Lemon-sage chicken, pecan rice, carrots roasted with sage

   This Sunday’s supper didn’t qualify as an official extravaganza*, but it did qualify as quite tasty. These three new recipes come from two cookbooks I picked up on the deep discount section at Barnes & Noble years ago. 

   The Italian book is nearly part travelogue, and is divided by seasons. I cheated and opted for a menu from spring, because I need all the spring-like influences I can get about now. I’m not sure what makes it officially spring, unless perhaps it’s the brightness of the lemons sautéing with the onions. That pretty much captures the essence of why we cook.  (My only quibble with this book is that the ingredients are listed in all caps. WHY WOULD THEY DO THAT? Don’t they know that’s hard to read?)

Il Pollo al Limone (Braised Lemon Chicken)

Adapted from “The Four Seasons of Italian Cooking,” by A.J. Battifarano and Alan Richardson.

Ingredients:

3 tablespoons olive oil

8 pieces of chicken

Flour for dredging

Zest of 1 lemon

1 small onion, chopped

2 springs of sage, leaves only

1 ½ cup wine

Method:

Salt and pepper chicken. Dredge in flour and brown in hot olive oil in stages until all pieces are nicely browned on both sides. (A splash guard is helpful for this job; very splurty chicken.) Set chicken aside. In same pan, sauté the onions and lemon zest. Add sage just before the onions turn golden. Return chicken to pan and add wine. Partially cover and simmer 50 to 55 minutes. For the last 5 minutes of cooking time, remove lid and raise the heat to high to reduce the sauce.

Pecan rice

Adapted from “Lee Bailey’s The Way I Cook,” a very useful tome filled with 1,300 recipes and unlike most of the Lee Bailey books I own, nary a picture. The latter usually violates my idea of a good cookbook, but this is certainly worth every bit of the $6.98 I paid for it on sale years after its debut. This recipe is so simple it seems like cheating to mark this cookbook off the list. But it’s so remarkably tasty that it should count for something. It’s going straight into the keepers pile. (For those family members who are used to eating the pecan sandies I make at Christmas, this reminds me of some of that flavor.)

Ingredients:

1 cup uncooked brown rice

2 cups water, salted to taste

2 tablespoons butter

¾ cup chopped pecans

Method:

Bring rice, water and a solid pinch of salt to a boil. Cook, covered until rice is done, about 40 minutes. Meanwhile, toast pecans in an oven-safe skillet at 250 degrees for 14 minutes. When rice is nearly finished cooking, put the skillet on the heat and melt in the butter. Stir in the rice.

Carote Arrosto con Salvia (Carrots roasted with sage)

From “The Four Seasons of Italian Cooking”

Ingredients:

1 ½ pounds of carrots, slice 3/8-inch thick

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 sprig of sage, leaves only

Method:

Toss carrots with sage, sea salt and olive oil in a roasting pan. Spread them to a single layer. Bake at 450 for 25 minutes. Watch these carefully; depending on your oven time, they’re easy to incinerate. I cooked these far less time than the original recipe specified and still caught them just ahead of burning.

*To be an official Sunday supper extravaganza, five dishes must be prepared, at least four of which are new recipes. Yes, I’m hard on myself. But it’s extremely satisfying when you pull it off.