If you're like me, you may find yourself craving dishes from your favorite restaurants these days.
I find myself longing for dishes from my hometown of New Orleans: Bevi Seafood's roast beef po-boy, Heard Dat Kitchen's fried chicken with mac and cheese, Brigtsen's gumbo or, oh man, R&O's perfectly fried Gulf shrimp platter.
Each of those is difficult for me to truly replicate — most of my favorite restaurant dishes are. It can be tough to get the right ingredients, especially now, and I often do not have the specific recipe, skills or tools required.
But recently a reader's simple question sparked a craving for a specific dish, and I nailed it: Mosca's Chicken a la Grande.
The reader shared what she thought was a cooking challenge: She swore she had ordered one head of garlic from a grocery delivery service, but she got 10. What should she do?
As I read through those garlic recipes, suddenly all I wanted to eat was Mosca's simple platter of pan-fried chicken seasoned with tons of garlic and a generous amount of herbs.
If you have ever been to Mosca's on U.S. 90, just out of New Orleans, you will know why garlicky dishes sparked the craving. Step inside the family-owned restaurant, housed in a nondescript white building on a lonely stretch of highway, and the first thing you smell is simmering garlic.
The restaurant features a few recipes on its website, but I opted to dig out my copy of Kit Wohl's "New Orleans Classic Celebrations" because I remembered it included Mary Jo Mosca's version of Chicken a la Grande, which features the addition of a little white wine, which sounded so good.
This dish is quick and easy to prepare, but it fills your kitchen with deliciously pungent smells and delivers big flavor.
Mosca's Chicken a la Grande
½ cup white wine, such as chardonnay or fume blanc
3 pounds chicken pieces (about 8 pieces), dark and light meat
1 tablespoon kosher salt, plus more to taste
1 tablespoon ground black pepper, plus more to taste
½ cup PLUS 3 teaspoons extra-virgin olive oil, divided use
8 to 12 cloves garlic, peeled and pounded to near paste or grated, divided use
1 tablespoon dried rosemary, or 3 tablespoons fresh rosemary
1 tablespoon dried oregano, or 3 tablespoons fresh oregano
1 pound green beans, defrosted if frozen
¼ cup vegetable broth or water
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
Make the chicken: In a large bowl, add the wine and then the chicken, turning to moisten each piece. Transfer the chicken pieces to a plate, reserving the wine, and generously season the chicken all over with 1 tablespoon salt and 1 tablespoon pepper.
In a large skillet over medium-high heat, add ½ cup of the oil. Add the chicken pieces and fry, turning the pieces as needed, until generously browned, about 25 minutes. If chicken is getting too brown, lower the heat to medium.
Once the chicken is brown, remove skillet from heat and add 8 to 10 cloves of the garlic, the rosemary and oregano and reserved wine to the skillet, and stir to evenly coat the chicken pieces.
Return to low heat, cover and cook until the liquid is reduced by half and the chicken is tender, about 15 minutes.
While chicken is browning, in another large skillet over medium-high heat, heat 2 teaspoons of the remaining oil until shimmering. Add the green beans and cook, stirring often, until browned in spots, about 5 minutes.
Add broth or water, cover, reduce heat to medium-low and cook, stirring occasionally, until crisp-tender about 3 minutes. Push the beans to the side of the skillet. Add the remaining 1 teaspoon oil and the remaining garlic and cook, until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Stir the garlic into the beans. Remove from the heat and stir in the vinegar. Season to taste with salt and pepper and toss to combine.
If not serving green beans right away, transfer them from the hot skillet to a platter to stop the cooking. Cover lightly and keep warm until serving.
Transfer the chicken, with its pan juices, to a platter and serve warm.
Makes 4 servings.
Nutrition information: Each serving contains approximately 729 calories, 72 g protein, 43 g fat, 13 g carbohydrate (4 g sugar), 250 mg cholesterol, 1510 mg sodium and 4 g fiber.
Carbohydrate choices: 1.
Recipe adapted from "New Orleans Classic Celebrations" by Kit Wohl