What’s The Difference Between Pot Roast And Beef Stew AND When Is A Beef Stew A Boeuf Bourguignon?

Secrets of a Restaurant Chef with Anne Burrell

Secret to Pot Roast

Pot Roast

Parsnip Potato Purée

I was watching Anne rock out a pot roast last weekend and she got me thinking about those very important issues.

Let's answer the second question - When is a Beef Stew a Boeuf Bourguignon? - first. A Boeuf Bourguignon is a TYPE of beef stew, typically made with a bottle of red wine (and a few other standard elements - pearl onions and bacon lardons). But what does a pot roast have to do with that?

WELL, (I feel like rubbing my hands together with glee, there’s so much fun stuff to talk about) both dishes – pot roasts and beef stews – feature a long slow braising of the meat after it’s been seared. And that’s the meat of the matter.

Of course, with a pot roast, the meat is cooked in one piece, and with a stew, it’s cut into cubes. There are also infinite variations on whether you marinate or not marinate the meat, what you add in terms of flavorings and vegetables and how you thicken the sauce (if you even do).

Let’s see how Anne does her pot roast and how that method might apply to a beef stew. She shows her technical virtuosity in the first few minutes of Secrets of a Restaurant Chef as she wrastles with her pot roast in the kitchen of her restaurant.

Back in her “home” kitchen, Anne tells us to start with a chuck roast. She says it’s a tough piece of meat, because it’s from the front shoulder which gets a lot of use. Chuck is also great to use in a beef stew (but we’ll talk about stew in a minute.). Anne tells us to cook the pot roast “low and slow”. She ties up the meat to keep it “tight and firm” , which makes for better slicing later on. Hmmm. I have NEVER done that. Great idea.

Anne heats up oil ”because browned food tastes good”. She adds the well-seasoned meat to the pan with a big sizzle. (I love that she washes her hands A LOT). Then she talks about having a good mis en place. Celery, thyme and onions get readied to be added to the pan. She turns the meat over to brown the second side. Then she chops (A LOT) of garlic, but she doesn’t remove the center stem. >:-(

Anne adds a bit of new oil to the pan and adds the sliced celery and onions with a bit of salt. (Usually, you add salt to release moisture from the vegetables. You often want them soft before you start browning, so you get the maximum sweetness out of them. Here, however, we're not concerned with getting them completely soft before they start to brown.)

Next Anne adds garlic and her ”super-secret flavor weapons” - bay leaves, star anise, red wine vinegar (instead of wine) and tomato paste. She likes the brightness that the vinegar adds to the taste of the pot roast. Then she adds orange zest. Oh, don’t forget the thyme bundle.

She adds chicken stock and salt, which “makes everybody taste better”. Don’t you just love her Anne-isms? She brings the entire thing to the boil and then adds back in the meat. The whole thing goes into a 350°F. oven. After one hour, she’ll turn it over and will add more liquid if she has to.

Anne also is going to add butternut squash and Jerusalem artichokes AND dried figs. (I have certainly added prunes, but never figs OR Jerusalem artichokes) Oh, Anne just said you can add prunes instead of the figs.

To go with the pot roast, Anne boils up Yukon gold potatoes (unpeeled) with peeled and chopped parsnips in “super salty water”.

After the pot roast has been cooking for 2 hours, Anne takes it out of the liquid for second and does some “QC” or quality control and tastes the liquid for seasoning. She loves it. She stirs in the squash, Jerusalem artichokes and figs, adds a bit more liquid and puts the meat back on top. It goes back in for 45 minutes more – 30 with the lid on, 15 with the lid off.

She drains the potatoes and parsnips and tests them with a FORK, not a paring knife, she reminds us. (I had never heard that before she mentioned it another time.)

Anne loves the creamy texture of the Yukon gold’s and because she’s putting them through a food mill, it was fine to leave the skins on. Smart. She singsongs, “We say thank YOU for coming” to all the fibers and skin left in the food mill. She stirs heavy cream into the puréed vegetables with cold butter. She keeps them warm in a pot in a 200°F. oven.

Anne pours herself some Pinot Noir after she pulls the pot roast out of the oven. She lets the pot roast rest and unties it. She says we don’t want to floss at the same time as we eat.

