Rosemary Chicken: go confit yourself

Sometimes I read the cookbooks or blogs or other writings of fancy chef types - the sort of people whose restaurants I would feel dreadfully out of place in.  While it's rare that I'll actually make something of theirs, generally because their ingredients tend to be arcane and require me to drop a bunch of money on something I'll use once, I have learned a bit and picked up some understandings of techniques and dishes that I may never make or even see.

This lovely, simple, straightforward Rosemary Chicken is not such a dish - you barely even have to cut anything! - but the next day, you'll find that you may have inadvertently gotten fancy, or perhaps that your leftovers have gotten fancy in your fridge, without you.  As you may know, in the south of France, meat has long been preserved in its own rendered fat, so it's cooked to heat and melt the fat, the meat is submerged in it, and then it is cooled, and that this is called confit.  Well, this is not quite the same thing, but when you put the leftovers in the fridge, in the cooking liquid, the fat will solidify and rise to the top and form a "lid" over the remaining liquid and chicken.  Pretty cool!

Here it is with some mashed potatoes which - when you're cooking the potatoes, instead of water (or instead of all water), use stock.  So much more flavour!


The recipe for the Rosemary Chicken is unbelievably easy.  Go ahead and make it!  And then, with your leftovers... go confit yourself.