Read Fifty Shades of Chicken: A Parody in a Cookbook Online
Authors: F.L. Fowler
Fifty Shades of Chicken: A Parody in a Cookbook (7 page)
LEARNING THE ROPES
If your chicken deserves a reward for especially pliant behavior, consider replacing the commonplace creminis with something more enticing. A mix of exotic mushrooms—oyster, chanterelle, shiitake—gives the sauce a richer flavor.
B
efore you can agree to be my Ingredient, you’ll need to understand the recipes.”
Recipes?
“Do you really need those?” I cluck coquettishly. “I thought we might just wing it.”
“No, Miss Hen,” he says as if I were an errant chick. “I’ve told you, I don’t just make dinner. What I do requires intricate steps, precise preparations, and careful plating. I hope you’ll want to do it too.”
He drags out a large cookbook. He opens it to some elaborate recipes, illustrated with shocking and explicit photos of ingredients, raw and cooked, in all kinds of appalling positions. This goes way beyond trussing. I’m simply speechless. Is this what he does—he tortures food?
“You’re a sadist?”
“I’m a Foodie.” His eyes burn with dark craving.
“What does that mean?” I ask.
“It means I want you to willingly surrender yourself to my recipes. This is what it means to truly be my Ingredient. I want to manipulate your texture, layer your flavors, Chicken. I see you as a foam, a fricassee, a gelée … a modern craft cocktail …”
I don’t understand any of this.
Cock tail?
I think I’m in shock.
“I want to finesse you, very much.”
His words from our first meeting come back to me.
It’s all about finesse.
I look around the kitchen. Suddenly the knife rack and the spice cabinet seem way more sketchy than before.
“Were there others?”
He closes his eyes. “Yes. But not like you. You’ve proven yourself both resilient and versatile. Which is why I think that each part of you can be cooked separately to get the doneness right, to make flavors penetrate deeper. In the end, roasting you whole leaves your breast a little less moist than if I cook it separately. These recipes will show us the way.”
Separately?
He means cut apart.
It’s not just about taking me whole;
now he wants to flavor me limb by limb. Am I ready for more of that? My subconscious picks up the phone to call a taxi.
“I can’t keep up … why are you like this?” I say.
“Ah, that’s a long story. When I was still just a boy someone showed me what cooking could be. Like they do it in Europe. She showed me that cooking wasn’t just warming something up. It’s the discipline of turning raw ingredients into transcendence. She was the turning point for me.”
“She? She who?”
“It doesn’t matter, baby. I had a tough introduction to food. As a child I ate nothing but TV dinners and ramen. I was inexperienced. And that’s when an older woman took me under her wing and introduced me to the lifestyle.”
I am devastated at this image of little Shifty, just a child. And I’m appalled that Mrs. Child-temptress, Mrs. Child-warper, this—this evil old Mrs. Child-whatever figure was allowed to fuck him up so badly. It’s because of Mrs. Child he’s unable to just make dinner like everyone else. A boy who knew only Salisbury steak and Tater Tots, then some herb-crazed tart shows up with a chicken
chasseur
and has her way with him. The thought depresses me.
“Is that the reason for your shifty moods?” I ask quietly.
“Oh, Chicken, I’m fucked up and shifty as hell. But I’m hungry for you.”
Hungry for me!
My Shifty Blades hungers for me.
Chicken Thighs, Stirred Up and Fried Hard
Hashing It Out the Morning After
Breasts
H
ow many were there?”
“What?”
“How many Ingredients were there, before me?”
“Do you really want to rehash that conversation again?” He’s becoming ruffled.
“Yes! I think I have a right to know.”
“Fifteen.”
I wasn’t expecting that. Fifteen?
Holy shit.
He’s really been around. He’s so secretive. I feel anger bubbling up inside me.
I glare at him and he glares back. Despite the anger, I feel it, the attraction—irresistible, drawing us together like kitchen magnets.
My breast arches involuntarily toward his touch. Suddenly he seizes me and lays me out on the counter, claiming me hungrily. His fingers pull me taut, the palms of his hands grinding my soft white meat into the hard granite, trapping me. I feel him. His stomach growls, and my mind spins as I acknowledge his craving for me.
“Why must you always challenge me?” he murmurs breathlessly.
“Because I can.” My pulse throbs painfully.
He grabs a fistful of kosher salt.
“I’m going to season you now.”
“Yes.” My voice is low and heated.
He reaches for a rolling pin, then hesitates, looking at me.
“Yes, please, Chef,” I moan.
The first blow of the rolling pin jolts me but leaves behind a delicious warm feeling.
“I. Will. Make. You. Mine,” he says between blows.
Adrenaline is pounding thunderously through me—and so is he.
Fighting is rough, but making up could be the end of me.
SERVES 4 TO 6
4 boneless, skinless chicken breast halves (2 pounds), patted dry with paper towels
1½ teaspoons coarse kosher salt
½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
3 garlic cloves, minced
Large pinch of crushed red pepper flakes
¼ cup dry white wine
¼ cup low-sodium chicken broth
1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice
2 tablespoons chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
2 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
2 tablespoons sliced, pitted kalamata olives
Crusty bread, for serving
1
Using the side of a rolling pin, gently slap the breasts into submission, until they are ¼ inch thick. Season with salt and pepper, then sprinkle them on both sides with the flour, knocking off any excess.
