Wow I got a request for another book synopsis.
Like Vlad Tepes, I am going to impale and roast someone while gorging on good food.
On the menu today? Chicken Veronique and Chuck Dickens, hold on to your hats it’s going to be a bumpy ride.
OK so great expectations, a novel by Chuck Dickens published in serial form in 1860-1, I loved this book when I was very wee (I still do love it, but it has to be roasted) and read it and damn near everything else Chuck wrote (Including Martin Chuzzlewit) because Catholic school is really boring in-between masses. I was in the Latin Choir which allowed me to skip arithmetic. Well hey what use is math when you have Mass? Wait mass as is to volume as..uh…hmm…so…Uh Great Expectations everyone!
So there is this kid goes by Pip because he is too dumb to be able to pronounce Philip Pirrip, (Which is a pretty dumb name anyway) and so everybody just calls him Pip. It’s the nineteenth century so he is an orphan and has to live with his sister who is a freakin’ N@zi and her dopey husband. He (Pip, not the dopey husband) runs into some creepy convict lurking in the graveyard and gives him a helping hand or something, really I don’t want to know (It is England after all).
Then there is this whacked out broad in a big house who is looking for play companions for her sort of adopted daughter (Uuuh riiiiight, sure, ok we will roll with it for now). The house is all shades of messed up even though this old bint is freakin’ rich, not comfortable but crazy cash light the fire with a ten guinea note rich. This dump is filled with rats, cobwebs and old wedding cake, and this crazy old b!t# is like still wearing her wedding dress from some thirty years ago ‘cause she got dumped. Eeeeww damn lady that is nasty, at least change your dang drawers or something!
So Pip meets the younger whack job “Adopted Daughter” called Estella (It’s the nineteenth century she probably found her in a dumpster). Well he gets his brain in sideways over her, but Miss. Havisham (The crazy old bat) has taught Estella to be a frigid besom, n’so she treats Pip like the dirt he is. Then this lawyer dude from London shows up and takes Pip off to become a “Gentleman” (Woofter more likely) because of some anonymous trust fund. Pip is convinced that the psycho broad is supporting him because she wants him to marry Estella, (He really is a thick ba$tard).
He goes to school and shacks up with this dude Herbert Pocket (Hey it is England, and what kind of name is Pocket?) and becomes a right royal swank sod.
Eventually he finds out that it was the creepy convict and not the mad old biddy that was throwing dough his way, which seriously bums him out. The creepy convict shows up and is like “Dude, I need to couch surf for like the rest of my life, oh and the pigs want to hang me.” and Pip being dumb as a sack of wet mice decides he has to take care of this other weirdo.
Estella marries some other pillock and Pip goes back to see Miss. Havisham who has gotten all soft in the head (as if she wasn’t a few white tigers short of a Siegfried and Roy show to begin with) and begs forgiveness for turning Estella into a stony cow and leading Pip to believe that she was his benefactor. Then brilliantly she totally catches fire, thirty years of skin cheese is really flammable! Flame on girl!
Then he has to run away with the convict because he is still as wet as a flushed turd, and then there are a bunch of fights and some boring stuff for a hundred pages or so and the convict gets killed after they run into the dude that dumped the crazy lady. Somewhere in here he finds out that the creepy convict is also Estella dad (It’s like Alabama!) Pip ends up getting sick because another dude attacked him, or was it the same dude? I forget. (after attacking his sister but that was in the boring bit), then doing a runner and becoming fairly successful overseas hanging with Herbert for about a decade (Like I said English) and then comes back to check out the old burned Havisham place, where oddly Estella is being melodramatic about her dysfunctional marriage, and so they totally hook up or not, it really doesn’t say or maybe it does, but Chuck Dickens had two freaking endings he tagged on, one where they wander off into the freaking mist. (Oh very romantic, a runny nose, colds and gorse bushes) And another one where they sort of just: “Whad up?” each other in the street, either way it’s a total rip off. Oh I suppose that one could find the trail of the bildungsroman following one person’s life from childhood to maturity and the development psychologically of the main character (bloody typical try “Of Human Bondage” for another sweepstakes option in the “Greatest Pile of Dreck in the Universe Award".
Thematically typical of Chuck’s work in that everyone suffers a lot physically, financially and most importantly psychologically, and in the end nothing is ever really resolved though there may be a few outer lying characters that end up not too bad off in the end (In this case Joe the blacksmith).
So chicken, Great Expectations style, I mean Chicken Veronique. I expect that if you make this recipe you will like it! Ok, that was corny...
Ingredients:
4 Boneless Skinless Chicken Breasts
2 Tablespoons of butter
¾ Cup of white wine
½ Cup of chicken stock
1 Tablespoon of lemon juice
½ Cup of half and half or whipping cream
1 Cup of green seedless grapes
How you do this? I tell you know:
Heat the butter in a large skillet over medium high heat (It may smoke this is ok) sear the chicken breasts about a minute a side then add the wine and scrape up anything that may have stuck to the bottom of the pan. Add the chicken stock, and lemon juice. Reduce temperature to low and cover pan. Cook for 20-25 minutes until chicken is tender and cooked through. Then remove the breasts (Ohhh I feel like Albert Fish ewwww) and keep warm, add the cream to the pan and stir well, add the grapes and cook a further 2-3 minutes until slightly thickened, if not of gravy like consistency add a teaspoon of cornstarch mixed with a little cream or water, stir well so that you don’t end up with a dumpling in the center of your sauce, taste and season with salt and white pepper. Pour the sauce over the chicken breasts and serve.
I have usually paired this with a Pinot Gris, or Pinot Grigio. A Moselle works very well if you can find one and really any medium to full bodied white wine will serve you well here.
For the luscious looking potato rosettes:
For four marshmallowy peeps, take 2 cups of cooked peeled potatoes. Mash well, mix in 3 tablespoons of cream (Optional) 2 tablespoons of butter, 1 heaping tablespoon of tomato paste, 1 tablespoon of fresh chopped basil, ½ teaspoon of paprika, ½ teaspoon of salt, ¼ teaspoon of black pepper. Using a wire whisk whip potatoes till smooth and surgical appliance pink. Fill a piping bag fitted with a ½ - ¾ inch rosette nozzle. Pipe 2 to 3 rosettes about 1 ½ to 2 inches wide and about 2 inches tall onto each dining plate or if not serving immediately follow the following:
Mix one egg lightly beaten into the potatoes, line a baking sheet or baking pan with wax paper, lightly grease the paper. Fill piping bag and pipe as above onto the wax paper, spray with cooking spray cover and place in the fridge. Ten minutes before serving place pan uncovered in oven at 375 and cook for 10 – 15 minutes, they will brown slightly. Use a thin metal spatula to remove from wax paper and transfer to serving plate or to platter. These look great on a platter on the edges surrounding a roast of any kind. Hint very-very good with roasted chicken with oregano or pan fried zucchini patties.
No comments:
Post a Comment