Now THIS is instructional. Anne tells us why putting a bed of puréed potatoes on the bottom of the plate is so smart. It acts as a glue that keeps the pot roast in place AND it warms up the plate and keeps everything hot. She adds a few pieces of pot roast on top with some of the braising liquid that has the vegetables in it. She tastes it and she’s VERY impressed with herself. She’s a “happy, happy” girl.

You can use Anne’s recipe as a guide for making any kind of braised beef pot roast, stew or Bourguignon. Or you could use lamb, for that matter.

Let’s talk stew. I learned how to make it as Ragoût De Boeuf, which is a general term for beef stew. The steps are almost the same as Anne’s recipe with one exception. A classic beef stew is thickened with flour or a beurre manié.

This is a classic, basic Ragoût De Boeuf recipe:

Start with a chuck roast and cut the meat into 1½ to 2 inch squares. I’m often tempted to cut them smaller to get more pieces, but don’t do that. They’ll fall apart.

Season the meat and, in a Dutch oven, fry in hot oil until browned on both sides. Remove meat to a plate. Turn down heat, add 4 carrots and 2 big onions, medium chopped, with a bit more salt, stirring to pick up the color from the bottom of the pan. (They don’t have to sweat until soft. Just get them started cooking for about 3 minutes.)

If there’s tons of fat in the pan, pour off all but about a good tablespoonful. Off the heat, stir in one tablespoon of flour. Cook over low heat for 2 minutes, stirring all the time. (The vegetables will get clumpy and lumpy from the flour.) Add 2 cups of stock (vegetable, chicken or beef) SLOWLY, stirring to get the lumps out. Add a crushed garlic clove, a tablespoon of tomato paste and a bay leaf. Bring to the boil, taste for seasoning and add the meat back in. Simmer, covered for 1½ to 2 hours in a 350°F. oven or on top of the stove. Serve over mashed potatoes.

Variations:

9 times out of time, I skip the flour AND I add more stock and a cup of red wine. The sauce is thinner than the classic ragout, but the liquid is sooo flavorful and delicious, I always want more. Also the stew thickens on standing, so the next day, it’s always thicker anyway. You can certainly make this a day ahead and just reheat before serving.

As far as Boeuf Bourguignon, even Julia says there is more than one way to make one. But her recipe in Mastering the Art of French Cooking is a great start (if a bit lengthy). You’ll also need her mushroom recipe and the onion recipe. (I’ll see you in 2 weeks when you’re done. But it will have been worth EVERY second.)

I don’t know who this Jess-person is over at Knopf, but here’s her attempt at Julia’s recipe. Looks good to me. Note that she says the stew really should only cook for 2 hours and not the 2½ or 3 that Julia says. Maybe that’s because our ovens are more powerful, Jess is told.

I like one variation on Boeuf Bourguignon. Instead of adding a bottle of wine to the stew as it cooks, you marinate the meat in it. That way, the chunks of beef are stained a deep burgundy before you even start browning it. Then you add the marinade to the the stew with whatever stock you were going to cook it in. (Marinating liquid is fine to cook with or make a sauce out of, as long as it’s boiled for a good three minutes. Of course, in this dish, it’s cooked for 2 hours, at least.)

So we’ve seen in Anne’s version of pot roast that she adds different vegetables after the meat has been cooking for awhile. There’s no reason that you couldn’t make her recipe as a stew. AND there’s no reason why you couldn’t use a single chuck roast in my ragout recipe and call it pot roast.

That’s when cooking becomes really fun. You learn how to handle the basic ingredients and you can move in lots of different directions. You could make a Greek stew with lamb and lots of oregano, bay leaves and lemon in the sauce. Or you could brown and braise a brisket, just like Anne does with her chuck roast and add carrots, sweet potatoes and prunes and call it Tzimmes. A pot roast cut up (before it’s cooked) is called a stew. A stew cooked in a bottle red wine with bacon and pearl onions is Boeuf Bourguignon.

Whatever you call it and however you make it, browned and braised meat is a wonderful foundation for hearty and delicious dishes in all their infinite variations.

