Zuni at Home
If you’ve spent more than 30 seconds reading this blog, you’ll know I’m not much of a home chef. Mackie’s much more into it than I but she’ll occasionally tolerate my trying my hand in the kitchen.
Spacemai was kind enough to add Grumpy Glutton to her blogroll (thanks, darlin’) and while perusing her site, I read a post detailing how she’d found the recipe for Zuni's Roast Chicken and Bread Salad online and tried it. Hot dang, the photo of the chicken she cooked looked so good, I decided it try it for myself.
I tried the chicken a couple of nights ago and it was fantastic. Mine didn't look as good as Mai's — I'm suspicious that my oven doesn't heat to the temperature indicated on the dial — but it still rocked. I didn't attempt the bread salad. I wasn't *that* inspired.
If you decide to try this at home (and you should — it's very simple and will turn out well if you follow the instructions carefully), one bit of advice. It can be difficult to find birds as small as the recipe indicates.
The guy behind the butcher counter at Whole Foods in Potrero Hill laughed me out of the building when I asked for a whole fryer between 2 ¾ and 3 ½ pounds.
The clerk at Golden Gate Meat Company in the Ferry Building was dubious but helpfully weighed a few birds for me. To our mutual amazement, the first one came in below the range. The second was on the high side but the third clocked in right where I wanted, almost exactly 3 lbs. This bird cooked up nicely and was ample to feed three people.
If you can recommend any other good sources for small roasting chickens, please let us know in the comments sectons.
The experience motivated me to find online the recipe for Zuni's Roasted Fillet of Beef with Black Pepper. I gave this dish props for its simplicity and excellence in my post The Bauer 100. I'm not quite ready to plunk down the $100+ it's gonna cost to buy the meat but when I do, I'll let you know how it turns out.
If you're interested in trying more recipes from Zuni, Judy Rodgers' Zuni Cafe Cookbook is available from Amazon.com.
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