Anchovy-Butter Chicken with Chicken Fat Croutons by Alison Roman

Anchovies don’t have the best reputation. I know, because I used to make an “eww” face when someone mentioned them. In the same way that sardines aren’t widely loved, anchovies draw out an almost automatic, negative response. Something about skinned fish submerged in oil with a strong smell. After 7 months of cooking with anchovies regularly, I confess I still get a little grossed out when I open a new tin and coax the tiny fillets out of the oil. They’re not visually appetizing.

Through this project, I’ve come to realize and appreciate the powerful flavor that anchovies contain. When heated, their fishiness practically disappears and I’m left with a salty umami that cannot be replicated by dumping a bunch of salt into something. The saltiness of anchovies add depth without calling attention to themselves. Case in point: after just a few bites of this chicken, my mother-in-law said, “There are anchovies in this? I can’t taste them at all!” Little did she know that almost an entire tin of anchovies were used to flavor the chicken. 

Because anchovies pack so much flavor power, little else is needed to accompany them. This chicken, a 3.5-4lb. bird, gets covered in a thin layer of salt and pepper, before a half stick of room temperature unsalted butter mixed with finely chopped anchovies and garlic gets slathered all over its skin, and even under its skin. Alison encourages us to “really get in there” with the butter. Before sticking this in the oven, I placed a head of garlic, cut crosswise, and several springs of fresh thyme into the cavity of the bird. I placed a red onion, cut into eighths, around the base of the bird to catch the fat drippings. 

The bird spends 25-35 minutes in the oven at 425 degrees. Then the temperature gets adjusted to 350 degrees, the onions get tossed in the rendered chicken juices, and it all spends another 30-35 minutes in the oven. At least, that’s how Alison tells it. I, on the other hand, had yet another chicken incident where the chicken is not at all ready when she says it will be. Yes, I used an oven thermometer and made sure my oven is as hot as it says it is. But everytime one of Alison’s chickens uses this half-an-hour at a higher temp, then half-an-hour at a lower temp method, my chicken is undercooked and I spend the next 20-30 minutes checking it every 5 minutes or so. I need to find the right solution to this problem, which will take some experimentation. Perhaps I don’t turn the temperature so low halfway through. Or I budget in the extra 30 minutes from the get-go so I don’t have a group of hungry people waiting for the chicken to finally finish. I’ve had great success with Alison’s low-and-slow method, where the bird sits for 2.5 hours at a low temp. Maybe I convert her recipes to use this method? (Margaret, any other ideas?) 

The bird was still very tasty, though a little dry on the top layers of meat from all the checking and poking with the meat thermometer. Once the chicken was cooked, I tossed a bowlful of torn sourdough bread in the chicken fat and stuck the pan back into the oven to crisp up. Chicken fat croutons were easily the best part of this dish. 

If I can figure out the oven conundrum, this dish has potential to become a regular in my kitchen. But until then, I’m sticking with the other low-and-slow birds. 

116 recipes cooked, 109 to go.

Grilled Trout with Green Goddess Butter (A Whole Fish! Yes, You Can!) by Alison Roman

Yes, I can! Three weeks ago, I learned I could grill a whole fish. It was an empowering, exhilarating experience. The process was easy, but the mental battle was harder. Those eyes, ya know? Alison’s Grilled Branzino with Lemons All of the Ways exceeded my expectations. I left that cooking experience with more confidence and an excitement for my next whole fish rendezvous. You can read all about that here! 

Sadly, I wasn’t able to find any whole trout. Granted, I did only look at two stores. I’m sure I would have been able to find trout at a seafood specialty store, but I just didn’t have the energy or time to hop around. Not surprisingly, since starting my new job, I haven’t had the space to shop for more niche ingredients. But so it goes. Thankfully, Alison says you can use branzino too, which can be readily found at Whole Foods. 