A Veal Throwdown – Who Will Take It? Anne Or Ina? Plus The Intricacies Of Flour, Egg And Crumbing - Part One

Secrets of a Restaurant Chef with Anne Burrell

Secret to Schnitzel

Veal Chop Holstein Schnitzel

German Potato Salad

I didn’t even know that people still COOKED veal, much less ordered it in restaurants, but Ina and Anne duked it out this weekend over the best veal dish. Actually, the smackdown was in my own head, but since they were both doing veal dishes, I decided to pay close attention so I could judge who would become the veal champ.

A short preface, though…I wish they’d been cooking something other than veal, which is particularly difficult to justify eating. There’s really no great way to keep the meat super-tender without restricting the movement of the baby calf. Even if one avoids veal, non-meat eaters have a much easier time explaining the rationale of their diets, of course, than those who eat meat. This whole veal (and meat-eating) thing is a huge subject and I could go on for pages and pages, but for today, let’s just say that I don’t ever buy veal or order it.

But I am interested is seeing Anne and Ina’s different approaches to their dishes, and I have no problem seeing what I can learn and transferring it to something besides veal. (It’s a shame they’re not both doing beet salads, but this is what I have to work with today…)

Anne is up first and she’s making Holstein schnitzel. What does that mean? Veal from a Holstein cow? Nope, it means schnitzel with a fried egg on top. Really?!! I’ll eat a fried egg on top of anything, except maybe a chocolate soufflé.

We see Anne serving the schnitzel with fried egg in her restaurant as “schnitzel with a smile”. She’s also making an amazing sounding German Potato Salad.

For the schnitzel, Anne starts with boneless veal chops, which she butterflies and then pounds out between sheets of plastic wrap.

I’ll be watching to make sure she has a dedicated cutting board for the veal, which I’m sure she will. Oh, yup, she is working on a plastic cutting board placed on top of her wooden cutting board. Good.

Anne flattens the meat in an interesting way. She brings her metal mallet down on the meat and then uses a sweeping motion to carry the mallet forward.

It's good that she actually describes to us what she’s doing. She calls it “Hit and drag”. This is so interesting. She brings the mallet down into the middle of veal chop and then drags it to the outside edge. She turns the chop just a scooch and repeats the same motion all around the veal.

What this does is to flatten out the center and thin out the edges. Anne says she’s trying to get the widest surface area possible. She ends up with a wid-ish rectangle with oval edges.

Anne moves on to breading. Don’t tell me! Flour, egg and crumb. I could do that with one hand tied behind my back. And I mean I LITERALLY do that with one hand behind my back.

I use only my right hand as I’m dipping, egging and crumbing, so if there’s a need to open the fridge, kill an ant or sip a cocktail, I have a free hand.

My other self-discipline in coating protocol is to get my hand ooky only up to my second knuckle. There’s no reason your entire hand should ever be involved. (I also put a spoon in the crumbs, so if I miss a place, I can easily toss some extra crumbs over.)

Back to Anne...I wonder, if because she’s on television, she will be handling the meat with tongs. That would mean no dirty-hand issues. But I do find I get a more even coating by hand.

Oh, and don’t forget (no matter what your recipe says) to add a tablespoon of water to every egg. It makes it less gloppy. I love Anne! She just said that.

I am a bit surprised that she’s using commercial bread crumbs. Isn’t that what leftover heels of bread are for?

Anne explains that the flour makes the egg stick, and the egg makes the bread crumbs stick. And she likes to coat the veal (or anything, I suppose) the day before. It’s okay if you don’t, she says, but do let the veal to hang out in the fridge for at least an hour before frying.

Anne has a slightly different version of my one-hand rule. She uses one hand for the dry stuff – the flour and bread crumbs – and the other hand for the wet stuff – the egg. That’s smart, but I still like my one hand method, because I’m so persnickety about not touching anything, when I’ve had my hands in contact with raw flesh.

This is funny. Anne most assuredly DOES use her entire hand in the process. She pats the bread crumbs on with the palm of her hand. I must say the veal looks perfectly coated.

To cook the veal, Anne adds peanut oil (for its high smoking temperature) and butter (for its flavor and the fact that it colors the food beautifully) to a sauté pan.

She takes the schnitzel from the fridge and, ooh, there is a small contamination issue that’s making me uneasy and it is so unnecessary. After she coated it, Anne laid the breaded veal on a parchment paper-lined baking sheet. BUT instead of covering it with a separate piece of parchment paper, she made the first piece double-sized and just folded it over the top to cover the food while it sat in the fridge.

