A Little Weekend Chicken

with lemon and tiny turnips 🥹

Hello and welcome to A Newsletter! If you’ve found your way over by some miracle but are not yet subscribed, here, let me help you with that:

Good morning! One thing about me is that sometimes I say tomorrow but what ends up happening is the day or two after that. But what timing! A Friday morning chicken to get you excited for weekend plans.

The last few months have been spent, among other things, wrapping up my next cookbook. This means many hours at the computer writing, editing and reading, but also, simply answering questions. Sometimes the questions are broad and generic (em dash related, mostly), sometimes they’re deeply specific, like do I, as an author, prefer “browned butter” or “brown butter” (I’ve used both)? “Roast chicken” or “roasted chicken” (I’ve also used both!)? For better or worse, I’m not big on consistency (see above), which makes committing to something like “roast” or “roasted” very scary for me.

The beauty of a newsletter is that I can call something whatever I like based on how I feel in the moment with nobody to hold me accountable. Bliss! Today, it’s a roasted chicken, because the chicken is roasted with lemon (juice on and wedges around) and also perfect tiny Hakurei (or Tokyo) turnips. Roasted at the same time as your chicken, they’re not only eaten as a nice little accompaniment, but unlike, say, a potato, they really contribute flavor to the pan juices, giving up some of their brassica flavor to deepen an already wonderful sauce.

Small and sweet (but not too sweet) substantial without being starchy, these turnips can be eaten raw like a radish or roasted like a potato. Raw, they have a taste and texture similar to the stem of a broccoli (this is wildly appealing to me, if you don’t agree, we are not the same), and roasted it’s got a tender, almost custardy interior with the potential for crisp-chewy edges, like a roasted radish. Part of the appeal for me in purchasing these little white orbs is that they nearly always come with their greens, which are spicy and wonderful, like a more delicate broccoli rabe. I am a practically-minded person and when a vegetable is a two-for-one experience, nothing pleases me more.

As with earlier this week, I am also using this chicken as an opportunity to encourage you to seek out and use green garlic, one of spring's greatest gifts. Tender and green like so much this time of year, it’s literally the garlic that grows first from the ground, with a sturdy yet edible stalk and bulb. Its intense and spicy (but still less so than regular garlic), and I like using it raw, slicing it thin or finely chopping to add at the end of pasta or, here, to finish roasted turnips and their greens.

You’ll find the recipe below, available for paid subscribers. See you next week (vague on purpose) to discuss….the new book! Which, assuming all goes according to plan, will be out this November.