Castelvetrano Chicken
These olives.
If you haven’t tried these olives—the bright green ones with the buttery-yet-firm texture and the flavor that sends you to the moon—well, you’re missing out.
Castelvetrano olives have been the favorite olive in our family for decades, since my mom and aunt used to take the ferry to Seattle to shop for bulk import foods at PFI in the 90’s. Now whenever we find them on the shelves at the Grocery Outlet we stock up (and by stock up I mean we buy them ALL). Even olive haters have been won-over by them (Bon Appetit, 2018).
And this recipe, adapted from a New York Time Cooking recipe, is a perfect foil for them. Although, you seriously could just eat them out of the jar for what this nutritionist-in-training would call a perfectly balanced meal. You’re welcome.
But this post is about the nourishment provided by animals.
So let’s wander down a different path for a bit. And as a former vegetarian, I’ve struggled with selecting, storing, preparing and cooking with meat since I started eating it again. I went veg as a young adult when I was out on my own learning to finally cook in my own kitchen. I conquered the art of stir-fried vegetables with my roommates in college. I took the family pot-of-bean recipe from my Mom and made it my own. I’ve even dabbled in baking a bit; Taking on my late Grandma Alma’ s pie crust recipe was a life goal of mine, proudly met.
But meat didn’t come back into my life until later, once I’d already established who I was in the kitchen. So the next decade and a half has been a weird dance between having my husband open and cut the chicken, me nervously crouched in the corner with my bucket of bleach, and opting for beef cuts from the family freezers (Mom & Stepdad used to raise beef cattle) with plenty of advice from the experts.
I once roasted a chicken and was so proud of myself (than you Alice Waters) that I vowed to cook one once a month and stock the freezer with bone broth in case anyone got sick. One of my sisters owns a restaurant in Texas that’s known for its epic fried chicken (Bon Appetit, 2019). Another sister, also living in Texas, makes the meanest brisket I’ve ever had.
It’s not that I don’t like to eat meat.
It just hasn’t felt natural to, you know, cook it. How do I know it’s done? How do I not over cook it? How do I get the flavor like that?
So I’ve been studying. My stepdad has a way of grilling his chicken on his awesome built-in stove-top grill before baking it. That would be an excellent upgrade to this recipe. The flavors are taken up a notch, and there’s nothing that compares to that crispy moist skin he can get. Note to self, always brown your meat before you bake.
I’m also an avid reader of cookbooks. (If you know, you know.) And even though I don’t often have the time or inclination to actually try out these delicious carnivore-pleasing recipes, the authors have been teaching me how to get comfortable with the discomfort. Lean into it. It’s messy! It’s meat, it’s carnal. It’s vulnerable. Note to self:
And of course, I’ve been studying at the feet of my Mom, the most amazing cook I know, since I was born. She makes it all look so easy, and the magic she works with comes from generations of Mexican home cooks, but is infused with her own touch. She’s a wizard. A witch. A curandera chef. Note to self: Get out of the way and let it flow through you. You know what to do.
And finally, I think one of the greatest lessons I’ve learned to help me step fully into this meat-eating-meat-cooking version of myself is my own spirituality. (Another facet of my life that’s developed with age.)
Eating meat, especially if being mindful about what you do is something you value, is a spiritual experience.
Eating meat is something that has brought me health and comfort and vitality my entire life, sans the five years of living as a mal-nourished vegetarian. But there’s no way to disconnect the mouthfeel of meat with the fact that you are eating flesh. And if you can acknowledge that you’re eating flesh, and you make the decision to be present with it, there’s no room for anything but gratitude.
Thank you to the hands, and lives, that bring us this nourishment. This is my table grace.
Now being a vegetarian was an amazing experience and I learned to love vegetables during that time. I also learned to use my food shopping dollars as means of activism. Vote with your dollars, etc. But I didn’t have the nutritional education to be able to make good food choices. I wasn’t getting enough protein or B vitamins, even with supplements.
I don’t think the Standard American Diet is the way to go. Especially if you're living in Texas (wink, wink), there’s just too much meat. (“Eat food, not too much, mostly plants,” as Michael Pollen poetically advises.)
But we don’t have to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
Eating meat, and making it the side to a plant-rich meal, can bring immense balance to one’s overall diet. If all your protein comes from plants, it’s recommended that you supplement or fortify your diet with essential amino acids that are harder to get from just plants, including methionine, lysine and leucine, in order to digest and absorb nutrients from the food you’re eating (van Vliet, 2015). Or, if it doesn’t go against what you believe in, you can just meat.
Some. Not too much. And from a good quality source.
For example, compared with conventional and free-range chicken, organic chicken has been shown to have a higher percentage of protein, and to be higher in polyunsaturated fatty acids, as well as lower in saturated fats and monounsaturated fatty acids (Husak, 2008). Win for farmers, win for animals, win for consumers.
Which takes us back to that lesson from college: You can vote with your dollars and spend your money on food sources that are sustainable, respectful of all life, including the humans who work in the industry. (I mean, are you sure that the people picking the crops for your vegetarian diet are treated humanely?)
