Saturday: Roasted Chicken with Preserved Lemons, Rice with Potato Crust

The preserved lemons I started back in March had officially pickled for long enough, so I did a roasted chicken on Saturday using one. I took the pulp and rubbed most of it under the skin of the breast and thighs, then rubbed the rest of the pulp and put one quarter of the rind in the body cavity. We ate the bird with diced rind from the rest of the lemon and a sauce made from pan juices deglazed with some vermouth. The chicken was very good - the lemons have a really nice flavor that complements the chicken pretty well. I'm not sure that it would be worth the wait of doing preserved lemons just for this dish, but it certainly is nice if you just happen to have some.

To go along with the chicken, I also made a Bittman recipe from earlier in the year for rice with a potato crust. I'd been thinking of making this for a couple of weeks and it was a good excuse to use up some CSA fennel. The rice turned out great, but next time I think we shouldn't cut the potatoes with the ceramic slicer: the slices were just too thin for the dish.

Naturally we had a green salad to accompany.