How to Make Green Goddess Roast Chicken and Potato, Green Bean, and Tomato Salad

– Today on Cook’s Country, I’m making green goddess roast chicken, Toni’s diving into the history of green goddess dressing, Jack’s telling us all about herbs and Ashley’s making a potato green bean and tomato salad. It’s all coming up right here on Cook’s Country. Green goddess dressing first hit the scene back in the 1920s out in California, and ever since cooks have been using it to flavor all sorts of things, including my favorite, roast chicken, which is what I’m gonna show you how to make today. Now, green goddess gets its name from the green of fresh herbs, in particular, chives, parsley and tarragon. So we’re gonna use a lot to make this dressing.

In total, it’s a half a cup of fresh chives. We’re gonna put it in the blender so it all gets nicely mixed together. It’s good to give the herbs a head start on the chopping, so I’m gonna chop them coarsely before blending them up.

So there are the chives. Half a cup of parsley leaves.

Now you wanna leave out the parsley stems. Those have a bit of a bitter flavor, and they’re pretty thick, so they don’t break down so easily, but I definitely will save them because they taste great when making stock or soup. So we want half a cup of parsley leaves. Obviously all these herbs have been washed. So we have chives and parsley and last but definitely not least, we’re gonna have some tarragon, which has a bold anise, licorice flavor.

It is crucial for a good green goddess dressing, and we’re gonna use far less than we did of the parsley and the chives. Just four teaspoons is enough to flavor the entire dressing. And again, much like the parsley, you just wanna use the tender leaves and stems. You wanna save that thick stem for something else. And actually, I like dropping this stem into a soup or risotto or rice because it lends its flavor, but then you can pluck it out at the end.

You just have a delicate tarragon flavor left over. All right, so set those thick stems aside, give this tarragon a little chop. Into the blender all of this goes. To flavor this, we’re gonna add some buttermilk. Now this is just quarter of a cup of buttermilk.

And buttermilk’s unusual in a green goddess dressing. Usually you’ll use mayonnaise, but we’re gonna marinate the chicken with some of this dressing, and when we used mayonnaise, it just overshadowed all the herbs and turned greasy. Buttermilk gave us a much better flavor for the marinade. So that was a quarter cup of buttermilk. Two to tablespoons of fresh lemon juice.

Last two little ingredients that add a big punch.

We have two anchovy filets, and I’ve rinsed these so they’re not as salty, but I’m gonna give them a quick chop before we put them into the blender. Oh, these are nice, meaty anchovies. I am an anchovy lover. I eat them straight from the tin, I have since I was a kid.

And I can tell these are good ones. Into the blender it goes. And last, some garlic. Just two cloves of fresh garlic and like everything else, I’m gonna give it a head start and a quick chop before putting it in the blender. Just take off the roots and the skins.

I like to smash it out of the skins. Gets a head start on the chopping and it lets the skins just fall right away. Quick chop. That’s it for the base of the green goddess dressing. Now I’m gonna put this on the blender, let it rip for about 30 seconds til it’s a nice, fine puree.

Because it’s not a lot of things in the blender jar, I often find that you have to scrape down the sides to make sure that no parsley or big pieces of herbs get stuck on the sides of the jar. Mmm, you can smell that garlic and those fresh herbs. That’s pretty green and that’s pretty smooth. Now some of this flavorful mixture will be used to marinate the chicken, but two tablespoons of it I’m gonna use to make a sauce to serve with the chicken, and much like tradition, I’m gonna mix it with some mayonnaise.

So here I have a quarter cup of mayonnaise and just a tablespoon of buttermilk.

That’ll just help loosen the mayonnaise up to make a good sauce. Oh, mm-hmm. So we’ll set this sauce aside for later, and now let’s focus on the chicken. Now we’re gonna marinate the chicken in the rest of this dressing, but I haven’t added any salt yet. All right, so into the bag, I’m gonna add a teaspoon and a half of table salt, and I’m gonna add all the rest of this beautiful dressing.

Oh, it’s like someone put summer inside a blender and just blended it up. Now I’m gonna get in here and scrape it all out, because as I said, this stuff is liquid gold.

I’m just gonna stir this mixture a little bit to help incorporate that salt evenly into the green goddess. All right, we’ll set that aside, and now it’s time for the chicken. Here I have a whole chicken, about three and a half pounds.

Whenever I buy chicken, I almost always buy it whole and cut it up myself. That way I know the parts from the same chicken will cook at the same rate, but I also love the other parts, the wings and the backbones for stock.

So what you wanna have is a boning knife. And the first thing I’m gonna do is hold up the chicken by its wing. That just exposes this wing joint that you can then just easily cut around.

