The Roadkill Chicken, the Grandmother Socks, and the Croquette Emergency

It started very simple.

The Mayor was hungry.

This is not a small sentence. When The Mayor is hungry, the whole meeting can change direction. We were maybe talking about something else before, I don’t know anymore, but suddenly he said he was hungry, and I said, “Yes, you must eat chicken.”

This is my professional advice.

Not for engineering, not for sales, not for life coaching. For hunger. Chicken.

He said he had chicken in the freezer, and then he asked me to give him a chicken recipe. So I said, okay, you take one whole chicken. Not a small piece, not a sad little breast without life in it. A whole chicken. You put it on the back, and you cut out the backbone, two centimetres left and two centimetres right. Then you turn it around and press down the breast. The Mayor said, “Ah, spatchcock,” because of course he knows the formal English word.

I said, “Roadkill Chicken.”

This is also correct English, I think. Maybe not in a restaurant menu, but in real life it works.

You flatten the chicken, and then you put it on the barbecue at soft temperature. Not fire like hell from the beginning. You give it time. And then you make the sauce. This sauce is not a diet sauce. This sauce is a small heart attack with very good flavour.

You take butter, olive oil, garlic, bacon, oregano, smoked paprika, sweet paprika, and many, many, many piri-piri sauce, as much as you like and as much as your body will accept. You melt everything together, let it bubble, let the herbs and the garlic and the piri-piri become friends in the pan. Then, when the chicken is maybe half an hour from finished, you take a brush and paint the sauce on the chicken.

Paint, turn, paint, turn, paint, turn.

Tack, tack, tack, tack.

This is important. A barbecue is not a machine where you press a button and go away. A barbecue is a relationship. You must stand there. You must look. You must smell. You must see if it is too hot, too dry, too fast. You must be present. After thirty minutes of this painting and turning, you have, in my opinion, the best chicken ever in the world.

The Mayor understood immediately. I think his dinner for the next day was already finished in his head.

This chicken came to me from the Portuguese side of life. Many years ago, there was a restaurant we liked, with people who knew how to make piri-piri chicken over charcoal. They had a special grill machine, with metal holders turning over the fire. It was fantastic. But later I saw another version, with more butter, more herbs, more time, and for me it was even better. The secret is not only heat. The secret is that the butter, herbs, garlic and piri-piri have time to release the aroma.

This is also true for people, maybe. Some people need time before the best flavour comes out.

Then The Mayor told me it was very hot where he was. Thirty-nine degrees, maybe forty the next day. He had the desire to drink a beer, or two, or three, and barbecue something. He asked me for an idea for a very hot day.

So I said, “Another chicken.”

I know. I am a man with many ideas, and sometimes all of them are chicken.

This one is Chicken Asado. Again, you take the backbone out and make it like Roadkill Chicken. For the marinade you use orange juice or oranges, lime, garlic, smoked paprika, cumin, oregano, salt, pepper, apple vinegar, olive oil. You rub the whole chicken with this, inside, outside, under the skin if possible, and then it goes in a zipper bag or vacuum bag in the refrigerator for one day.

The next day you need a very hot grill. This one is more Argentina style. Open fire thinking. You stand there like a small soldier of the chicken. Left side, right side, left side, right side. You spoon the marinade over and over and over, and you turn it round, turn it round, turn it round.

The Mayor said, “So basically, you baste it all the time.”

Yes. This is the word. Baste. A very important word for civilisation.

I also told him about the garlic. I like fresh garlic. I have tested garlic in water. Not good. Garlic in oil. Also not the same. For me, fresh garlic is the best. I have one of these Spanish garlic graters. A small ceramic plate with rough surface. You rub the garlic over it, and then it becomes perfect, no cubes, no big pieces, just garlic like it wants to be. For many menus this is fantastic.

I think everybody needs at least one small kitchen tool that makes them happy like a child.

Then my head jumped. This happens. There is always another recipe living somewhere in my brain, maybe between the screws and the coffee beans.

I remembered Korean BBQ Galbi Ribs.

Now The Mayor became serious, because Korea is important in his house. He asked me if I had gochujang at home. This was apparently a test. If I did not have it, maybe he would stop speaking with me. But I had it, so I was saved. He told me he was going to Frankfurt and had strict instructions to visit a Korean shop near the station and buy the entire stock of gochujang. In his house one tub disappears in two months. This is not a condiment. This is a family member.

For the galbi ribs, the cut is important. It is beef ribs, but cut across the bone, very thin, maybe one centimetre. You can order it from proper meat suppliers in Germany. I like to buy good meat, organic if possible, because I do not need antibiotics in my pork, chicken or beef. I have enough things in my own body already; I do not need more surprises from the animal.

The marinade is serious. Soy sauce, water, mirin or sake, sesame oil, kiwi, brown sugar, garlic, onion, ginger, salt, pepper, spring onions. You grate the garlic, onion and ginger, cut the spring onions into small rings, and put everything with the ribs in a zipper bag or vacuum bag. Twelve hours is okay. Forty-eight hours is better.

The first time I made them, I did not have the right fruit. I thought maybe kiwi was not necessary. This was a mistake. My wife and I sat there eating these ribs, and they were tough. Not terrible, but not right. The fruit is important because it makes the meat tender. You learn this once, and then you remember. Cooking teaches with your teeth.

After forty-eight hours, you take the ribs out and put them on the barbecue for two or three minutes each side. The rest of the marinade you can heat with a little hot sauce and put over the ribs. It is very, very good. This is the kind of food where people become quiet for a moment, and that is always a good sign.

