Mother’s Day 2010
When Leland gave me my own website for Christmas last year, I was delighted and honored. To know he valued my food and our experiences made me proud.
As I tried to work with it even the simple wix.com proved too much for my tech skills. I spent much more time getting the posts up than I did thinking and writing. My efforts that did make it online showed my lack of web design understanding and the seduction by the wix visuals. I hope this blog will be my little sports car and zip me though the congestion of the web to interest and inform you.
For most of my adult life, from early in my marriage at 18, after I found Julia on PBS, I have considered myself part of the sophisticated epicurean world. Gradually most Americans stopped cooking, or used the word to refer to the heating of the contents of a can or baking hunks cut off a roll of prepackaged dough.
As I bought books and cooked from them, I learned not just French and Italian ingredients, but Chinese and Indian. The more I learned, the more I could use my techniques to combine flavors in creative and pleasing ways.
Now I see breaded chicken with Dijon on morning TV. I found that recipe in Gourmet forty years ago. Most young chefs can add an exotic spice like cardamom to their French toast, too. The pendulum is swinging to better tasting, healthier food.
Hooray!!
Dijon Chicken Legs and Thighs
This recipe is from Gourmet Magazine before 1974 when I left OC for the first time. It was in an article about food to take on a picnic.
It called for dipping in sour cream after slathering on the mustard, but I never saw the need for it.
I save up bread ends in the freezer, defrost them and put them through the cuisinart to make crumbs. You can also grate dried bread with the large holes in a grater while holding the bread by the crust.
Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
Six to eight legs and thighs. Pull the skin off, salt and pepper, then cover with Dijon mustard. Coat with dried bread crumbs.
Put in one layer on a baking sheet and cover with foil and bake in the oven for 30 minutes.
Remove foil, increase heat to 450 degrees, and bake 15 to 20 minutes longer until golden brown.
Garnish with watercress.
Enjoy