Get in there with the tip of the knife. When you in the right spot, the knife will just go right through. So that’s two wings. Next it’s time to take the legs off. And the legs are really just attached to the breast by skin.

And so what you wanna do is you wanna slice through the skin. Now I found over the years that you really wanna slice into the skin towards the drumsticks. That way you have plenty of skin left on the breast meat. So now when you get in and you can see the joint right there, you just pop out that joint.

You can see it right there.

And that’ll tell you where to cut to separate the legs from the body. There’s one leg. We’ll do this on the other side. We’re gonna cut the legs down into thighs and drumsticks. What you wanna do is look for this line of fat that really divides the two, and you wanna cheat it to the drumstick side.

That’s how you’ll slide right through that joint. And then you have the thigh, you can trim that up. Now we’re just left with the breast and the backbone. And to butcher this, I like to use a pair of scissors or really good poultry shears. So what I’m gonna do is flip this over.

You can see there’s this line of fat here, separating the back from the breast. I’m gonna cut up that line and you can hear it just go right through the bones.

That’s one side, do it on the other side Right down that line of fat. And there’s the backbone, beautiful. Now we’re left with the whole breast, and first I’m gonna cut it down the middle into two split breasts.

Easily done. And now to make the breast pieces the same size as the drumsticks and the thighs, we’re gonna cut each breast in half. Now I say in half, but I’m really not cutting it in half. If I cut it in half, it would be like that. You’d have a dinky side and this big fat side.

So really it’s more like two thirds, one third. There’s one. And there’s two. Into the bag all these pieces go. Scraps go into this bowl for a later batch of stock.

And as I add them, I am going really make sure they get coated with that gorgeous green sauce. Oh, it smells so good. This chicken needs to marinate for at least two hours, but can be done up to 24 hours in advance. Now I’m gonna put the bag in a nice clean bowl in the fridge, but first I’m gonna wash my hands.

This marinated chicken is ready for the oven.

And here I have a rimmed baking sheet lined with foil, and that’s all you need to cook this chicken. It’ll sit right on the foil. The foil just makes cleanup super easy. So I’m gonna roll back the edges of this bag and go in with tongs and start pulling out the chicken. Now, usually when we marinate chicken, we like to wipe off the marinade before roasting.

Not in this case. This marinade has a ton of flavor. We want as much of it to stick to the chicken as possible. So as I put the pieces of chicken on the baking sheet, I’m just gonna spread out the skin, make sure it covers all the meat. That way it’ll get good and crisp.

This chicken is gonna go into a rippin’ hot oven of 475 degrees. Now that’s very hot, but it’s gonna really get the chicken skin nice and brown and cook it through pretty quickly.

It’s only gonna take about half an hour. There is a lot to like about green goddess dressing, loads of fresh herbs, garlic and rich mayonnaise. It’s a loud, tangy dressing with just as splashy an origin story.

Although in recent years, a bit of controversy has also been revealed in that story. Celebrated actor George Arliss stayed at the Palace Hotel while appearing in his play, “The Green Goddess”, a play that is now seen as racially insensitive. Palace chef Philip Roemer created a special salad dressing in honor of Arliss and the play. Some sources claim that Roemer took his inspiration from a French sauce, served to King Louis XIII. The dressing remained popular after the touring company moved on and over the years, cookbook authors and chefs created their own versions.

James Beard included an adaptation in “American Cookery” that featured tarragon, anchovies, chives and scallions. Other adaptations included sour cream. And in the 1970s, avocado was a popular addition. At Cook’s Country, we saw the potential in the dressing’s vibrant flavors as a marinade and a sauce. Oh, that smells good.

So it’s been about 30 minutes. Time to check the chicken. Now I know some of you were probably wondering if the skin was actually gonna get crisp because it had all that marinade on it, but you can see the hot heat of the oven really did its thing, and it’s gorgeous and brown. Now, the best way to tell if the chicken is done is to use an instant read thermometer, and the breast meat you really want to register around 160.

Perfect, 162.

And for the thigh meat, it’ll be done by the time the breasts are done, but it generally should be a little bit higher than the breast meat, anywhere between 175 and 200. Perfect. All right, so this chicken needs to rest just for 10 minutes before we can dive and eat it. I’m gonna cover it with foil just to help keep it warm. The chicken is rested and it’s ready to taste.

Oh, it is just beautiful, isn’t it? Let me get it off this hot baking sheet. Mm, beautiful. Ooh, this looks like a nice thigh and maybe also a breast piece. Mm, I like the white meat, but the dark meat is my favorite.

