Poultry

This dish got me hooked on the La Caja China box roaster, which was introduced to me by Tom Romano, who along with his wife, Linda Gilbert, owns Broadway Catering in Sonoma, California. They use the La Caja a lot at home and for catered events. The guests are always awestruck with this mysterious box roaster and its fabulous results. The sauce is Tom’s nod to the flavors of the Caribbean, where the La Caja is from.

Smoking duck with tea is an Asian tradition. This recipe uses a fragrant brew of Darjeeling tea, fresh ginger, and star anise for roasting rather than smoking. The tea brine gives the duck a dark, smoky flavor. My favorite way of roasting the duck is in the La Caja China box roaster. The duck comes out a beautiful mahogany color and is succulent and moist, with a smoky taste and a crisp skin. An Asian-influenced basting sauce is used as a mop a few times over the course of roasting. Tea brine can be made with other black teas, such as oolong or Earl Grey. It can also be used for roasted chicken or even pork.

Roasting chicken under bricks creates an evenly golden skin and moist, succulent meat. The bricks keep the chicken weighted down and somewhat flattened, which allows it to cook evenly and more quickly than if roasted whole. Brining the chicken keeps the flesh moist. Any number of vegetables can be roasted as part of this dish, but I prefer just tomatoes and shallots.

This tasty roasted chicken recipe is from Cheryl and Bill Jamison and is adapted from their book, Smoke & Spice. We made this together at their home in Santa Fe and adapted it to the Big Green Egg, which works perfectly at 250 to 275°F. The birds were a beautiful tobacco color from the oak lump charcoal smoke. If you like, add any leftover rub to the mop for additional flavor.

My mother often cooked this dish when my family camped out. If you have leftover cooked chicken, use that instead of the smoked chicken, though the smoky taste is great in this dish.

Tandoori chicken is easily identified by its red color and is named for the oven it’s cooked in. The tandoor is a cylindrical clay or ceramic oven heated to temperatures of 550° to 750°F or more. Meat and vegetables are skewered, then lowered into the oven. The high heat creates a crisp crust and leaves the meat moist. For the best flavor, marinate overnight. The red food coloring is optional. This recipe is adapted to a grill or Big Green egg ceramic cooker, which is the next best thing to an actual tandoor oven.

A rich, fragrant dish, these duck breasts are perfumed with the aromatics of southwest France, then grilled to crisp the fatty skin. Served sliced and fanned over tender baby greens lightly dressed with citrus vinaigrette, this is a wonderful dish to serve as a first course or as a light main course.

This is one of my favorite recipes, where you not only get rid of excess fat, but you get delicious breast meat, tender thighs, and beautifully crisp brown skin. Note that you may complete the final roasting an hour or so after the second, or braising, step.

Rather than broiling a chicken in pieces, which is easy to do but not wildly exciting, and rather than roasting it whole, which takes an hour or more, butterfly your chicken. It cooks in half the time and makes a great presentation.

Traditional chowders all start off with a hearty soup base of onions and potatoes, and that makes a good soup just by itself. To this fragrant base you then add chunks of fish, or clams, or corn, or whatever else seems appropriate.

(Can be prepared ahead of time.)