THEN she uncovered it and unfolded the top back under the bottom of the baking sheet and placed it on an unused burner. What that means is that the parchment paper that touched the top of the RAW VEAL is now touching the stovetop.

While that’s less serious than if it were on a cutting board that you were using for lettuce, it still gives me the heebie-jeebies. (Is this a gift or a curse that I have for seeing potential contamination in EVERYTHING?!! If you could see the inside of my house, you’d know I’m nowhere near as painful as I sound, BUT I do take food safety seriously.)

Anyhoo, Anne continues by telling us that you never want to crowd the pan, because soggy schnitzel would be so sad after all that work.

One note about the German potato salad. Anne is quite forthright in her opinion on how to test a potato for doneness and whether you should use a fork or a paring knife. She says to definitely use a fork, which gives you a much more accurate result. Uh-oh, I usually use a skewer, which would be even worse. Does it count that it’s from Dehillerin?

Anne tells us that anytime she fries, she gets her “drying situation” all set up. (I love her.) She gets paper towels on a baking sheet ready. WAIT, I have a better idea! I use ONE paper towel on top of newspaper.

Anne says (rightly) that frying food properly is not easy. You want it crispy, without being greasy. You know your pan is at the right temperature when you add the food and there is just a little sizzle – “not too crazy”.

She fries up her first two schnitzel, then she changes the oil and butter for her second batch, so the breadcrumbs in the pan don’t get all burned. When it’s browned on both sides, she puts it on the paper towel and sprinkles over a little salt on both sides. She keeps them warm on a rack in a 200°F oven.

Anne moves on to a little sauce for the schnitzel and fried egg. She smashes a few garlic cloves and cooks them in oil. She adds a few anchovy fillets and tells us she uses that trick in the restaurant a lot to add a rich flavor to dishes. When people ask what that wonderful flavor is she tells them and they say, “Ick, anchovies!” I admit I’m guilty of sneaking in anchovies too. Only vegetarians are free from my sneaking. Anne also adds chopped capers to her sauce. (Interesting. I’ve NEVER chopped a caper.)

When we come back, Anne is frying 4 eggs in one pan. She’s brave. She’s cooking them very gently and will be serving them sunny side up. I admit I always over-easy my eggs, because of egg white-mucus concerns.

Anne adds a bit of butter to the anchovy sauce. She tastes it for seasoning. It doesn’t need salt, of course.

She serves up her German potato salad, adds a schnitzel to her plate. Then she manages to scrap out a perfect egg from that crowded pan and place it on top of the veal. (That REALLY is all about the perfect utensil. She uses a FLAT, thin, flexible spatula that can bend and get under the egg without breaking it.)

Anne tops the egg with just a bit of her caper anchovy sauce. (She also added a bit of chopped parsley at the end.)

“Warm and crispy,” she proclaims, as she takes a big taste after breaking the yolk. Anne practically snorts with delight. Her Grüner Veltliner makes her even happier. Can Ina beat this dish? Let’s see…in Part Two.

Anne Rubs Her Belly

Or should that be Anne Rubs Her PORK Belly? (That doesn’t sound that nice, though.)

Secrets of a Restaurant Chef with Anne Burrell

The Secret to Braised Pork Belly

Crispy Mustard Braised Pork Belly

Sautéed Mustard Greens

Plum Cornbread

Anne is cooking pork belly and she tells us that it’s just bacon that hasn't been smoked and cured. She’s going to give it a dry rub and cook it low and slow with sweated onions.

She’s also making a dessert of plums baked on top of cornbread, which looks inspired.

Anne takes out the raw pork belly, and, to make the point again, she says that if it were salted, cured and smoked it would be bacon. OR if it were just cured, without smoking, it would be pancetta.

That’s never a bad thing to be reminded of. You want to be prepared when someone asks, “What’s the difference between pancetta and bacon?” Now you’ll be ready.

Anne makes a dry rub with 2 tablespoons each of dried mustard powder, mustard seeds and salt. She adds a pinch of crushed red pepper some grated lemon zest.

Anne reminds us that pork belly is a very fatty cut of meat and there are other choices if you want something leaner. “Head for a pork chop,” she advises.