A little bit of sauce. Now for a taste. Ooh, I got a little skin, little sauce, little meat. Mm-mm. That chicken is so juicy thanks to that buttermilk brine.

And you have the cooked flavor of the herbs, but then that fresh flavor of the herbs from the sauce, the garlic, the tarragon, the chives. So if you wanna make this delicious roast chicken, remember to marinate the chicken in a buttermilk mixture and roast it in a rippin’ hot 475 degree oven.

From Cook’s Country, the ultimate recipe for green goddess roast chicken. I can’t imagine cooking without fresh herbs. Not only do they make food taste better, but they also make it look better, and we do eat with our eyes.

So I divide the world of herbs into two categories, tender and hearty. Now the tender ones have more tender stems. They also have more delicate flavor. So in addition to the chives and the dill and the tarragon on here on the table, that includes parsley, cilantro, mint. They have a sort of more gentle flavor, not mild but gentle.

And these herbs are also interchangeable with each other in terms of quantity. You know, if a recipe calls for two tablespoons of cilantro, you can use two tablespoons of parsley. Flavor’s totally different, but the sort of level of intensity’s similar. On the this side, we’ve got the hearty herbs. They have woodier stems.

It’s the sage, the oregano, the thyme, the rosemary, much more potent flavors. In addition to how much you might add to a recipe, this really impacts whether or not it’s a candidate for using in dried form.

Now, while I use fresh herbs probably 98% of the time, I do occasionally use dried herbs. The hearty herbs, the sage and the oregano and the thyme and the rosemary, they’re candidates for drying. Their essential oils will survive the drying process.

The big thing here is to use them early in a recipe. So you wouldn’t want sprinkle dried sage over a plate of pasta, but you can add it to a chili, to a sauce, to a soup, to a stew early in the process so that the herb has time to hydrate, soften and flavor the dish. Let’s turn back to fresh herbs, ’cause honestly, that is really what I’m most passionate about.

And the biggest mistake that people make is the minute they walk in the door from the supermarket. Most people will just put that cilantro into the plastic bag at the supermarket and throw it the refrigerator and come back two days later, three days later.

This is what you have. You have a lot of rot, especially underneath these ties or the rubber bands. So when I get home, what I do is take a little care. So this parsley, it’s actually been in the fridge for a week and it looks beautiful. I removed the rubber bands, I washed and dried it, and then I put it in paper towels like this parsley here and slid it inside a zipper lock bag.

Now you don’t need to seal the zipper lock bag. I’m actually gonna sort of leave it open because if any moisture that’s left here will continue to evaporate by leaving the bag open. Fresh herbs are expensive, so really take the time to protect them when you get home, and that way they’re gonna be ready when you need them. Today, I’m making perfect pesto. To start, add some oil to a skillet, add the pine nuts and toast them until they’re evenly brown.

Pour the pine nuts onto a plate to cool. Pull the stems from four ounces of basil. And when you’re done, you should have about three ounces of leaves. Salt the boiling water, then blanch the basil leaves for a few seconds. This helps lock in the bright green color once the pesto is pureed.

Quickly transfer the leaves to a salad spinner and spin them dry. This is gonna keep any unwanted water from diluting the flavor of the pesto. Lay the basil on a dish towel to wick away any of the excess moisture.

Grab the food processor and process that parmesan until finely ground. Hold the parmesan to add to the pesto at the end.

Add the blanched basil, toasted pine nuts, the garlic, the salt and the olive oil to the food processor and process and until smooth. Stir the pureed pesto into that bowl of parmesan. Holding parmesan until the very end helps preserve some of its texture so you get nice little pops of parmesan flavor. I have a pound of freshly cooked pasta here. I’m gonna add the pesto and a little bit of that pasta cooking water, and toss to combine.

Green, bright and flavorful, perfect pesto.

I love potato salad. I do, I love potato salad, but this potato salad recipe is different because it’s packed full of a ton of herbs, some tomatoes and tender green beans, and it’s not mayo-based. It’s actually tossed with a super tangy vinegarette. So we’re gonna focus first on the potatoes.

We’re gonna be using some Yukon gold potatoes today. They’re super waxy and obviously gonna get nice tender once cooked. I have one and a half pounds of Yukon gold potatoes, and I’m gonna cut them into three quarter inch chunks and the potatoes are unpeeled, so this is as easy as it gets. Potato salads are definitely an easy recipe, but this one has a bunch of great tricks, and one of them is to stagger the cooking. So we’re gonna start the potatoes first before we start the green beans.

Let’s add the potatoes to a large sauce pan, and then you wanna add enough water to the pan so that it covers the potatoes by about one inch.

