Originally posted by Jess – December 27, 2015
Hello everyone! Jess here. Check this out!
Yes, thanks to my friend Elizabeth Almeida over at Fat Moon, I have fresh shiitake mushrooms growing in my house! You can enjoy these too, just swing by her website for details. I cut a few off of my spawn block here for tonight’s featured recipe. We’ll be having more fun with mushrooms once the new year approaches.
Here we have the delicious Springdell roast chicken that we just enjoyed for dinner. They normally have both legs, it’s just that we are getting real bad at waiting to take photos before carving. They are too tasty!
Back to our shiitakes. After a gentle cleaning and stem removal (save the stems for your veggie broth, as always) I chopped them into smaller pieces.
During the last 45 minutes (roughly) of roasting my chicken, I added the chicken giblets to the roasting pan, along with the chopped up mushrooms and a coarsely chopped onion.
Meanwhile, I started a pan of roasted potatoes (both regular and sweet potatoes) in rendered bacon fat from this morning’s breakfast. On the side were the brussels sprouts from this week’s share box.Once the chicken was cooked, I removed it from the pan, along with the giblets and the onion, pressing out as much of the flavor as I could into the pan. The pan went onto the stovetop with about 1/4 cup of wine, a cup of water, and 1 tablespoon of corn starch.
As things bubbled and reduced over the low flame, I whisked the drippings in with the mushrooms and the liquid (I used a coated whisk to keep from scratching my pan). This is what I had at the end.
Rich, chicken flavored mushroomy goodness! I didn’t even bother separating the gravy this evening as I usually do, the shiitakes had already absorbed lots of the goodness. Please feel free to add more water/wine/stock to get the consistency you like, and remember that it will thicken more upon standing!
This stuff is great on the potatoes, the chicken, or on it’s own. You could pick the neck meat off the giblets and add that too, and also leave the onion in the mix. The options are yours to enjoy, and I hope you do! It’s totally worth the extra few minutes of doing this while your chicken rests.
For dessert, we enjoyed some of our leftover holiday desserts, including our pie from Sweet E’s Pie & Cake of Chelmsford. The boys spent time playing with new toys, while Sarah and I chatted about the new and improved CSA365 and how it’s all going to work. Hang in there for the bumps we may have at the beginning, it’s gonna be great!
Thanks to Fat Moon, Sweet E’s and to Springdell for feeding us so well this evening!