She adds a couple of garlic cloves into the rub and a tablespoon or so of sugar and a little chopped rosemary too. She rubs that all on both sides of the pork belly. She really gets it on there. After washing her hands, Anne covers the pork with plastic wrap. She tells us she will leave it in the fridge for 24 hours and then cook it for hours.

Anne is going to “rock out” some plums to go on top of cornbread. Will this be dessert or a side dish with the pork, I wonder? She slices up the plums and adds a little sugar. The correct term for what she’s doing is macerating, she says.

Oh good, she uses the same cornmeal as I do. Anne mixes together one cup of cornmeal, ¾ cup of flour, 2 teaspoons of baking powder and a pinch of salt. (The Indian guy says to use the same amount of cornmeal and flour.)

She cracks two eggs (good, NOT on the counter) and mixes them with milk. 3 tablespoons of honey (from a bear - ugh) go in with a little vanilla and she whisks that all together. Interesting. She must be making a dessert, she’s making the mixture so dessert-y.

Anne makes a well in the dry ingredients and adds the wet stuff and, quickly and gently, whisks it in.

Actually, she gives a few more powerful stirs than I would, but probably her gentlest stirs pack more punch than my most forthright ones.

The melted butter goes in right at the end, so it doesn’t harden up again, she says. Hmm, I have NEVER done it that way, but I will from now on.

She pours the cornbread mixture into a square buttered baking dish. The macerated plums go on top and it bakes for 25 to 30 minutes at 350°F. I like that Anne nudges us to check it part way through and maybe give it a little rotation. In fact, she says to check ANYTHING part way through and not just to forget about it.

Anne now wants us to think about our flavor base. Today, that’s comprised of garlic, celery, fennel and onion. She slices the fennel in half and cuts out the core. She juliennes it and cuts the onion in the same size.

She sweats all the vegetables and then adds garlic, salt and some white wine and bay leaves. She reduces the wine by half as she keeps talking about her belly. Oh, Anne, only you! She adds 2 cups of “gorgeous rich brown chicken stock”.

Do you know how she got that stock so brown? There are two tricks - one is easy and one is not. The harder way is to brown the bones; the easy-peasy way is to add onion skins to the stock. I NEVER skip that step. I ALWAYS add onion skins when I’m making stock. And, frankly, I have never browned bones for chicken stock, only for beef.

(HERE is an absolutely fantastic rundown on how to make stocks of any stripe.)

Anne brings the liquid to a simmer. She nestles the pork belly into the braising liquid, always washing her hands between steps. She covers the baking dish and cooks it low and slow at 325°F for SIX hours. Meanwhile, her cornbread comes out. It looks really gorgeous.

Anne is serving the pork belly with mustard greens…to give a nod to all the mustard in the rub. She removes the bottom stems of the greens and washes them and cuts them into 2 inch lengths. They go into a pan with olive oil, garlic and crushed red pepper.

After the pork belly is cooked, she puts it under the broiler for the last few minutes to get it brown and crispy. Another way to deal with that is to sear the pork after it’s been cooked and portioned out. I like Anne’s way.

Anne greets her pork belly warmly as she takes it out of the oven. I like chefs who are civil to their food. Remember on Top Chef Just Desserts when Dannielle (the judge) said she could almost taste the resentment in Heather C's cookie?

Anne gives the mustard greens a stir and covers them again. She cuts the pork belly into 6 portions, although the recipe does say it serves 6 to 8…more like 10 to 12, but who’s counting?

Anne adds some vinegar to the greens right at the end. Then she plates them and places the pork belly on top. She spoons over the vegetables from the bottom of the braising pan. She tastes it. It’s “hugely flavored,” she proclaims.

She loves it with the greens which are tangy from the vinegar. That one bite looks like the correct sized portion. Then Anne cuts a piece of plummy cornbread and tops it with vanilla ice cream. It’s a sweet, delicious, perfect finish to her pork belly dinner.

Anne definitely makes me want to cook this rich and hearty meal, but I think I would skip the cornbread dessert and have a brisk (5 mile) walk afterwards. Oh, who am I kidding? I’d walk briskly all right, directly into the kitchen to get a piece of that plum cornbread.

