Month: June 2025

Chicken saute with garlic and hollandaise

Chicken saute with garlic and hollandaise

This delicious, but fairly simple, recipe is derived from one by Julia Child in MTAOFC vol1. We make it as a “company dish” all the time, and the results are really impressive, considering you can make it in half an hour or so. In our latest variation, we decided to use only dark meat, since it is considerably juicier. If you use a whole chicken, you add the white meat later in the cooking process so it doesn’t dry out.

  • A heavy duty 10” or 11” skillet with a lid.
  • ¼ lb butter (one stick)
  • 2-3 lb of chicken legs and thighs, skin removed.
  • 1 tsp thyme
  • 1 tsp basil
  • ¼ tsp fennel (ground or seeds)
  • Salt and pepper
  • 3 cloves unpeeled garlic
  • 2/3 cup dry white wine
  •  
  • 2 egg yolks
  • 1 Tb lemon juice
  • 1 Tb white wine
  • 2 Tb fresh basil or parsley (or both), chopped finely
  1. Combine the basil, thyme and fennel and mix together. If you are using fennel seeds (which are ore common), you can crush them with the other two spices using a mortar and pestle or in a good blender or food processer.
  2. Remove the skins from the chicken, dry them off and sprinkle the spice mixture over the tops. Add salt and pepper     
  3. Heat the butter in the skillet over medium heat until it’s foaming.
  4. Add the chicken piece and the unpeeled garlic cloves. Cover, and cook over low to medium heat for about 8 minutes.
  1. Turn the chicken pieces, baste them with the butter, sprinkle with spices and salt and pepper, and cook covered a few more minutes until the chicken has reached 165˚ F.
  2. Remove the chicken from the pan to a warm plate, and cover it to keep warm.
  3. Mash the garlic cloves with a wooden spoon and remove the peels.
  4. Add the white wine, and boil it down over high heat until it has been reduced by half.
  5. Meanwhile, put the egg yolks in a small saucepan, and beat until sticky. Add the 1 Tb of wine and lemon juice, and mix together.
  1. Then, beat in the butter and wine mixture from the cooking pan a Tb at a time, to make a thick, creamy sauce. Be sure to include the garlic.
  2. Whisk the sauce over low heat to thicken it.
  3. Then mix in the chopped basil and parsley.

In theory, you should be able to serve the chicken at this point, perhaps with rice, and this creamy sauce.

But hollandaises can be persnickety and there is a non-trivial chance that the sauce will separate or curdle while it sits there. Fortunately, this has a quick fix.

Put  1-2 Tb if dry white wine in a small mixing bowl and slowly beat in the curdled sauce,  a tablespoon at a time. This will result in a smooth, stable sauce you can serve with pride.

Serve the chicken on a platter and pass the sauce in a dish or gravy boat.

Enjoy this fabulous meal!

Ice Cream Sodas on a hot day

Ice Cream Sodas on a hot day

Remember ice cream sodas? No? Long before there were ice cream scoop shops, there were soda fountains, where they made a lot of more elaborate ice cream dishes, including ice cream sodas.

They are cold and refreshing. I remember stopping at Isaly’s in Columbus before I delivered papers on my paper route. Ice cream sodas were only 25 cents, and in June (Dairy Month) they were half price!

I watched and talked to them and can tell you every detail of how to make this really refreshing dessert. For these pictures, we bought some real soda glasses and long spoons, but you can use any tall drinking glasses.

The recipe

  • 2-3 Tb chocolate or strawberry syrup
  • 1 Tb whipping cream, or a squirt from your whipped cream aerosol can.
  • Ice cold soda water
  • 2 scoops of ice cream
  • Whipped cream for topping
  • And, a cherry

Start by putting the syrup in the bottom of each glass. We used 2 Tb of chocolate syrup and a bit more strawberry syrup. Squirt about a tablespoon or more of whipped cream into the syrup, to make flavoring for the soda water. Stir the cream into the syrup.

Pour cold soda water into the syrup mixture about half-way up the sides of glass. Mix carefully so it doesn’t foam up tooo much.

Add 2 scoops of ice cream to each glass. We used chocolate for the chocolate soda and vanilla for the strawberry soda.  Use a spoon to push the ice cream down into the soda water. If the soda and ice cream don’t come right to the top of the glass, add a little more soda and carefully mix it in.

Top with whipped cream and a cherry.

An ice cream soda actually improves if you let it sit a couple of minutes: some of the soda freezes on the surface of the ice cream, giving you some crunchy, fizzy frozen soda water. Serve right after that brief pause.

Happy summer!