The process is very similar, if not identical, to the recipe I mentioned earlier. Simply season the fish with salt and pepper, and spray it with canola oil. The fish spends roughly 8 minutes per side on the grill at medium-high heat until the skin is charred and slightly puffy. Instead of lemon slices, the fish is stuffed with sprigs of thyme. At the very end, I dressed the fish with dollops of green goddess butter that melted into the skin. For details about this herby butter, see the Roasted Radishes with Green Goddess Butter recipe post. 

The flavors and seasoning paired perfectly with Branzino - a relatively mild and tender white fish. If it weren’t for the fact that these two particular fish seemed to have far more bones, I may have said that I enjoyed this fish even more than the last. But I do think the two recipes are equally fit for a lovely summer dinner on the deck, and though they look fancy, they don’t require fancy skills or techniques. Alison tells you everything you need to know in order to make a successful and wow-worthy meal. 

112 recipes cooked, 113 to go.

Clam Pasta with Chorizo and Walnuts by Alison Roman

And Alison does it again – completely exceeds my seafood expectations and makes me want to cook whatever crustacean she uses, again and again. I’ve never once thought clams were appetizing. I’ve never once craved them. Even after living in San Francisco for two years – home of the clam chowder & sourdough bread bowl – I avoided clams with gusto. 

With the same trepidation, I approached the seafood counter at Cub to order two pounds of littleneck clams. I watched the soft-spoken man behind the counter take his time adding clams to the scale, wishing I wasn’t spending $18 on the little guys. But alas, all for the project! 

First step was to toast the walnuts, whole, in the oven at 350. I find that it takes about 13 minutes to get a sufficient toasting, as opposed to the 8-10 minutes Alison suggests. Or it could just be my oven. Alison frequently asks for toasted nuts, and I capitalize on this by toasting more than called for so I can eat the rest as a snack! Once the nuts cooled, I could chop them into tiny nibs to make the gremolata. For those curious, Google says that gremolata is “a dressing or garnish made with chopped parsley, garlic, and grated lemon zest, served as an accompaniment to meat or fish.” And that’s exactly what I mixed with the walnuts: parsley, garlic, and lemon zest. 

Thirty minutes before dinnertime, I started cooking the chorizo, a task I always find annoying because it takes far too much effort to break up the meat in the skillet. Remind me next time to crumble it by hand before putting it in the pan. Meanwhile, I cooked the pasta (corn & brown rice pasta) in a pot of unsalted water. Once the chorizo was just browned through, I added another 4 cloves of minced garlic and let them get nicely aromatic. 

Quickly after, the clams were ready to join the fun. I placed the lid on the pan and shook it every 20 seconds for 3 minutes. That’s all it took for the clams to open and warm through. So easy! I added the cooked pasta straight from the pot with tongs, just as Alison suggested, along with over a cup of the pasta water. For the next 5 minutes, Madeline took over and vigorously shook the skillet as the starch in the pasta water formed a sauce that coated the noodles with briny, salty flavor. Many twists of black pepper later, and this was ready to serve. 

And wow, was it delicious. If you’re like me and you find clams intimidating, this is a great introductory recipe that will leave you unafraid and ready for more. It’s not at all fishy tasting, and the pasta and chorizo make it feel like a familiar dinner with a fun twist. The walnuts and parsley added a really nice textural variance, and added yet another flavor element to make things interesting. There were absolutely no leftovers. 

I got my courage to make this dish from 3 daring friends who wanted to try it with me. Sam, Madeline, and Jordan. And as is customary with this crew, this became another All-Out Alison Meal. I’ll deploy the other recipe essays through the rest of this week. 

103 recipes cooked, 122 to go.

Cold Soba with Cucumbers, Watercress, and Sesame by Alison Roman

Most of Alison’s recipes, while relatively easy to make, can’t qualify as a “quick weeknight dinners.” Right now, I have the time in my life to accommodate the ingredient shopping and recipe planning that her meals require. But a few months from now, I’ll be looking for more quick-fix options that take 30 minutes or less and can be made with what I have on hand. In other words, I’ll be looking for recipes like this cold soba dish. 

