Salt Pt. 3: A Good Drummie

Carly could play Monster High Dolls (the newest and hottest 1st grade doll!!)

with Addie Lee for six hours straight if given the chance.  She did have the chance this past sunday.  I went to pick her up at 5:30 at the Lee's and as Carly and Addie showed me the elaborate blanket fort they created in the basement, they wanted to ask to make sure a future 'doll trade' was ok: Carly would take one Monster High Doll from Addie now, but Addie would get two dolls from Carly when they saw each other next time. Ok, no problem.  For the trouble of taking Carly for the day, I wanted to bring Theresa a little something from what I had been cooking the last few hours – a whole smoked chicken with black pepper vinegar sauce and Chi Chi's cornbread.  I chose the recipe out of Bobby Flay's Bar Americain, a restaurant name that I'm fairly sure gives a nod to Humphrey Bogart's place in the movie Casablanca

The recipe is so simple that it reminds you of the power of well applied salt, for both the chicken and the sauce: the chicken, nothing more than buying a whole chicken, lathering it up in Canola Oil, and shaking Kosher salt and pepper on the entire outside, bake at 450 for 20 minutes, creating the browning effect, then continuing for another hour lower, at 350

Once out – the chicken is small but much more tender in comparison to chicken bought in pieces – I decided to drizzle the black pepper vinegar sauce in circles around a white platter, then adding the cut white and two legs over that.  If the chicken is simple, perfectly textured, the sauce is a complimenting highlight, nothing more than dijon mustard, honey, vinegar, pepper, 1 1/2 tsps. Kosher salt, canola oil and extra virgin oil. I yanked off one of the little drummies, spooned over some of the sauce and gave it to Theresa in a little tupperware box.  A couple of hours later I got a text back, "that chicken was awesome, thanks." I owe it to the salt.