Shabbat Shalom
Sometimes you just need the comfort of a fresh-baked challah and a roast chicken in the oven, and what better day to smell, taste, and feel that comfort but Shabbat.
My favorite challah recipe is from King Arthur Flour, which can be found here. King Arthur recently changed their online recipes to use either volume or gram measurements, but I prefer ounces. I know using grams shouldn’t matter, but a gram is so tiny, sometimes it just makes me feel compulsive to weigh out grams! Go to the webpage at King Arthur for the instructions (link above), but if, like me, you want to know the equivalent for the ingredients in ounces, here you go:
KA Challah Ingredients (ounce measurements)
Pre-ferment
4¼ ounces AP flour
2 teaspoons yeast
8 ounces water (105-110°F)
Remaining dough ingredients
14¾ ounces AP flour
1¾ teaspoons salt
2⅜ ounces sugar
¼ cup vegetable oil
2 eggs
1 egg yolk (white for glaze below)
Glaze
1 egg white
1 teaspoon sugar
1 Tablespoon water
See the recipe linked above for directions, and please drop me an email if you have any questions! I like to make a 6-strand braid, and found the video found here quite helpful, although I’m too lazy to roll the dough out flat in order to make the strands like she does.
As for the roast chicken, I am sure everyone has their favorite way to go about it. (And in more normal times, we are lucky to have a great specialty food store with a butcher shop that will spatchcock a chicken for us, thus cutting down on the roasting time, but today, of course, we have plenty of time to roast a whole chicken.) To make it special this evening, I am making my favorite hard cider gravy, for which I like to use Johnny Mash, made locally. This gravy is a huge family favorite. Any leftover gravy will keep in the fridge or freezer, and it also makes a good addition to chicken or turkey pot pie for another meal.
Cider Gravy
These proportions are for every 12-ounce bottle of cider. I usually double or even triple this when we roast a turkey!
Pan drippings from a roast, still in the pan (poultry or pork would be good for this)
2-3 Tablespoons flour
12-ounce bottle hard cider
Remove your roast – chicken, turkey, pork – from the roasting pan and tent with foil to say warm. Place roasting pan over 1 or 2 burners on your stove, depending on the spacing between burners and the size of your roasting pan, and turn the heat on the burner(s) to medium high. Remember the pan is hot – be sure to use a pot holder when steadying the roasting pan.
Once the drippings in the pan start to bubble, sprinkle in the flour and whisk until entirely incorporated with the liquid in the pan. Continue to cook while whisking gently for 3-5 minutes.
Pour cider into the pan and whisk to scrape up any bits stuck to the bottom. Continue to cook, whisking gently for 5-10 minutes, or until desired consistency.
Carefully, still using potholders, pour the gravy through a strainer into a pitcher or gravy boat.