2
Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the chicken in batches and cook until golden at the edges, 3 to 4 minutes on each side. Transfer the chicken as it cooks to a plate and tent with foil.
3
In the same pan, sauté the garlic and red pepper flakes for about 30 seconds or until fragrant. Add the wine, broth, and lemon juice to the pan, and let simmer, scraping up any browned bits, until the sauce thickens down to a glaze. Add the parsley, butter, and olives, stirring constantly. Taste and add more salt if it needs it. Return the chicken to the pan and cook until heated through, about 2 minutes. Serve hot with crusty bread.
Wings
B
lades is standing in front of me dressed in nothing but a white apron and a chef’s toque. He has a sticky glob of honey dripping from his long fingers. I lean out to see it better, but invisible chicken wire prevents me. My eyes cross. He moves a little closer and I can smell the glob. There’s something strange and powerful about it.
“Now cluck,” he commands, his voice soft. My beak opens to obey, but my wattle quivers uncontrollably.
“Enough,” he snaps.
I long to taste the honey, to peck at it. I can smell it’s not just honey, it has a hot, citrus aroma. Sharp and sweet at the same time. I crane a little farther and the chicken wire is gone, I’m free. I open my wings and he covers them with the sticky hot mess. The spice penetrates me and I feel the familiar pull deep in my belly.
“You’re marinating just for me,” he says darkly, “all for me.”
Yes,
I moan.
Let me feed you, only you.
Just then I notice that he’s holding something—a radish, I think. The radish starts to pulse like a heart. The image starts to fade, and I start to panic.
“Wake up, baby,” he says, opening the Sub-Zero with a triumphant flourish as I come back to reality. “Time for the broiler.”
Holy hell.
SERVES 6 TO 8
3 pounds chicken wings, patted dry with paper towels
¼ cup olive oil
2 tablespoons hot sauce, plus more for serving
2 tablespoons honey
2 teaspoons tomato paste
4 garlic cloves, chopped
2 jalapeño peppers, roughly chopped (leave in the seeds to make these holy hell hot)
1 lime, zested and juiced
1 teaspoon coarse kosher salt, plus more to taste
2 avocados, peeled, pitted, and sliced
1
The night before feasting, lay the chicken wings in a bowl. Combine the oil, hot sauce, honey, tomato paste, garlic, jalapeño, zest and lime juice, and salt in a blender and puree until smooth. Pour over the chicken wings and toss to coat. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight.
2
The next day, preheat the broiler. Lay the chicken wings on a foil-lined baking sheet. Season with additional salt. Broil until the chicken wings are golden and glistening, 3 to 5 minutes per side. Serve with luscious sliced avocado and more hot sauce.
LEARNING THE ROPES
For a more deluxe dish, substitute your favorite guacamole spiked with hot sauce for the sliced avocado, then dunk the wings in the guacamole before devouring. Holy hell, indeed!
glazed chicken skewers with soy sauce and ginger
Chicken
I
’m in the Sub-Zero, marinating in soy and sake, when someone calls to me. It’s the aloof radish from the crisper that I noticed on my first day.
“Can I help you?” I ask.
What could a radish want from me?
“No. I just wanted to look at you.” Her tone is unnervingly soft. Like me, she’s pale, pink, and skinny. But I can see she’s wilty and faded now.
“What do you have that I don’t?” she asks sadly. And she fades away again into the crowded crisper.
My subconscious rises up before me like a green-eyed ghost.
Fifteen
, she shrieks.
Fifteen previous Ingredients.
I recall Blades’s past. It occurs to me that his other Ingredients have known this marinade, those hands, that burning gaze. I am transfixed by the radish’s piercing question: What
do
I have that she hasn’t?
SERVES 2 TO 4
1 pound boneless chicken thigh meat
¾ cup dark soy sauce or tamari
⅓ cup mirin or sweet (cream) sherry
2½ tablespoons sake or dry sherry
1½ tablespoons brown sugar
2 fat garlic cloves, peeled and smashed
¾ teaspoon grated peeled fresh gingerroot
Scallions, white and green parts thinly sliced, for garnish
1
Cut the thighs into 1-inch pieces and place in a shallow dish. Make it beg for the sauce.
2
In a small saucepan, combine the soy sauce, mirin, sake or sherry, sugar, garlic, and ginger. Bring to a simmer and cook for about 7 minutes, until thickened and syrupy. Save ¼ cup of the sauce for dipping and drizzling. When you think they deserve it, pour the remaining sauce over the thighs, cover, and chill for at least 1 hour and up to 4 hours.
3
If using wooden or bamboo skewers, soak them in water for 1 hour. Preheat a grill or broiler. Thread the chicken pieces onto skewers and grill or broil, turning halfway, for about 6 minutes. Serve drizzled with the reserved sauce and showered with scallions.