The thrust of this recipe is just cooked noodles tossed in sauce, topped with toasted sesame seeds and veggies. It can be modified with different vegetable toppings and it makes great leftovers. I thoroughly enjoyed the fresh and slightly spicy combo of Persian cucumbers with watercress, and I’d want to stick to vegetables that contribute similar strengths to the dish. 

The recipe calls for soba noodles which, Alison explains, are the best kind of noodle eaten cold. I’ve had cold soba noodles at a Japanese restaurant before and agree that they are the right texture and chewiness for cold noodle eating. However, soba noodles are made of buckwheat, which means I can’t eat them. Instead, I opted for TJ’s Brown Rice Spaghetti noodles, and had good success. A tad on the overly chewy side, but just barely so. 

Once I drained and cooled the noodles, I tossed them in a sauce made of soy sauce, sesame oil, rice vinegar, yuzu kosho paste, and finely chopped watercress and scallions. Then the noodles were ready for plating. The toasted sesame seeds sprinkled on top really brought the dish home, unifying the noodles and veggies and adding a nutty dimension to the flavors. 

If you or someone in your family is adamant about having protein with dinner, I can recommend a poached chicken breast, thinly sliced to pair with the noodles and sauce. Jordan really appreciated the combination. This is one I’ll be making regularly when my life schedule fills up, and I’m hoping to find more like it. 

102 recipes cooked, 123 to go.

Grilled Branzino with Lemons All of the Ways by Alison Roman

Does the idea of cooking a whole fish intimidate you? Maybe gross you out a bit? It certainly did both for me. It’s those dead eyes staring at me from the seafood counter, like they know something. I didn’t grow up in a culture that ate much fish, let alone whole fish. Save for the once a year camping trips with amateur fishing attempts led by my more experienced uncles. If we ever caught anything notable, the prep and cooking was up to them. I wouldn’t get near my catch. 

This project has grown and stretched me in countless ways. This project asked me to cook a whole fish – and I’m so much the better for it. 

I started the journey at Whole Foods, where I purchased two pounds of branzino’s. I asked the man at the counter if the fish were “gutted and scaled,” just like Alison told me to. What those terms meant, I wasn’t totally sure. He picked up a fish and showed me how it had been cut open and gutted already, but then said it hadn’t been scaled. I asked him if he could do it for me, to which he replied with a reluctant nod. It took him about 4 minutes to scale both fish. He shaved the scales on either side with a small, sharp knife, and the scales flew everywhere. While watching him, I thanked my lucky stars that I didn’t have to do this in my kitchen and face the clean-up afterward.  

That afternoon, I prepped the preserved lemon relish by finely chopping a full preserved lemon (I had a jar of homemade ones that I preserved about three months ago). If you don’t have any preserved lemon on hand, you can find jars of them in the grocery store. To the relish I added grated garlic, olive oil, and white wine vinegar. And lots of pepper with a dash of salt. This relish was fantastic to pair with the salty, tender white fish. It absolutely completed the dish. 

Later that evening, I journeyed to my in-laws for more meal prep and dinner. They own a grill, so I’m making all of Alison’s grill recipes there this summer. Prepping the fish there was so simple. The fish were already cut from the gutting, so I simply placed a few thin lemon slices in each, then sprayed the outside of the fish with canola oil and sprinkled with salt and pepper. 

With the grill on medium-high heat, we placed the fish horizontally over the grate, with the backbone facing us. After 9 minutes, the skin was charred, crisped, and puffy. We were ready to flip it over. 8 more minutes and the fish was ready to serve! Alison asks you to grill a lemon for 5 minutes. We did this, but it didn’t add much more than aesthetic appeal, especially with the relish already on the side. 

The fish was perfectly moist, flaky and tender, and honestly barely tasted like actual fish. Jordan said this is his favorite “unexpected” meal of the project so far. Cooking a whole fish was SO much easier than it looked. So much more delicious than I anticipated. This dish made me feel like I can do anything! And you can too. 

98 recipes cooked, 127 to go.