Anne Burrell - Interesting As Ever With Crispy Mushroom Chips And Rich Cream Cheese Pastry

Secrets of a Restaurant Chef with Anne Burrell

The Secret to Chicken Pot Pie

Autumn Chicken Pot Pie

Butter Lettuce Salad with Crispy Prosciutto, Oyster Mushroom Chips, Cabrales and Pears

I caught the tale end of RR. She was making a nice looking salad to which she proceeded to add a side of chopped crispy bacon. I HATE those GIANT ORANGE paddle-like tongs she’s tossing the salad with. It makes me think that she would have no trouble handling a intruder.

The salad is all tossed and, although health-wise it’s not so great, it DOES look good. Oh wait, she’s putting it on top of massive steaks. Yeah, whenever I eat a steak, especially a big one, I often say I really need more meat on the plate. Let’s add bacon! Good, but let’s face it, bad.

Anne is starting. Anne uses a expression I really don’t like - chicken POT pie. I guess she can say what she wants, since it’s her recipe, but she’s not making it in a POT. Wait…she’s putting bleu cheese in it. Oh, that’s for a salad, that’s okay.

Anne SMASHES garlic on her board. She adds it to the onions, carrots and celery already sweating in a pan and she throws in some more Kosher salt -”her buddy.”

Inexplicably, the music is artlessly turned up (way too loud) as she takes skinless chicken legs and thighs out of a package. Anne salts them A LOT and adds them to the sweating vegetables with her own chicken stock. She must have said chicken POT pie a hundred times by now.

I like that she’s doing “a big fat hand wash with soap and paper towel action”. She checks the pot (proper use of the word) to make sure that the chicken is underneath the liquid as it simmers for 30 minutes. She says to add a little water if you need to.

For her chicken pie (how about if I alternate using “pot” and not?), Anne is making a cream cheese crust “for its great mouth feel”. I never would have thought of that. Will it be good? How could it not? A stick of butter, cut into pea-sized pieces, goes into the food pro. Anne adds a “pinch” of salt and 8 ounces of cream cheese, cut into pieces. More hand washing.

She adds 1½ cups of flour and pulse, pulse, pulses it until it gets to the “Parmesan cheese-looking” stage. She adds one yolk and a little water. Interesting that she doesn’t call for ICE water. The recipe says cold. She pulses the dough again until it begins to come together. She puts it on a board with flour and “schmears” it across the board and brings it all together into a disc. She covers it with plastic and puts it in the fridge “to hang out”.

After the chicken is cooked (30 minutes), Anne pours the entire POT over a colander. She uses the stock pot again, unwashed, to make the roux. She adds 4 tablespoons butter (½ stick) and 4 tablespoons of flour. She cooks it together until it looks like “wet sand”.

Anne says to always have the same amount of butter and flour. That’s not always true. In some Barefoot Contessa recipes, she ups the butter. I suppose this makes the mixture a little looser and easier to blend the milk into. Sometimes I do the reverse and add a bit more flour, if I want to make sure I end up with a thick sauce.

Anne moves on to the other things going into the chicken pie. She dices up butternut squash into 1 1/2 inch cubes and roasts them at 375°F for 20 minutes. She cuts the ends off haricot verts and cuts them into small pieces and adds chopped up sage.

Anne adds the strained chicken stock into the roux. She says it’s “incredibly” important to always bring a flour mixture to the boil, so it removes that sandy flour thing in our mouths. Then she says “BTB” and “RTS”. Huh? Your guess is as good as mine. Oh, Bring to Boil and Reduce to Simmer.

Anne moves on to the salad. She grabs a huge oyster mushroom and pulls it apart.

Coming back from a break, we see Anne for a moment in her restaurant kitchen in her chef’s whites. She shows us how to chill things quickly in an ice bath. She says she does that in the restaurant AND at home. She never puts hot food straight in the fridge. Oy, I don’t do that. I guess I should.

Anne shreds the chicken and adds it to the haricot verts.

Anne lays out the pulled-apart mushrooms on a baking sheet in a single layer. She drizzles them with oil, salt and chili pepper. She says they taste like bacon. Anne takes out the squash and notes that she doesn’t want it browned. She adds it to the chicken mixture and stirs well. (I’d prefer potatoes to tell you the truth.)

She stirs “the gravy” and tastes it for seasoning. I like the word sauce better, but (haven’t we had this issue before?) if it has flour, it IS entitled to be called gravy. A sauce might or might not have flour, gravy always does. I reserve the word gravy for that heavenly, definitely flour-thickened sauce that gets served at Thanksgiving.

