Katherine Hall Page

Recipes

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Here are two of Faith's Winter favorites!

Baked Chicken With Red Wine, Sage, and Root Vegetables

What you need:

2 1/2 pounds chicken
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 pound parsnips
1/2 pound carrots
1 large yellow onion
2 tablespoons fresh sage
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
1 cup red wine (not sweet)

Faith’s family likes dark meat, so she uses four whole chicken legs.
Preheat the oven to 350°.

Rinse and pat the chicken dry with a paper towel.

Drizzle the oil in a casserole large enough to hold the chicken and vegetables. Faith prefers the oval ones from France, but Pyrex is just fine too.
Place the chicken pieces in the casserole.
Peel the parsnips, scrub (or peel) the carrots and cut both into chunks, about an inch long.

Peel the onion and cut it into eighths.
Arrange the assorted vegetables around the chicken.
Strip the leaves off the sage stems. Roll them into a small cigar shape and slice into thin strips (a chiffonade). Sprinkle on top of the chicken and vegetables along with the salt and pepper.

Pour the wine evenly over the casserole.

Cover tightly with aluminum foil and bake for 1 hour.
Uncover, baste with a bulb baster or a spoon and bake for another 45 minutes, basting occasionally. The chicken should be nicely browned. Let the dish rest for 5 minutes.

Serves 4 amply. Be sure to spoon some of the liquid on top of the chicken and vegetables when serving.

What is nice about this dish is that it omits browning the chicken, which you would do in a more traditional coq au vin. It takes less time to prepare and Faith created it as a heart-wise version for her husband. She uses a salt substitute and takes the skin off the chicken unless she’s making it for company. You can vary the vegetables—turnips are good also. She serves it with the following:

Sautéed New Potatoes With Sage

What you need:

Small red potatoes
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 tablespoons fresh sage
Salt
Freshly ground pepper

While the chicken is baking, start the potatoes.
Faith figures 3 potatoes per person.
Wash the potatoes, cut them in half, and steam them until you can pierce them with a sharp fork.
Set aside.
About 15 minutes before the chicken is ready, sauté the potatoes in the butter and oil. Unfortunately a butter substitute does not work with this dish. Once the potatoes start to brown sprinkle them with the sage and add salt and pepper to taste.
The potatoes will be done at the same time as the chicken and should be slightly crispy.

Faith makes this basic recipe often to accompany meat, poultry, or fish, varying the seasoning. Rosemary is one of her favorites.

Ursula’s Rum Cake

What you need:

2 1/2 cups sifted all purpose flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
2 sticks unsalted butter room temperature
1 cup sugar
2 large eggs
1 cup buttermilk
Finely grated rind of 1 lemon
Finely grated rind of 2 oranges
1 cup chopped walnuts

Glaze ingredients:

3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice (from lemon grated for rind)
1/2 cup fresh orange juice (from oranges grated for rind)
1 cup sugar
5 tablespoons of dark rum

Preheat oven to 350°. Grease and flour an eight cup kugelhopf or bundt pan.
Sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
Beat butter in electric mixer until soft. Add sugar and beat to mix. Add eggs one at a time beating after each addition. On low speed, add sifted dry ingredients in three additions alternating with buttermilk, scraping bowl as necessary.
Remove from mixer and stir in rinds and nuts.
Pour into prepared pan, smooth top and place in hot oven. Bake for 55-60 minutes, until top springs back when pressed lightly.
Remove from oven and set on rack.

Immediately prepare glaze.

Place juices and sugar in saucepan and place over moderate heat and stir with wooden spoon until sugar is dissolved and mixture comes to boil. Remove from heat and add rum. Stir.

Pierce top of cake with a cake tester. Spoon hot glaze over hot cake (still in the pan), spooning a little at a time. When you notice glaze oozing around the edge of the cake pan, use a metal spatula or knife to ease the edge of the cake away from the pan, allowing the glaze to run down the sides. Continue this until all glaze is absorbed. It will be absorbed, believe me.

Let cake stand for 10 to 15 minutes, until bottom of pan is cool enough to touch. Then cover cake with a plate, hold the plate tightly in place against the cake pan and flip over the cake and pan. Remove cake pan from the cake. Let stand for at least two hours until cool and cover with plastic wrap. Can stand overnight before serving.

Truth to be told, this extraordinary recipe is not Ursula Lyman Rowe’s, but Valerie Wolzien’s—the author of many of Faith’s and my favorite books: the Susan Henshaw mystery series and the one featuring Josie Pigeon. Slice a large piece of cake and settle down with say, Murder at the PTA Luncheon or This Old Murder or Death in Duplicate, or…