It was days before Christmas. The parents, scheduled to come the previous Saturday, were stuck in London, waiting for the snow to clear so that they could finally make the transfer to Rome in time for Christmas. One day in London, two days, three days . . . It was my intention to give them as festive a Christmas as was in my power to, but after the debacle of being iced into a country that they did not particularly want to be in, the pressure to give them as enjoyable a Christmas as possible was on.
How does one make a festive Christmas dinner without an oven? The answer – “PolloDiavolo,” of course!
Well, not of course – “chicken of the devil” is not exactly the first thing that comes to mind when one is celebrating the birth of the Christ Child. However, I had gone to the butcher the day before my parents arrived (which ended up being five days after they were scheduled to), and explained in my not-so-best Italian my dilemma, and this was the most festive culinary option that seemed available to me. A whole chicken, head and feet removed, flayed down the middle so that its inner cavity was open to the world, its bones smashed for ease (all this conducted with – to my American sensibilities – truly barbaric detachment). Between the friendly butcher and the older lady customer, I was assured that frying the chicken over very high heat with lemon juice, salt, and rosmarino, would be molto buono (there was probably some more crucial advice included in the instructions, but my culinary Italian has its limitations). In any case, I felt ready to celebrate the birth of our Lord and Savior with some Chicken Diavolo.
The next morning, bright and early at 4am, the parents arrived at my door. After a long nap, we awoke to a dark, cold, rainy Christmas Eve. Evening Mass at the Centro San Lorenzo, with midnight Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica. The next morning, special tickets for the UrbeetOrbis blessing, which took us on top of the colonnade, right next to the giant statue of St. Francis. A blessed, but exhausting Christmas.
After a nap, the exchange of some presents (which had been laid out under my small plastic Christmas tree), and a relaxing movie on my laptop, it was time to confront the devil (chicken).
With a flayed raw chicken, and a square foot of counter space (such as only a Pontifical student can afford), it began to occur to me that there were some logistical considerations that I had not taken into account. With one hand, I attempted tofinagle the pathetically deadbird into doing my will, its floppy, greasy, salmonella-infestedlimbs draped almost to my elbow, while withthe other hand I attempted to rinse it and season it with organic pepper, sea salt, and freshly-squeezed lemon juice. When all was seasoned and soaked, I dropped the bird into the scalding hot frying pan.
Smoke.
One of the crucial points that I apparently missed in my butcher’s instructions was the one that said not to put a chicken doused in lemon juice on a steaming hot olive-oiled pan, because it will burn on the outside, and stay raw on the inside. To be sure, the voice of personal experience in such matters was telling me this, but I told it to hush, I’m sure the nice butcher man knows what he’s talking about. Of course, the voice of personal experience did admittedly remind me that my Italian is not up to snuff, but I took offence and decided to ignore the personal experience voice altogether out of spite.
In any event, an hour and a half later, after an emergency rescue battle to somehow get the bird cooked enough to be eatable, and my dad had gone to bed, my mom and I enjoyed a nice, lemony, and crunchy Christmas chicken.
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