When we shop locally, eating minimally processed whole foods that are grown without chemical additives or fertilizers or pesticides, and make sure our diet has variety, we are nourishing ourselves, our community and our planet as best we can. As individuals living in a capitalist patriarchy built on racism, some days that’s the best thing we can do to have influence and impact.
So, back to the recipe.
This is a crowd pleaser. My four year old was using the tongs to drink the pan drippings before I stopped her the night I cooked this for class. My husband stained one of our cloth napkins all neon yellow because he dug so deep into this dish. Finger, lickin, good.
And gorgeous. Be sure to have this one handy when you’re expecting company you want to impress, and nourish heartily.
Castelvetrano Chicken
Adapted from this New York Times Cooking recipe by Alison Roman
Serves 6
Cooking time: 50 minutes
Ingredients:
3 ½ lbs bone-in, skin-on chicken
2 teaspoon ground turmeric
6 tablespoons oil, divided (recommended oil: avocado/safflower/coconut oil / olive oil is a good substitute)
Salt & fresh ground pepper
½ cup white wine vinegar
1 ½ cups green Castelvetrano olives, crushed and pitted
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 cup flat leaf parsley, chopped
Directions:
Heat oven to 450 degrees. Using plastic gloves, open chicken packages and place legs and thighs on a rimmed sheet pan. Sprinkle with turmeric and 3 tablespoons oil. Season generously with salt and pepper. With gloves on again, rub both sides of each piece of chicken on the pan, adding additional turmeric and salt and pepper if necessary, ending with skin side up. Gentle pour vinegar over the chicken, taking care not to completely rinse off the spices. Place in the oven and set your timer for 25 minutes.
Bake without flipping until cooked to 170 degrees, about 25-30 minutes.
While the chicken is cooking, mix in a medium bowl: olives, garlic, parsley, remaining 3 tablespoons oil. Add salt and pepper. If the olives are whole, this is a great time to gently crush them with a large fork and mix well.
When chicken is done cooking, use tongs to transfer to a serving dish, leaving cooking juices and bits stuck in the pan.
With the sheet pan on a solid surface, pour the olive mixture onto the sheet. With a wooden spoon, carefully scrape up all the chicken bits, using the oil to release the rendered fat. Pour mixture over the chicken, and serve!
Pairs well with rice, mashed or roasted potatoes, or any other starchy vegetable to soak up the flavorful juices (including kitchari!).
References:
Bon Appetit. (2018, January 18). Castevetrano olives are the best olives. https://www.bonappetit.com/story/castelvetrano-olives-are-the-best-olives
Bon Appetit. (2019, April 24). The second best reason to go to marfa is this rotisserie chicken. https://www.bonappetit.com/story/the-water-stop-rotisserie-chicken
Daily, J. W., Yang, M., & Park, S. (2016). Efficacy of Turmeric Extracts and Curcumin for Alleviating the Symptoms of Joint Arthritis: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Randomized Clinical Trials. Journal of Medicinal Food, 19(8), 717–729. https://doi.org/10.1089/jmf.2016.3705
Dubois, V., Breton, S., Linder, M., Fanni, J., & Parmentier, M. (2007). Fatty acid profiles of 80 vegetable oils with regard to their nutritional potential. European Journal of Lipid Science and Technology, 109(7), 710–732. Portico. https://doi.org/10.1002/ejlt.200700040
Husak, R. L., Sebranek, J. G., & Bregendahl, K. (2008). A Survey of Commercially Available Broilers Marketed as Organic, Free-Range, and Conventional Broilers for Cooked Meat Yields, Meat Composition, and Relative Value. Poultry Science, 87(11), 2367–2376. https://doi.org/10.3382/ps.2007-00294
New York Time Cooking. (2024, October 4). Vinegar chicken with crushed olive dressing. https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1020486-vinegar-chicken-with-crushed-olive-dressing?q=vinegar
Sharifi-Rad, J., Rayess, Y. E., Rizk, A. A., Sadaka, C., Zgheib, R., Zam, W., Sestito, S., Rapposelli, S., Neffe-Skocińska, K., Zielińska, D., Salehi, B., Setzer, W. N., Dosoky, N. S., Taheri, Y., El Beyrouthy, M., Martorell, M., Ostrander, E. A., Suleria, H. A. R., Cho, W. C., … Martins, N. (2020). Turmeric and Its Major Compound Curcumin on Health: Bioactive Effects and Safety Profiles for Food, Pharmaceutical, Biotechnological and Medicinal Applications. Frontiers in Pharmacology, 11. https://doi.org/10.3389/fphar.2020.01021
van Vliet, S., Burd, N. A., & van Loon, L. J. (2015). The Skeletal Muscle Anabolic Response to Plant- versus Animal-Based Protein Consumption. The Journal of Nutrition, 145(9), 1981–1991. https://doi.org/10.3945/jn.114.204305
