Farm Food: Cooking Bardot-style

When I was living in New York I didn’t have the time or patience to collect and pour over cookbooks like I do now. In fact the closest I got to anything resembling a cookbook was a manilla office file filled with appealing recipes I had torn out of magazines while reading in bed on the weekends. On the rare occasion that I’d host a dinner party at home, I would consult my recipe file and chose what seemed like the easiest thing to cook. “Easy to cook” in my mind means few ingredients, nothing that requires shopping at a specialty store, minimal active prep time, and delicious results. Once I discovered the above article from the New York Times magazine and the accompanying recipe for Poule Au Pot below, courtesy of Brigitte Bardot’s former prep cook, this really become the only recipe I ever made for guests. Of course this limited the number of times I had someone over to once, but it meant minimal stress in the kitchen and the resulting reviews were always raves. On a recent trip home to New York, I found my recipe file in storage and tucked these two pages into a book for the journey home to England. Last weekend, I had 6 people over for dinner and decided to revisit my favourite party meal. Everyone of course loved it and begged for a copy of the recipe. So I thought I’d share it with you too. And now that I have a bit more patience and kitchen know-how I’ve also figured out that with the leftover rice, chicken, vegetables and peas (served as a side dish), and the addition of some scrambled egg, you can make a fantastic asian stir fry for lunch the next day!