Author: arielleclementine

Blood Orange Chicken Wings

arielleclementine1 Comment

Hi friends! In just 30 minutes Helen and I are gonna hop on a plane to LA, and then we’re off to sunny Mexico on a cruise with my 90-year-old granny and big brother Cameron! I’m excited.  I’m going to eat lots of food.  It’ll be so weird to be away from the computer/internet/cell phone for a week but, aside from missing Andy, it’ll be fun too!

A couple days ago I made these chicken wings for this week’s food52 contest (of course).  The contest this week was über fun (umlaut!).  You were supposed to submit a dish featuring blood orange, feta, and mint.  Helen and I both eschewed the traditional blood orange salad and instead opted for very silly creations! Helen made a feta frozen yogurt! And I made chicken wings! I think they turned out ‘right nice too.  They have a blood orange reduction as a glaze, that’s sweet and tart and a little bit spicy from an addition of chile flakes.  Then I served them with a whipped feta with mint as a dip.  That dip was good too! If you make it, make sure you rinse your feta before you crumble it- otherwise it will be too salty.  The dip also firms up if you refrigerate it, but it’s a great spread for crackers at that point!

So happy spring break friends! I’ll miss you!

Blood Orange Glazed Chicken Wings with Minted Whipped Feta


For the Wings

  • 2 pounds chicken wings
  • kosher salt and black pepper
  • 3/4 cups juice from 3 blood oranges
  • 1.5 tablespoons honey
  • 1/2 tablespoon blood orange zest
  • 1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
  1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
  2. Line a baking sheet with foil, then with parchment paper.
  3. Cut the chicken wings into thirds, and reserve the wing tips for stock. Pat dry thoroughly. Season with kosher salt and freshly cracked black pepper and arrange on the baking sheet. Bake for 45 minutes, flipping the wings every 15 minutes.
  4. While the wings are baking, make the glaze. In a small saucepan over medium-high heat, mix the blood orange juice, zest, honey, and crushed red pepper and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to low and simmer, stirring occasionally, for 25 minutes, or until the glaze has reduced to about 1/4 of a cup. Remove from the heat and set aside.
  5. After the wings have baked for 45 minutes, remove the pan from the oven and brush the wings all over with the glaze. Return to the oven to bake for 5 more minutes. Serve warm with Minted Whipped Feta (recipe follows).

For the Whipped Feta

  • 3/4 pounds fresh feta, rinsed and crumbled
  • 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
  • 1 tablespoon lemon juice
  • black pepper
  • 1/4 cup chopped fresh mint
  1. Put the crumbled feta, olive oil, lemon juice, and pepper in a food processor and process until smooth. It should look a bit like hummus. Add the chopped mint and pulse a few times to incorporate.
  2. Serve in a pretty bowl topped with a drizzle of olive oil and a sprig of mint.

Cookbook Time for Me!

arielleclementine3 Comments

I get to be in a cookbook! My olive recipe won this week’s food52 contest, thanks largely to Helen’s campaigning on my behalf (against her own recipe!).  So thanks, sister-of-my-life! I am so happy I get to be in a cookbook with you! If you’d like to read my finalist Q&A,  you can find it here.  Hooray!

Schmaltz-y Roasted Chicken and Potatoes

arielleclementine2 Comments

It’s a snow day! Oh boy! If you’re in Austin, and you have a chicken (a dead one), there has never been a better day to roast that mother.  I’m going to give you my version of Thomas Keller’s simple roast chicken, and oh, friend, it goes down smooth.  You don’t put butter, or oil, or anything but kosher salt and pepper on it just before it goes in the oven.  I used to be of the opinion that roasted chicken should be slathered in butter before cooking, but this laissez-faire approach yields a chicken with crispy-schmaltz-y, delicious skin and lovely moist meat. It’s so chicken-y! Which is how it should be, if you’re using a happy little chicken from the farmers’ market- they’re perfect and need no adornment save a final bath in thyme-infused schmaltz.  Really fun.

So, we had this last night, and right now I’ve got the carcass simmering in a pot of water with the reserved pan drippings (minus the fat- that I’ve saved to use when I make matzoh balls tonight), carrots, celery, onions, shallots, peppercorns, thyme, and a bay leaf.  Tonight we’ll sup on matzoh ball soup with this lovely stock, latkes, and homemade apple sauce.  The perfect post-roast chicken dinner 🙂

Yum, yum, eat it up.

Schmaltz-y Roasted Chicken and Potatoes

  • 1 4-5 lb happy chicken
  • kosher salt and black pepper
  • 1 pillow of fat, plucked from the cavity of your chicken
  • 1 medium-large yukon gold potato, cut in 1″ dice
  • 1 tablespoon minced fresh thyme
  1. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees.
  2. Pat down your chicken obsessively, until it is perfectly dry. If you haven’t already done so, remove the little pillow of fat that’s attached to the front of the cavity of your chicken. (If your chicken doesn’t have this, see if you can trim some fat from other parts of the chicken).
  3. Put a hefty sprinkling of salt and pepper in the cavity of the bird, and then truss the bird with kitchen string. Put the chicken in a large cast iron skillet, and sprinkle it liberally with salt and pepper, turning the bird to coat the sides as well as the top. Toss the fat you pulled off the bird into the skillet as well, so that it will render in the oven. Put the bird into the oven immediately. It is very important that you salt the bird right before you put it in the oven. If you salt the bird and then wait for the oven to preheat, the salt will draw moisture out of the chicken, and this will inhibit your skin from crisping.
  4. Roast the chicken for 15 minutes. Remove the pan from the oven, lift up the chicken and put the diced potato into the skillet, so it can mingle with the rapidly-rendering chicken fat. Put the chicken back on top and put it back in the oven for another 45 minutes.
  5. Remove the chicken from the oven, and put on a cutting board. Toss the fresh thyme into the skillet, and mix it in so it coats the potatoes. Tilt the skillet so that your chicken fat/thyme liquid runs to the side, and spoon some of this over the chicken, so that the bird becomes shiny with chicken fat and flecked with thyme. Allow the bird to rest for 10 minutes, then devour, along with those schmaltz-y potatoes.  Ooohh- also, TK recommends that you serve this with a good dijon mustard and/or butter to slather on the chicken when you’re eating it.  These are both lovely and delicious suggestions.