I normally wouldn’t bother to write about a side salad. But this was quite possibly the most sublime salad I’ve had in a good long while.

For dinner, we had some manicotti that my mother-in-law had brought over for us. A pint of tomato sauce in the fridge meant essentially a no-cook night for me, and I figured a salad would be a good accompaniment. I had on hand some roasted beets, a package of mixed baby greens, and my pantry staples — olive oil and a very good balsamic vinegar.

So the salad was composed thusly: I tossed the greens with some olive oil and vinegar and divided it onto a couple of salad plates. On top of that, cubed roasted beets that had been lightly dressed with the same olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Sprinkled a few pine nuts on top, and the real kicker — I sprinkled this very lightly with some fleur de sel.

Like I said — best. Salad. Ever.

For the roasted beets:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Trim the ends of the beets and wash them well. Put them on a piece of foil large enough to enclose them. Drizzle them with a bit of olive oil, and bake them for 45 minutes to an hour depending on size. When they’re cool enough to handle, peel the skin off them and cut them into cubes. These can be dressed with a vinaigrette. They taste like the earth — dark, substantive, and mysterious. They are beautiful.

I’ve tweeted about this recipe often enough and am posting it now at the request of a young acquaintance named Charlie Olvera, so that he might enjoy this dinner on a cold Long Island winter’s night. This is true comfort food — the chicken poaches in a small amount of liquid that forms the basis of a sauce. It’s like chicken soup, but better. It’s a meal in a pot, although I am rounding out our dinner with a tossed green salad and a crusty baguette.

You’ll need a Dutch oven for this. I’m using my beautiful (and inexpensive!) enameled cast iron one, but any deep covered pot will do. Your pot needs to be big enough to comfortably hold a 4 or 5 lb. chicken, and it needs a cover, and it needs to be oven-safe.

Ingredients:

• One 4- to 5-lb. chicken, washed and patted dry
• 1 medium onion, peeled and halved lengthwise
• 4 medium carrots, peeled and cut roughly into one-inch pieces
• 2 stalks of celery, cut in half
• 5 or 6 cloves of garlic, peeled and chopped
• 1 lb. baby potatoes, white or red (about 1 inch in diameter; if they’re bigger, cut them accordingly)
• 1 cup of chicken stock
• 1 cup of white wine
• Olive oil
• Salt and pepper
• Bay leaf

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Heat about 1 tbsp. of oil in the Dutch oven over medium-high heat until shimmering. Pat the chicken dry and season it liberally with salt and pepper; tie the legs together with kitchen twine, and tuck the wings behind the back. When the oil is ready, put the chicken in the pot on its breast and let it brown for about 5 or 6 minutes. When it’s nicely browned, turn it over on its back and brown that side as well. When both sides are browned, remove the chicken to a platter, and add another tablespoon of oil to the pot.

Add the onion, celery, and carrots to the pot and cook, stirring occasionally, until the vegetables begin to brown and form a nice fond on the bottom of the pan, about 5 or 6 minutes. Add the garlic and cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Add the stock and wine and bay leaf and bring to a boil, scraping the bottom of the pot with a wooden spoon to incorporate the fond. Add the chicken back to the pot on top of the vegetables, breast side up, season the potatoes with salt and pepper and add them to the pot around the chicken, and cover the pot. Put the pot in the oven for at least an hour. You’ll want to cook the chicken until the thigh temperature registers 170 - 175 degrees (this takes roughly an hour to 70 minutes, and it’s extremely forgiving, i.e. this is hard to overcook). When it’s done, take the pot out of the oven, remove the chicken to a serving platter, and tent it while you fix the sauce.

Remove the potatoes and carrots to the serving platter with the chicken. Take the onions, bay leaf,  and celery out of the pot and discard. Boil the remaining liquid a little until it thickens slightly, and serve with the chicken, carrots and potatoes. If you’d like a slightly richer sauce, you can whisk a couple of tablespoons of unsalted butter into the sauce off the heat.

You can serve this with whatever starch tickles your fancy, but I really love a good baguette with this. Any simple green vegetable makes a nice accompaniment. Or if you’re lazy, just eat the chicken and veggies and call it a day.