Diane Phillips - The Ultimate Rotisserie Cookbook: 300 Mouthwatering Recipes for Making the Most of Your Rotisserie Oven

To the lunch bunch:
Roberta, Christine, Suzie, Muffie,
Loraine, and Jan.
With all the laughter, it's a wonder
we ever eat anything!

The Harvard Common Press
535 Albany Street
Boston, Massachusetts 02118
www.harvardcommonpress.com

Copyright 2002 by Diane Phillips
Illustrations on copyright 2002 by Jackie Aher

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Printed in the United States of America

Printed on acid-free paper

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Phillips, Diane.
The ultimate rotisserie cookbook : 300 mouthwatering recipes for making the most of your rotisserie oven / Diane Phillips.
p. cm.
ISBN 1-55832-232-9 (hc : alk. paper)
1. Roasting (Cookery) I. Title.

TX690.P49 2002
641.7'1dc21
2002017282
ISBN-13: 978-1-55832-233-2
ISBN-10: 1-55832-233-7

Special bulk-order discounts are available on this and other Harvard Common Press books. Companies and organizations may purchase books for premiums or resale, or may arrange a custom edition, by contacting the Marketing Director at the address above.

10 9 8 7 6 5 4

Jacket design by Night & Day Design
Interior design by Ralph Fowler
Illustrations on by Jackie Aher

Writing this book has been so much fun because of the people who have made it possible for me to pursue my passionsteaching and writing. First, to my husband, Chuck, who has kept the home fires burning, and has offered his support and encouragement (and tasted everything!) with each crazy turn my career has taken. Thank you for being there these 32 years; I could not have done any of this without you. To our daughter, Carrie, and her boyfriend, Eric Mand, thanks for taking the rotisserie and actually using it to give me feedback, and for being crash-test dummies for the recipes! Our son, Ryan, has been a willing participant, eating the food that we produced and not complaining about the lack of homemade chocolate chip cookies in the cookie jar. Thanks, buddy, you know that your comments helped me decide whether a recipe would make it into this book. To the friends who waited patiently for me to finish "just one more chapter" or test recipe and who tasted and tested, thanks for being there, my life is enriched and blessed by each of you.

To my agent and friend, Susan Ginsburg, I am so grateful for your guidance and friendship; without you, none of this is possible. To Annie Leuen-berger, her dear assistant, thanks for keeping everything in order, especially during the weeks before deadlines.

My family at Harvard Common Press have become just that, a family. Thanks go to my publisher, Bruce Shaw, for his enthusiasm, support, and love of a good meal; to my wonderful editor, Pam Hoenig, whose good nature and vision have made this book come alive; and to Valerie Cimino, Christine Alaimo, Skye Stewart, Beatrice Wikander, Sunshine Erickson, Abbey Phalen, Jodi Marchowsky, Virginia Downes, Liza Beth, and Pat Jalbert-Levine, who worked so diligently to promote, design, manage, and market. I am in your debt, and there is more chocolate on the way! Copy editor Deborah Kops was a writer's dream, with her attention to detail and her ability to allow my voice to be heard in the recipes; thanks, Deborah, for making me look so good! To Jed Lyons and all the angels at NBN who represent the book, thank you for taking me to the marketplace, I am deeply grateful to you all.

I have had the luxury of traveling around the country and teaching in cooking schools, and I am indebted to those who have made me feel at home in their kitchens. I would be remiss if I didn't thank the cooking school managers and their students for inviting me in and making me feel welcome, and for letting me have more fun than should legally be possible. A tip of the toque to: Pamela Keith and the staff at Draeger's, Martha Aitken and Doralece Dullaghen and the staffs at Sur La Table, Bob Nemorovski and staff at Ramekins, Cathy Cochran-Lewis and staff at Central Markets, Chan Patterson and staff at Viking Culinary Arts Centers, Larry Oates and staff at KitchenArt, Nancy Pigg and the Fricke family at CooksWares, Mike and Shelley Sackett at Kitchen Affairs, and Sue and Lynn Hoffman and the angels at The Kitchen Shoppe.

You, dear reader, are the only one who can tell me what you like and don't like in the pages that follow, so feel free to visit me on the Web at www.dianephillips.com.

Rotisserie cooking is almost as old as time. We're told that cavemen roasted their meats over crude wooden spits. Foods cooked on a spit were commonplace in medieval times, and have been popular throughout culinary history. The Italians are famous for their little windup rotisseries that cook in wood-burning ovens. The French claim that they invented this little number in the 1800s but, of course, we can't get the French and Italians to agree on anything, so we'll just say the Europeans perfected this way of cooking.

When you enter your local grocery store or deli, what's that marvelous smell you inhale? Chances are someone is spinning whole chickens on a rotisserie to entice you into buying one for dinner. Instead of buying one, you can work some culinary magic of your own with this book and a rotisseriewhether it's a small, countertop model or the one that comes with your outdoor barbecue. Recently there has been a resurgence in this type of cooking, with the advent of the macho-man outdoor barbecues and the small electric rotisseries that sit on the counter and spin your dinner. These little wonder machines can twirl a four-pound chicken into a gloriously crispy skinned, moist, and tasty dinner in about one hour. Glistening and golden, this chicken is better than anything you've ever taken home from your local deli.

The countertop rotisseries come with a few recipes and lots of timing charts; the problem is there aren't enough recipes to inspire creativity or imagination. Once you've rotisseried a chicken, where do you go from there? I'll take you on a culinary adventure, and show you how to turn your ho-hum weeknight dinners into flavor-packed barbecues. Whether you are cooking a whole chicken, fish fillets, or beef kabobs, you'll wonder why you've never used a rotisserie before. The advantages of this type of cooking are that the fat melts away and the food self-bastes, so there is no need for constant watching, and it's easy to clean up afterwards. Best of all, this simple method of cooking is comfort food for the soul, perfuming your house with mouthwatering aromas and producing a feast fit for a king.

Okay, let's start with the basics. If you haven't already bought yourself an electric rotisserie oven, but are thinking seriously about it, here's what you might want to consider as you make your choice.

When I began testing recipes, I bought a compact, or junior, model rotisserie to see how it worked and to test all the equipment that came with it. This model is great for a family of two, but if you want to be able to prepare more than one chicken at a time, or a large turkey (over ten pounds), several racks of ribs, or larger cuts of beef, pork, and lamb, I would recommend that you get the larger modelthe one that isn't called "compact" or "junior" (it doesn't really have a name).

In testing machines, what I looked for was even heating, easy cleanup, and whether the machine did what it promised to do. The two biggest sellers on the market today are the George Foreman Lean Mean Fat Roasting Machine and the Ronco Showtime Rotisserie and BBQ Oven. Each comes in a compact, or junior, size, and a larger size. Both are easy to cleanyou can put most of the nonelectric parts in the dishwasherboth heat evenly, and the meat comes out as advertised. You can, literally, "set it and forget it." Salton, Oster, and Sunbeam have also stepped up to the plate; they make compact rotisserie ovens, most of which come with a basket and kabob rods. DeLonghi makes a convection oven that has a rotisserie built into it, so that you can use the oven for both baking cookies and rotisserie spit cooking. Farberware still makes an open rotisseriethe one many of us remember from childhood. It is used only for spit cooking, and doesn't come with a basket or kabob rods.