Of Dead Heroes and Roast Chickens

Judy Rodgers died Monday. Unless you are a chef, or a follower of the food world, or live in San Francisco, this probably means nothing to you. Why should it? People die every day. If we mourned for every person we’ve never known we would be paralyzed.

But Chef Rodger’s passing means something to me. She ran Zuni Cafe in San Francisco from 1987, she was a James Beard Best Chef, she was the kind of woman who was respected by people worth respecting. With food, she made the simple elegant in a world full of people trying to outdo each other by making the simple complicated. And she was a damned fine writer.

I didn’t know this woman, please understand, not personally. But I knew her work and I knew her voice and I knew what was important to her in food through her one cookbook, a tome called The Zuni Cafe Cookbook.

I received my copy of The Zuni Cafe Cookbook when I graduated from culinary school – all us fresh-faced, newly-minted cooks got one. There is a sticker in the front of mine that says, “Congratulations! The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.”
 Under that are the names of all the chefs who taught us, most of whom have since gone off to believe in the beauty of their dreams somewhere else.

In the decade since they handed me that book and my diploma, I have read The Zuni Cafe Cookbook cover-to-cover over a dozen times. It is one of my desert island books, a book I would grab in the event of a fire, a part of my culinary upbringing. It’s not just one of my favorite cookbooks, it’s one of my favorite books. I know exactly where it is on my crowded bookshelf of food and cookery writing: conveniently at that place where my right hand falls if I face my bookcase and bring my arm up to a comfortable level.

I don’t quite know how to describe The Zuni Cafe Cookbook. It’s got recipes – good ones – but more than that it has soul, and a wise voice full of conviction and respect for tradition. Food and ingredients and techniques are discussed with expert respect, but without that sappy overdone reverence can can plague locavores or the pedantic precision of a chef desperate to maintain control of his food even unto the reader’s own kitchen.

Every eight months or so, I read The Zuni Cafe Cookbook casually, in bed, like normal folks read a favorite novel. I am reminded of the criticality of pre-salting, the perfect pairing of crispy chicken, roasted until the fat drips, with bread salad. I am reintroduced to the joy of curing and pickling in-house and the limitless possibilities of fresh ricotta or a truly ripe apricot. I swim in the beautiful conceit of California kitchen culture: select the world’s best ingredients, put them together well, and just don’t fuck them up.

When I learned Chef Rodgers had died – through the Facebook update of Slow Food International – I was walking through my hometown under a crystalline winter sky and my mouth fell agape. I hadn’t known about her year-and-a-half battle with cancer. All I knew was that this woman who had written a book that had become a part of me was gone. My breath skipped and a lump of sorrow settled down into my stomach like a bad meal. The kind of bad meal Zuni Cafe has never made.

I never knew her. But Judy Rodgers’ words and her food helped shape the cook and the person I am today. Her stance for simple, delicious food, thoughtfully prepared, squeezed itself into my brain and became part of my own basic understanding of what good food is all about.

Her work sent waves of joy through food-loving people throughout her career, and now a tide of grief washes over us at her passing. Thank you for dinner, Chef.

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Zuni Roast Chicken with Bread Salad (Simplified Easy At-Home Version)

It is appropriate that Zuni Cafe was most famous for a roast chicken. What could be more straightforward? What could be less chefy, less ego-driven than a roast chicken? And yet the recipe for the Zuni Roast Chicken with Bread Salad is four-and-a-half pages long. Details, care, details, care. Always.

This is pretty much how I always cook a roast chicken, presented to you with something very akin to the Zuni Cafe Bread Salad. I’ve dramatically streamlined the original recipe for chicken and salad to make it more approachable for home cooks, but the essence of the meal is the same.

Key points for the chicken are:

1. Get a little, tender chicken, about 3 pounds. Little chickens have a higher skin and fat to meat ratio, so they cook-up more tender and flavorful.
2. Pre-salt your bird.
3. Cook hot and fast, starting the bird in a hot cast iron skillet and moving it to a 475-degree oven.

Roast The Chicken: Step-by-Step

Get a little bird between 2.5 and 3.5 pounds.

Tuck wingtips behind neck (this shows the bird breast side down).

Salt the bird liberally. I use about a tablespoon of kosher salt for a three pound bird. Add a bit of freshly ground pepper and, if desired, tuck soft sprigs of fresh herbs like rosemary or thyme between the breast meat and skin, and between the thigh meat and skin. Refrigerate, lightly covered, for at least a day and up to three days.

Before cooking, bring the chicken up to room temperature by letting it sit out, uncovered, for an hour. Meanwhile, preheat oven to 475 degrees F.

Preheat a cast iron skillet over medium heat for several minutes, or until very hot. Place seasoned chicken breast side up in skillet. The chicken should sizzle. Transfer to the preheated oven and cook for 40-60 minutes.

When chicken is done, it will be a deep golden-brown. The juices around the thigh joint will run clear or only slightly pinkish and the thigh bone will have a little looseness in the joint.

Drain the juices from the cavity of the bird into the pan. If juices have pooled between the thigh and breast, slash open the skin and drain those as well.

Transfer the bird to a platter and allow to rest for at least 10 minutes, and up to an hour (at which point the chicken will be tepid, but still delicious).

While chicken is resting, whisk pan juices in skillet to dissolve any caramelization on the bottom of the pan.

Set pan juices aside with chicken – you should have about 1/4 cup.

Make The Bread Salad: Step-by-Step

Make the vinaigrette. Soak currants and red onion in vinegar for at least ten minutes.

Add dijon and oil and whisk to combine. Set aside.

Slice bread if necessary.

Brush each slice with olive oil and season with salt.

Set each slice on a sheetpan and toast to golden brown. Flip slices over and toast opposite side.

When bread is cool enough to handle, tear into bite size chunks and set aside in large bowl.

Warm garlic and pine nuts in olive oil in small pan. Cook over medium heat until garlic is softened and pine nuts are toasty.

Add pine nuts and garlic to the torn bread pieces.

To finish salad, gather the vinaigrette, the reserved chicken pan juices, the torn bread pieces and several big handfuls of arugula or similar greens.

Toss all components together.

Putting It All Together

Pull or carve the rested chicken into pieces and serve the chicken atop salad.

 Printable Recipe

 

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