All right, that looks great. I’m just gonna give it a stir and then add two teaspoons of salt. So we’re gonna be seasoning throughout the entire recipe at every stage because we found that way, you didn’t have to add a ton of salt and pepper at the end. It’s gonna be super well rounded and really, really well seasoned.

So I’m gonna bring these potatoes up to a boil and then reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer until the potatoes are almost tender, which will take about seven minutes.

Now, meanwhile, I know I mentioned the tangy vinegarette, but this is like one of the best vinegarettes. We have half a cup of extra virgin olive oil here in this large bowl, and I’m gonna add some white wine vinegar. I’ve got a quarter cup and I’m just gonna drizzle that in while I whisk. And then we’re gonna add some pepper.

We’ve got three quarters of a teaspoon of black pepper, three quarter teaspoon of salt, and just whisk this until nice and combined. I’m gonna set aside about a quarter cup of this for later, ’cause we’re gonna be tossing it onto the potatoes in a little bit. Now we’re gonna add capers. It’s a good amount, we’ve got a quarter cup of capers. I’m a huge caper fan.

It just adds the best salty brininess, they’re so good.

Some shallot, it’s just one shallot sliced thin. And some tomatoes. We’ve got six ounces of grape tomatoes that I halved. All right, now we’ve got a couple anchovies.

Now anchovies are such a great secret weapon because they’re full of glutamate, so they have a ton of umami in them. You’ll know it’s in there, but you won’t know it’s an anchovy. I’m just going to mince it. All right, transfer that to this bowl here. I’m gonna give it one last stir, and I’m gonna let the shallots and the tomatoes hang out in this vinegarette, and the tomatoes are gonna soften, the shallots are gonna soften, and also it’s gonna help to take the bite out of the shallot at this stage.

Okay, almost everything is ready to go except for our green beans. So we’ve got one pound of green beans that I just need to trim and then cut into one inch pieces. Just slice off the ends there. And then one inch, one inch, perfect. So let’s put this in the sauce pan and the green beans are actually gonna cook with the potatoes in the same sauce pan, which is great because it cuts down on dishes.

So the potatoes, again, they’ve cooked for seven minutes and they’re gonna cook now with the green beans for an additional seven minutes. I’m just gonna give everything a good toss and this is staggered cooking. So in order for this one pot recipe to work as well as it does, I needed to jumpstart the potatoes first, ’cause they take longer to cook, and then I added the green beans in the sauce pan once those were just tender and then they’ll be ready at the same time, again, about seven minutes. It’s been seven minutes so I just wanna check the green beans and potatoes to see if we are nice and tender. Best way to do that is just to use a paring knife, go into the center of the potato, and if it meets no resistance, we are good to go.

So I’m gonna drain these vegetables in a colander. I’m about to show you one of my favorite tips for potato salad.

Lay everything flat in a single layer. So now pour the vinegarette over the potatoes, and while the potatoes cool, they’re gonna absorb all of that dressing and the salt and the pepper. So it’s gonna season at every stage.

Clearly that’s the name of the game for this recipe. So just gently toss everything together very carefully on the sheet pan. And then you’re gonna put this aside and let it cool for about 15 minutes and we’re almost done. So while the potatoes cool, we are going to prepare our herbs. Here I have a quarter cup of dill and a half a cup of fresh parsley leaves.

I’m gonna leave the parsley leaves whole, and that’s a real great way to serve parsley, I think, especially in a salad, because it’s a real substantial bite and it’s gonna give you that fresh parsley flavor.

For the dill, I’m gonna go ahead and mince it. So I’m gonna add the dill and the parsley directly to the bowl that’s been hanging out so patiently, the tomatoes and the shallots and the capers. Honestly, I could eat this just like this at this point. So good.

It’s time to assemble our salad. So I’m gonna add the green beans and our dressed potatoes into the bowl with the tomatoes and the shallots. Mm, it already smells so good. Yum, yum, yum. Now just give it a good mix.

This is a home run. Okay, so just transfer it to a pretty platter. Oh wow, this looks so good. And if you’re having a party, this is definitely one of those make ahead kind of potato salads and you can go hang out with everybody. Now I’m gonna get a little bit of everybody in here.

And notice the shallot is not firm, it’s totally soft and pliable, which is great, ’cause it’s not gonna have that really strong onion flavor.

I know it’s not gonna surprise you, but I’m gonna go for a potato first. So tender. Mmm. That was so good.

Perfectly seasoned, completely dressed. Let’s do a little green bean action. So tender. That grassy fresh parsley flavor I was telling you about. Such a well balanced potato salad.

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