Dinner with a Centaur

Yes, I had a dinner date with a centaur (and yes, they do exist).

And to impress, I found this great cookbook called The Centaur's Kitchen.  

It is the most fun cookbook I have come across in a long time and I highly recommend it to cooks and non-cooks, humans and centaurs. And you can support somerville kitchen by clicking on this amazon link and buying it via my distribution contract with amazon.

The way I see this book is advice on how to cook stuff with recipes thrown in as examples. Here is how I put it to the test.


Roast Chicken (page 107)
 

According to this book, best to roast a chicken on its side rather than on its back, and turning it around half way through cooking (which I did and I think it worked).

Another hint is to rub the chicken with salt inside and out, put one twig of rosemary or thyme (I have both in le jardin so I put one of each) and a garlic clove inside it.

Author also suggests reducing oven temperature when the butter starts to sizzle and then cook it on low heat, 15 minutes per pound. The author does not include any oven temperatures in the book, so I started it at 350 and dropped it to 325.

Later, one of the most delicious roasted chicken came out of the oven. I rated it as 9.5 out of 10.

Spinach a la Catalane (page 82)

This sounded good and thought it worked well with roasted chicken. This starts with frying pine nuts and raisins in olive oil until, quoting the author, the raisins swell. Then add the spinach until they welt and change colour. Salt and pepper is all the flavour you need. Another 9.5 out of 10. 

I think you'd see more from this book over the next few months. Stay tuned and keep an eye on a centaur roaming your neighbourhood.