Chicken Country Captain
Pirate Grandmomma with a little Luca. Austin, TX 2006.
Luca & Grandmomma on the high seas! Drinks at the Commodore Club on the Queen Mary 2 before the 1920s party (hence the headpiece that Mom made). June 2018.
Probably not Shag dancing, per se, but Mom & Dad getting down to the Allen Oldies Band at ABGB in Austin over Christmas break. December 2017.
When my sister married her lovely husband, Andy, my parents were faced with a problem. The problem was not Andy, it was what they serve at the wedding celebration! You see, Andy and his family are Jewish and, while they don’t keep kosher, it seemed insulting to serve them Pork BBQ (Mom and Dad’s obvious go-to) or Shrimp & Grits (because, shellfish). So, discussions began. My parents wanted to share a slice of our culture (Andy’s family is mainly from New York and the party was in North Carolina). Ultimately, Mom and Dad decided on two dishes: Chicken Country Captain and Grillades (beef) & Grits. The reception menu had footnotes. (I’m not kidding!) I’ll share the beef dish another time, but today let’s focus on the chicken. This recipe is wonderful. It has a delicious curry flavor that I didn’t think to question as a child. Now I know that this recipe came to the South via the British in India (local East Indian officers most likely introduced it) and is common in most Southern seaports.
One such seaport would be Savannah, Georgia, a fave childhood haunt of mine. You know why I liked Savannah so much? One reason: The Pirate’s House! This was a restaurant we would go to with terrifying life-sized pirate dioramas. I don’t remember the food AT ALL (it’s probably “meh”) but I absolutely remember keeping myself safely tucked in the hall and peeking into a room with menacing pirate mannequins mid-skirmish!
The Pirate’s House laid the groundwork for not the not-so-scary pirate musical, “Pirates of Penzance”. My parents were obsessed with this Kevin Kline and Linda Ronstadt classic! I can’t tell you how many times we watched it. Basically, if you came over to my house. at some point you would be asked if you had seen the movie. If you answered “no”, you would be marched directly into the library, plopped down on the blue corduroy sofa, and busy for the next few hours. Later, this guest litmus test extended beyond this musical to whatever VHS tape my parents were currently fixated on. There was a “Shag” dancing phase, where footage from a regional Shag dancing competition would be viewed. “Look at Kevin from Wilmington! Smooth as silk up top but his legs are moving like a duck underwater!”. For a time it was pre-taped Ballroom Dancing competitions. I remember that Mom and Dad liked the classics like the Waltz and Quick Step better than the Latin dances, where the costumes were always deemed “trashy” by Mom. At one point you could not escape a viewing of Don Dixon singing “King of the Food Chain” from the musical “King Mackerel and the Blues are Running”.
All of these were played on our trusty family VCR. It was the old days and we didn’t have cable. My sister and I had begged and begged for a VCR. Prior to owning one we would have to go to the mall and rent one in a case and ONE VHS cassette that we would watch like 20 times during the rental window. With our own VCR, just think of the possibilities! Dad said he would pay half if each daughter chipped in a quarter. I remember that our VCR cost $200, a lot in that day. I came forward with $50 of babysitting money and an ad from a circular from Brendle’s or some precursor to Best Buy. It was ON! Our VCR was fancy in that it had a wired in remote control so that we could operate it from across the room. One day, the remote control was no longer there. “What happened?!,” we implored! Dad’s response? “Changing the VCR is the only exercise I get so I threw it away.”
BOOM! Here’s the recipe:
CHICKEN COUNTRY CAPTAIN
1 chicken weighing about 4 pounds, poached
(For info about poaching chicken click here) ,
The Sauce
1 cup chicken stock reserved from Poached Chicken
1 ½ ounces pork sidemeat, diced to make 2 1/2 tablespoons (uncured bacon or fatback)
1 tbsp. peanut oil
2 cups thinly sliced onion
2 cups thinly sliced green bell pepper
2 large garlic cloves, chopped (to equal 1 ½ teaspoons)
1 1/4 teaspoons dried thyme
3 to 5 teaspoons "hot" curry powder or your own spice mixture -- start with 3
1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1/3 cup dried currants
1 28-ounce can tomatoes, chopped with juice to make 3 cups
Salt
The Rice and Garnish:
2 ¾ cups chicken stock, reserved from Poached Chicken
1 ¼ cups raw long grain rice
1/2 cup slivered almonds, toasted
freshly chopped parsley
While the chicken is poaching, put the peanut oil in the larger saucepan and over low heat render the finely diced pork sidemeat for 10 minutes, stirring frequently.
Meanwhile drain the tomatoes, reserving the juice in a bowl. Chop the tomatoes and return them to the bowl with juice and set aside.
Add the onion to the pork, stir, cover, and cook for 5 minutes.
Stir in the bell pepper, re-cover, and cook an additional 5 minutes.
Uncover, add the garlic, thyme, curry powder, and red pepper flakes.
Raise heat to medium and cook for 3 minutes, stirring well and frequently.
Add the tomatoes with the reserved chicken stock to the vegetable mixture.
Bring to a boil, reduce heat, and simmer for 15 minutes, still stirring frequently.
In the small saucepan, bring the 2 3/4 cups of chicken stock to a boil.
Add the rice and salt, and return to the boil.
Cover, reduce heat to low, and cook for 25 minutes, stirring occasionally.
As soon as the rice is cooking on low, roughly chop the reserved chicken (you should have approximately 3 1/2 to 4 cups) and add it to the vegetables and stock. Stir jn the dried currants and simmer for 20 minutes.
To serve, put the rice around a large platter. Ladle the chicken into the middle. Garnish the rice with the fresh chopped parsley and sprinkle the toasted almonds over the chicken.
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