, you will not wake up with extra fur after making this healthy recipe for Sautéed Chicken with Olives, Capers and Roasted Lemons, served with baby spinach.

Chicken Dance spotlights a fantastic Food & Wine chicken recipe every day.

Chef and TV powerhouse Bobby Flay joins spiky-haired, tenderhearted Anne Burrell for the third season of Worst Cooks in America in February, the Food Network announced this week. His no-nonsense criticism should bring the desired competition-series tears, but it’s less embarrassing to learn from his dishes in your own kitchen. Flay’s Honey Mustard Chicken recipe has a sticky, sweet-and-spicy glaze inspired by the Savannah Bee Company’s tupelo honey. Active cooking time is 20 no-pressure minutes, so there’s no reason to get weepy.

Chicken Dance spotlights a fantastic Food & Wine chicken recipe every day.

Biscuits might be as Southern as fried chicken, but The Charleston City Paper interviews Southern Biscuits co-author Cynthia Graubart today about the complex relationship many modern cooks have with the homemade version. Techniques like cutting in flour aren’t always self-explanatory. “Even if you said, ‘Take two knives,’ what do you do, tickle yourself under the chin with them? What do you do with those two knives, and how long is it going to take you?” Graubart told the City Paper. Fried chicken is another one of those iconic regional foods, but the preparation is a little more straightforward: season meat, dredge it and fry to crispy deliciousness. This month’s issue features a Classic Southern Fried Chicken recipe inspired by The Help, which opens today to incite a season of Southern-food cravings.

Related: Getting Southern Food Right in The Help

Chicken Dance spotlights a fantastic Food & Wine chicken recipe every day.

Aspiring chefs have always had to decide whether to enroll in culinary school or start at the bottom in real restaurant kitchens, a less formal but much cheaper way to learn. Some recent students haven't been happy with the pricier route, according to the L.A. Times: "For-profit schools across the country are facing a flurry of lawsuits claiming fraud; they're accused of misleading students about tuition costs, job placement rates and how much they'll earn after graduating." Opinions may be divided, but both camps emphasize practicing the basics—a great lesson for professional and home cooks. For the September issue's Blank Canvas Chicken, Philadelphia chef Marcie Turney shows you how to upgrade chicken in three easy ways: with Yucatán spice, Indian barbecue sauce, or artichoke and olives.

Chicken Dance spotlights a fantastic Food & Wine chicken recipe every day.

Responding to the U.S. credit downgrade and diving stocks, President Obama kept a positive outlook this afternoon by insisting that America’s economic problems are "imminently solvable" and the country can reduce its debt over the long-term. In line with the government’s belt-tightening, today’s chicken dish requires just a handful of ingredients for an inexpensive meal. Combining skewered pieces of chicken breast and a simple herb marinade, the recipe is also healthy and perfect for summer grilling: Tomato-and-Cilantro-Marinated Chicken Shashlik.