I’ve been cooking in a clay baker for years. I love the way the foods come out of it deliciously moist, the way the aroma of the food wafts through the house as it cooks, and frankly, I just love the way a clay baker looks. Recently, I’ve been cooking in a clay baker a lot because I have a recipe project for one on the go. That’s why the ad for roasting a chicken in clay in the Williams-Sonoma catalogue caught my eye.

Williams-Sonoma wasn’t advertising a clay baker, however. They were selling actual clay to mold around your chicken and completely seal it in while it roasts. The clay comes raw and bakes into a hard shell while the chicken cooks inside. The only way to retrieve your beautiful roast chicken is to break the clay - quite the table-side presentation, or at least just some fun for the cook in the kitchen. I couldn’t resist and decided to give it a try.

Now before I go any further, I should let you know that this was not an inexpensive chicken dinner. The clay kit was about $15 and on top of that I spent a lot of money on the best “organic-no antibiotic-field roaming-vegetarian diet-chicken” I could find. The chicken alone, if you can believe it, was $18! I had decided that if I was going to give this clay a good test, I was going to give it the best shot possible, plus I was willing to pay for the entertainment value.

The process was relatively easy. I stuffed a flavorful butter mixture underneath the skin of the chicken on the breast and leg (2 tablespoons butter, 1 teaspoon chopped fresh thyme, 1 teaspoon minced garlic, 1 teaspoon lemon zest, 1 teaspoon kosher salt). Then, I rubbed more butter on the outside of the chicken, stuffed the lemon halves inside the cavity, and wrapped the chicken in parchment paper. The clay came in two slabs, which I rolled out into large ovals. One slab went on the bottom of the sheet pan lined with parchment paper. The wrapped chicken lay on this slab of clay with the parchment seam down.

The second slab of clay was laid over the top of the chicken and then the edges of the clay were sealed together. The finished product was like a huge beef Wellington! I sent the clay vessel into a hot 425 degree F oven for 1 hour 20 minutes.

Now, I think if I were to do this again, I’d make a bigger effort to decorate the clay on the outside somehow - use clay scraps to make leaves or some sort of decoration, or write a little message in the clay - “Bon Appetit!” perhaps, or some special message? The clay baked into a hard shell and remained a light gray color. Still, despite the lack of decoration it was sort of exciting to pull the now hardened egg out of the oven. It rested for 15 minutes - enough time to pull the rest of the meal together.

Then, the best part… I broke it open. It broke easily and the pieces of clay were warm but cool enough to move away and reveal the chicken wrapped in parchment inside.

The best part didn’t last long and soon the chicken was entirely unwrapped. What was really noticeable once all the clay was removed were all the juices from the chicken in the bottom of the clay mold. Yum! The chicken was lightly browned and amazingly juicy. We ate.

Final benefit… a clean oven and no roasting pan to clean. I just threw the broken clay away.

So, was it the $18 chicken that tasted so good, or was it the herb butter under the skin that made it so flavorful, or was it indeed the clay baking technique that gave the chicken an incredible juiciness? Who’s to say, maybe all three. I do know that baking (and breaking) a chicken has never been quite as entertaining. It was fun and it was memorable. Now I can honestly say “Boy! When I baked that chicken, I broke the mold!”

We move quickly in this day and age. We’re working, rushing from place to place, busy going from one thing to the next. Stopping or slowing down just enough to make dinner sometimes seems like a hurdle too high. In fact, I heard recently that the average working mom is willing to spend 12 minutes making dinner. 12 minutes?! That’s just not right. I take time to cook meals because I enjoy it, but I rarely slow down enough to really do something that isn’t on my to-do list. The other day, however, I did just that and it felt really… really good. So good, in fact, that I plan to do it again soon. It only took me an hour and at the end I felt like I’d learned something, experienced something new and got to eat the end result. I made fresh mozzarella cheese.

It may sound impressive, but it really couldn’t have been easier, especially since everything I needed was in this cool mozzarella cheese-making kit from Roaring Brook Dairy - a thermometer, a pair of latex gloves, cheese salt, citric acid and a tablet of rennet (enzymes that help coagulate the milk, separating the curds and whey). The only ingredients I had to supply were a gallon of milk and a bottle of water.

The instructions included in the kit were great - accurate and easy to follow, but here’s how to make mozzarella in a nutshell. The first step in the process was to dissolve the rennet and citric acid in two separate containers of bottled water. Easy enough. Then slowly heat a gallon of pasteurized (but not ultra-pasteurized) milk to a temperature of 85 degrees F.

Gently stir in the citric acid. Continue to heat the milk until it reaches 100 degrees F and add the dissolved rennet. Stir gently in an up-and-down motion for 30 seconds (bringing your slotted spoon out of the milk and putting it back in - stirring vertically, if you will). Continue to heat the milk until it reaches 105 degrees F and then let it sit, covered for 10 minutes. At this point, the curds will have separated from the whey. You can check the readiness of the curds by pressing a teaspoon into the curds - it should leave a dent.

Remove the curds from the pot with a slotted spoon (I used a tool called a spider which was perfect) and place them in a colander, straining as much of the whey out as possible and even pressing on the curds to release more of the watery whey.

Once you’ve separated as much of the whey as possible, microwave the curds for a minute. Then, using gloves to protect your hands from the heat, fold the curds over on themselves to distribute the heat and squeeze out more of the whey. Heat the curds again for 30 seconds or until the curds are about 135 degrees F. Fold the curds over on themselves again, kneading the cheese until it becomes shiny and stretchy.

Then, add the cheese salt, sprinkling it over the curds as evenly as possible and stretch the dough, pulling it apart and then folding it together again.

A gallon of milk will make two large mozzarella balls, so divide the curds into two pieces (or more if you want to make smaller mozzarella balls). Shape the balls by stretching the cheese over itself, pinching it into a knot at the bottom. Once formed, pop the mozzarella balls into ice water for few minutes and then wrap in plastic wrap. Done.

It was easy. It was relaxing. It involved a lot of waiting for the right temperature or letting the curds sit and coagulate. Believe it or not, it was really peaceful. Even the dogs lay down in the kitchen and slept. At the end, I was able to make a beautiful Caprese salad with tomatoes and fresh basil, balsamic vinegar and extra virgin olive oil, and fresh…really fresh… mozzarella cheese. And the little knot of cheese that was left after pinching the curds into a ball… well, that went to a relaxed, peaceful and yet attentive kitchen helper.

You can learn more about Roaring Brook Dairy here. Their cheese-making kit would make a great gift for a food-lover and would be a really good project for young adults. Check them out.