Receta Rao's Lemon Chicken My Way
Rao's Original, the toughest table in town. One
of New York’s most iconic restaurants is almost impossible to get into. Unless you are a bold-faced name or a local
politician or, even better, a family with “connections” to a very specific
group of Italian families, your chances of scoring a table there are slim to
none. Rao’s breaks every rule from its
location (East Harlem, 455 East 114th Street NYC (Tel:
212-722-6709)) to its size (tiny) to its hours (Monday to Friday only) to its
steadfastly sticking to Italian American classics on its menu. Lately, Rao’s has expanded to Las Vegas and
Los Angeles where you’ll find a far bigger welcome at far bigger restaurants than the home office ever
provided. High
on the list of Rao’s specialties is Roast Lemon Chicken, a chicken lover's dream of crisp-skinned chicken redolent in garlic and lemon and plenty of sauce to soak up in chunks of crusty Italian bread. For its original recipe, Rao’s cuts two small
chickens in half. They’re quickly cooked
under the broiler until they’re golden bronze.
Then a sauce heavy on lemon juice and with olive oil, red wine vinegar
and dried oregano is added. The birds are
broiled again and served. You can find
the recipe all over the web. But what
you likely cannot do is to replicate in your home kitchen. Chef Annie Petito of Cook's Illustrated This
is because the chickens Rao’s uses are not readily found in supermarkets and
because there is no way a home cook can achieve the results Rao’s salamander
does. No home broiler is that powerful. And so Cook’s Illustrated, in the person of
Annie Petito, set about to create a version that brought this lemon-y, crispy,
chicken with its perfect-for-dipping sauce to the home table. As always, Chef Petito did an exhaustive
amount of cooking to come anywhere close to Rao’s recipe. In my initial foray into
the Cook’s Illustrated version, the results were impressive. Certainly the lemon-y brightness was there. The
chicken was infused with lemon flavor while the skin kept its crispness and
crunch. But I did have a problem: To me
this is dinner-party food and not something I would cook on a weeknight. It requires a little time. So I remade the
recipe to break it into manageable blocks of cooking time. All the early prep and partial cooking is
done before the guests arrive. The
cooking is then halted. Only in the
final fifteen minutes before serving does the chicken go back in the oven
before briefly resting and being served.
If
you want to understand the science that went into Cook’s Illustrated’s version,
please see Issue 140 of the magazine published in May/June 2016. I will forgo that and just forge ahead with
the recipe, which replaces whole chickens with chicken parts, uses a quick
brining technique to season and keep the meat moist and then dries the skin to
insure its crispness. Cook’s Illustrated
goes on to say “to ensure crisp skin, pour the sauce around, not on, the
chicken right before serving”. The other
alteration I made: Cook’s Illustrated managed to fit all their chicken into one
12 inch skillet. I opted to transfer my considerably
more chicken to a roasting pan to complete the cooking. I think the results do Rao’s as proud as they
will you. Here is the recipe:
Recipe for Rao’s Lemon Chicken My Way with help from Cook’s
Illustrated. Serves 6-8. Takes about 2 hours with 1 of those spent
brining the chicken.
½ cup Kosher Salt
4 bone-in, skin-on chicken breasts
cut in two
8 bone-in, skin on chicken thighs
1 tsp. vegetable or olive oil
4 tbsp. unsalted butter
2 large shallots, in tiny dice
2 cloves garlic, minced
6 tsp. flour (I use Wondra)
At least 2 cups chicken broth,
divided.
8 tsp. grated lemon zest plus ½ cup
juice (from 4 lemons)
2 tbsp. fresh Italian parsley
leaves, chopped
2 tsp. fresh oregano leaves
1. Dissolve salt in 2 quarts cold
water in pot or container large enough to submerge all the chicken pieces. Put all the chicken in the brine, cover and
refrigerate for 30 minutes to 1 hour. Remove the chicken from the brine and dry
thoroughly.
2. Adjust oven rack to lower-middle
position and heat oven to 475 degrees.
(This can be done later in the process if you are delaying the final
cooking of the chicken).
3. Heat oil in a 12 inch skillet
over medium high heat until just smoking. In batches, place chicken skin side
down in skillet and cook until skin is well-browned and crisp, 8 to 10 minutes.
Transfer browned chicken to a large plate. Set aside.
4. Pour off and discard the fat in
the skillet. Return the skillet to medium heat: add butter, shallots, garlic
and cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds.
Sprinkle flour over the shallot garlic mixture evenly and cook, stirring
constantly until the flour is very lightly browned, about 1 minute. Slowly stir in the broth and the lemon juice,
scraping up the brown bits and bring to a simmer. Cook until the sauce is
slightly reduced and thickened, 2 to 3 minutes. Stir in 1 tbsp. of the lemon
zest and remove the skillet from heat.
Assuming your skillet cannot hold all the chicken you are cooking, put
the sauce into the bottom of a roasting pan.
Put the cooked chicken, skin side up and above the surface of the sauce,
and any accumulated juices into the roasting pan. You can halt the cooking process here and
pick it up, your oven at 475 degrees, 15 minutes or so before serving. 5. Prepare the chopped parsley and
oregano and add the remaining lemon zest to the herbs. 6. Cook the chicken, uncovered
until the breasts register 160 degrees and the thighs 175 degrees which takes
about 12 to 15 minutes.
Remove the skillet or roasting pan
from the oven.
7. Transfer the chicken to a
serving platter. Whisk sauce, incorporating any browned bits from the sides of
the pan and adding chicken stock until it reaches a smooth and homogeneous
consistency, about 30 minutes. Whisk
half of the herb-zest mixture into the sauce. Sprinkle the remaining half over
the chicken. Carefully pour the sauce around
the chicken. Serve, passing the
remaining sauce separately.