Weeknight Cooking

Roasted



For the moment anyway, I think the name of my little side street bistro would be Roasted, – the smell of roasted lamb, beef, chicken, along with fresh roasted vegetables, would waft up out of the vestibule

and out onto the street to entice the hungry day and night.  Roasting is a favorite cooking technique for most anybody who invests the necessary time into it, but it's also the hardest for the every day cook to do consistently. Roasting takes all the things that very few folks really have: planning, preparation and cooking time mainly. Roasting is worthwhile, but how to get started....how to maintain?

As if often pointed out, as good a reason as any for roasting is that high heat is used to develop flavor.    Because vegetables aren't boiled, steamed, or fried, but instead set into high dry heat, flavors stay within – heat enhances instead of allowing flavor to escape.  The difference between a microwaved carrot and a roasted carrot is about at a hundred percent; add a corner of butter or a dash of seasoning and that roasted carrot becomes more than a mechanical side and something that very easily stands on its own.

The easiest way to get started then is to roast virtually any root vegetable any time with any meal.  From there, adding a variety of diced veggies onto a pre-browned piece or two of meat, then sent

into the oven, will create an intermingling sensation of smells that are extremely earthy and authentic. The chicken above was pre-marinated, tomato and basil, browned in a skillet, and then the veggies added for a quick semi-saute.  Crisp, raw veggies on heat intermixed with chicken is one of the great kitchen smells of all time; as this dish is sent into a hot heat oven at 475 for twenty minutes, uncovered, the carrots especially begin to soften and nearly caramelize; the celery and onion adding an earthy tone; and the mushrooms, quick to soften, shrink and brown to compliment the meat in a way that is much like the addition of bacon to any meal, very potent and distinct.  A pinch of marjoram sprinkled over the top, and you might think you're eating your garden.