Anne thinks the gravy has cooked down too much, so she adds an additional cup of stock. She says that’s part of cooking at the restaurant AND at home - sometimes you need to readjust stuff.

She takes out the dough (I forgot all about it) and rolls it out with flour, so there’s “no stickage”. It looks beautiful and smooth. She rolls it out ¼ inch thick. She brings her “crocks” over (not pots, but crocks) and cuts out a circle somewhat bigger than the dish, using a fluted pastry roller. Anne adds the filling to the individual bowl, THEN the gravy… Interesting. I wonder why she doesn’t mix the filling with the gravy.

She egg washes the outside of the crock and places the pastry over. She egg washes the top and cuts a few vents in the unbaked pastry crust. They bake at 375°F for 30 to 35 minutes, until the crust is brown.

Anne sautés some prosciutto strips for the salad. She loves to garnish salad with crunchy things. She takes out the mushrooms. They DO look like bacon. Anne says they taste like bacon too. She scrapes them off the tray. Next Anne adds “a big drink of red wine vinegar” to the sautéing prosciutto. I wonder why that doesn’t make them soggy.

She slices up some pears and breaks up some butter lettuce (hydroponically grown, so no washing necessary) and adds bits of Cabrales and then “a big fat finishing oil” and salt. She does this all by hand, including the tossing. She plates it and then adds the mushroom chips and prosciutto. “That’s a sexy salad.”

Next Anne exclaims, “Pot pie time, Pot pie time!!!” Who can resist her? It’s going to be “screaming hot”. She puts a fork in and eats a big HOT bite. She’s brave. She’s great. She’s Anne.

Chicken And A Brick Make Beautiful Music Together

Plus The Wonder Of A Toasted Spice...And What Does This Have To Do With Madhur Jaffrey?

Secrets of a Restaurant Chef with Anne Burrell

The Secret to Pollo Al Matone (That's the Food Network misspelling Mattone)

Pollo al Mattone

Herb Roasted Potatoes

Calamari "Noodles" with Black Olives and Arugula

Anne is doing a classic Tuscan dish today - Chicken Under A Brick. She cuts through the back bone of a whole Cornish game hen with kitchen shears. She calls in a spine-ectomy and says she loves the size of the hen for individual portions.  

Anne flattens out the Cornish hen on the board to prevent it from looking like “chicken roadkill”. (She really is outrageous.) She makes a great effort with its presentation. She saves the back bone and wing tips for the freezer to make stock later. 

She uses the word ROADKILL yet again, as she ties the legs together to give it a very different-from-roadkill look. She uses string to tie them together, preferring it over something like scallions, which she called far too precious. (I never even thought to use scallions, but that would certainly elevate the bird to one step above road kill.) 

After she finishes with "the chicken handcuffs", Anne places the Cornish hens (she's preparing two) in an ovenproof dish. She immediately goes over to the sink to start her chicken cleanup. She washes her hands super thoroughly and gets rid of any touched-by-the-raw-chicken items. A woman after my own heart! 

But why does she say not to touch a seat candle and WHAT is that?!! OH! SINK HANDLE...in my part of the world (English speaking), we call that a FAUCET...

Anne does all the chopping for all her dishes. Herbs and garlic get chopped for the chicken AND potatoes. She smashes the garlic and chops it. Chopped rosemary and garlic go into a bowl for the chicken marinade. She adds toasted cumin seeds to a coffee grinder. and grinds them. Anne says it's amazing how much flavor is brought out by toasting the seeds. 

Anne is sooooooooooooooo right. Toasted cumin is an ingredient in one of my favorite recipes of all time - Madhur Jaffrey's Zucchini "Meatballs", where she adds the toasted ground cumin seeds to a cream sauce. 

That may sound weird maybe, but even after the four days and 40 pots it takes to make this recipe, you will never forget the taste...the warmth...the magic...(No, I'm not talking about cotton) of toasted cumin. It is a complete life-changer. 

Anne adds the ground cumin to the garlic and rosemary with lemon zest (she LOVES her microplaner) and lemon juice. Then she adds crushed red pepper, pimenton (smoked paprika) and olive oil. She "schmears" the stuff all over the hens and says it's fine to marinate them at room temperature for up to two hours. She massages in the marinade really well. 