Then The Mayor asked me about fish on the barbecue. Fish is a different world. Many people are afraid of it because fish sticks to the grill and then it becomes not dinner, but a crime scene.

I told him there are two good methods. One is cedar wood. You put the cedar plank in water so the water goes into the wood. Then you put fish on top and put the wood on a hot grill. The wood starts not really burning, but smoking, and the aroma goes into the fish. Very nice.

The other method is a salt stone. This is fantastic. You can make dorade or mackerel, whole fish. Cut small lines into the sides and put lime or lemon in the cuts, or just olive oil, herbs and salt. You can also use a fish holder, because if you put the fish directly on cast iron, it sticks, and then when you turn it you have fish puzzle. With the holder, you can turn it left and right without destroying it.

And then there is fire salmon. My wife likes this very much. For her it is a highlight. You put the salmon on a board or metal holder beside an open fire, standing at an angle, and the heat cooks it slowly. It looks beautiful. It smells beautiful. It feels like something old and good.

Then The Mayor made a dangerous turn. He asked me if I had a secret pasta salad recipe.

I said, “I hate noodle salad.”

This is maybe not diplomatic, but it is honest. When friends come and we say, please bring a salad, sometimes someone says, “I make noodle salad.” And inside me, something becomes grey. For me, the old German noodle salad is often peas from a tin, Fleischwurst, mayonnaise, maybe tomato or paprika, everything heavy and tired. I do not like it.

But this does not mean pasta salad must be bad. You can make a good one. Use fusilli or penne rigate, cooked al dente. Add cooked ham in thicker slices, cut small. You can add nectarine or mango, maybe cucumber, with the watery middle removed so it stays crunchy. This is different. This has freshness. This is not the old sad bowl from the corner of the table.

The Mayor listened carefully, because he knows when a man says he hates something but then gives a better version, this is where the truth lives.

Then he asked me about Indian cooking.

I said, “I don’t like it.”

Again, maybe not diplomatic. But this is my experience. Many years ago, when I was a young soldier, maybe twenty-four or twenty-five, I drove with a friend to Amsterdam and we went to an Indian restaurant. The smell in the restaurant was like my grandma’s socks put in the fire. I am sorry to all grandmothers. I know this is not a beautiful sentence. But it is the truth from my nose.

It was not only the smell. It was also the taste on my tongue. Something in the spices was not for me. The Mayor said maybe it was asafoetida, a yellow powder that smells very strong but gives a special flavour. He likes it. I believe him. He is allowed to like grandmother socks in powder form. That is his private life.

I tried Indian food more than once. Not only one bad evening. I tried again in another restaurant, and when I went inside, the smell came again. I ate chicken, I ate beef, and still I thought, no, this is not mine. So now when people say, “Let us go to an Indian restaurant,” I say, “You can go. I go to a döner kebab.”

And this is not a tragedy. A proper döner is also an art form.

Near the end, The Mayor asked what was on the menu when I closed the office door. This was a special week for us. On Wednesday, my wife and I had been married thirteen years. Because I was ill, we could not go to a restaurant on the day itself, but we planned to go out later and test a place we knew had changed hands. I was looking forward to it. Thirteen years married is something to celebrate. Not with fireworks, maybe, but with good food, a table, and the feeling: we are still here, we still like each other, and we still know how to enjoy an evening.

Of course The Mayor already knew there would probably be a WhatsApp status update of food. He knows me. If there is a good plate, my phone must make documentation. This is not vanity. This is archive work for humanity.

We also spoke about Belgium. I had eaten well there, yes. One evening I went with a friend to a Chinese restaurant in Sint-Niklaas because we wanted to talk quietly, just two people, not the whole group. It was very, very good. Another evening there were North Sea crab croquettes. Normally you eat two as a starter, but in this menu there was lobster soup and one croquette. I asked the waiter, very politely, if he could bring me another croquette. He said no, it was a fixed menu.

This was difficult for me.

A croquette emergency.

Later we had beef fillet. The meat was very good, but for me fillet is too easy. You cannot make much wrong with fillet. It has no fat, no muscle, no real work inside. It is beautiful, yes, but I said to the others, come to the North Sea and I will grill you another part of beef that is better than this.

The next day we had ribeye, three hundred grams. Some people asked for medium, some for well done, I asked for medium rare. But again the cooking was not how I like it. Maybe I am difficult. Maybe I am spoiled by my own grill. Maybe both things are true.

But this is the thing with food. It is not only eating. It is memory, technique, friendship, travel, disappointment, laughter, garlic, fire, and sometimes one missing croquette. It is the way The Mayor says he is hungry and suddenly I am explaining chicken like I am giving a military briefing. It is the way one recipe brings Portugal, another Argentina, another Korea, another Belgium. It is the way my wife’s favourite fire salmon becomes part of the story, even when we are talking about something else.

Food is never only food.

A good barbecue is not only heat and meat. It is patience. It is standing there, watching, turning, brushing, smelling. It is knowing when to leave something alone and when to give it more sauce. It is learning that kiwi matters, fresh garlic matters, and a noodle salad should not taste like sadness from a tin.

And when the chicken is finally ready, when the skin is shining and the sauce has gone into the meat, when your friends become quiet and then say, “This is fantastic,” then you know.

The sun is shining.

Even if it is forty degrees.

Even if The Mayor is hungry again tomorrow.

There will be chicken.