You may be squeamish about that amount of time, but 2 hours IS the magic number after which food has to be refrigerated. That's true when serving cooked food as well. After 2 hours, it must be packed up and chilled. Having said that, though, I admit that I generally only marinate at room temperature for about half an hour. Longer than that, I DO put whatever it is in the fridge. 

For her potato dish, Anne cuts little round red and white new potatoes in half, while she begins to preheat her olive-oiled pan for the chicken. To the potatoes, she adds pepper, garlic, sage, a pinch of chili flakes and lots of salt. She oils them up really well and places them on a baking sheet.  

Anne tells us that she adds cold oil to a cold pan (for the chicken). That way she can check on the status of the oil much better.  The potatoes go into the oven. The temperature and cooking time are a mystery.

The chicken gets salted (a lot) and put into the "screaming" hot pan with tongs, after the oil has started to do "the wave". THAT'S how Anne can tell that the pan is getting hot. When she places the hens in the pan, she does it very nicely, because they're not going to be moved. 

More salt goes on the underside. She doesn't touch the chickens, because they will unstick themselves eventually. She lays another sauté pan right on top of the chicken. Then a foiled wrapped brick goes on top of that - hence the name of the recipe. The brick will keep the chickens flat and the skin will get all crispy. 

Now she's thinking antipasti. Anne likes to buy her calamari already cleaned. She moves the whole chicken assemblage into the oven. Oh, it's at 400 degrees. 

To tell you the truth, I'm so interested in the chicken and the potatoes, that I'm just not that psyched about the calamari. It's going to have be amazingly good to appeal to me.

We get a quick tip of wet paper towels to keep a cutting board from slipping. A more green alternative is to place a wet dishtowel underneath. I'm just saying...

Anne show us the "big tube-y" bodies of the calamari. She makes sure all the quills are removed. She cuts them thinly lengthwise, so they "twirl" up and look like noodles when cooked. 

She says to get all the prep work done first and then there's plenty of time for the fun stuff. That's how she "rolls in the restaurant". She yanks off the longest tentacles from the calamari and washes her hands again. 

Anne "perfumes" her oil with garlic and chili flakes. She's proud of her perfect mise en place today. She browns the garlic and then removes it. For "a salty punctuation", she chops Kalamata olives. Okay, this IS sounding good. 

Anne takes out the potatoes and tosses them around to brown both sides. (That's not an inconsiderable amount of oil.) 

After the chicken has been in the oven for 15 minutes, Anne takes the brick and top sauté pan off. She puts the chickens on a baking sheet and sets them aside. 

Then Anne gets rid of the majority of the liquid in the pan!!! I can understand getting rid of A BIT of the fat on top (although I almost never do), but MOST of it?!!  I would add some wine and stock and boil it away to get a nice reduction. 

There are tons of commercials are for The Next Food Network Star. Are you ready? I refuse to spend one more minute than necessary on it and I won't be watching the videos of the 75 contestants beforehand. 

The 40 seconds of screentime they each get in the first episode is more than enough for my brutal judgements. And frankly, these preview commercials don't make me like these contestants any more than I would anyway. They mostly just annoy me!

The calamari goes into the "screamin' hot" oil. Anne takes grilled bread off the heat. To the chicken pan, she adds chicken stock after deglazing with white wine. That's fine, but I still can't believe she threw out all that stuff. I'm sure she would say it was mostly fat. Remember, though, that fat is flavor and she could always skim the sauce at the end of the cooking. She throws some (more) salt into her sauce. 

She adds some white wine to the calamari and tosses in the olives with LOTS of salt. 

Anne plates the potatoes (great looking) and one of the Cornish hens. She pours over some of the pan juices. Wowee zowee! She tastes it. "Beautifully succulent". 

Next she tastes the calamari right out of the sauté pan. MORE salt. Arugula goes into a bowl. She spoons the calamari over with the juices. She rubs the grilled bread with garlic and pours over a lot of "finishing" oil. She loves it. "Beautifully tender." 

Great dishes, although I'd keep all those luscious pan juices. And best of all, Anne reminded me of how much I love that toasted cumin sauce on zucchini "meat" balls.