Dinner and a Movie: The Tomb of Ligeia

Roast Chicken with Bread Sauce

For the chicken:
1 chicken
salt
pepper
1 tablespoon unsalted butter, softened
8 rashers bacon

For the bread sauce:
1 cup milk
1/4 onion
8 cloves
nutmeg
15 peppercorns
1/2 cup fresh breadcrumbs
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons butter, divided
1 tablespoon cream

Preheat oven to 350˚ Fahrenheit.

Dry off the chicken and season the inside with 1 teaspoon salt and a generous amount of pepper. Place the chicken in roasting pan (breast side up) and rub the skin of the top of the chicken with the softened butter. Season skin with salt and pepper. Roll each piece of bacon up and place them around the chicken. Place roasting pan in the middle of the oven and roast 30 minutes.

Remove chicken from oven and baste with bacon grease and chicken juices. (If you're making baked potatoes to go with your dinner, you can put them in now.) Return roasting pan to oven for another 30 minutes, then baste again and roast another 30 minutes (1 1/2 hours total).

During last 30 minutes of roasting time, start on the bread sauce. Put the milk, onion, cloves, grating of nutmeg and peppercorns in a saucepan and cook over lowest heat. After the chicken has been in the oven for an hour and a half (total), check to make sure it's cooked through by piercing the thickest part of the thigh with a sharp knife. The juices shouldn't be pink. When chicken is finished, remove to a carving board to rest while you finish the bread sauce.

Strain milk into a separate container and discard the onion, cloves and peppercorns. Set aside. Wipe out saucepan and add the breadcrumbs, 1 tablespoon of the butter and salt and stir together over medium heat. When the butter melts, stir in the cream and the rest of the butter and continue to cook until the breadcrumbs are softened. Serve with the carved chicken and bacon.

Serves 6-8

Adapted from "Roast Chicken with Bread Sauce" in Mary and Vincent Price, A Treasury of Great Recipes (Ampersand Press, Inc., 1965), 184.

It practically looks like a film adaptation of an Anthony Trollope novel. For his last Poe adaptation, director Roger Corman decided to get out of the sound stage and film on location. He picked a few winners! The Tomb of Ligeia definitely looks less cheap than its predecessors. Make no mistake--it's still ridiculous, but I think we've had fun with our Vincent Price movies this month!

In The Tomb of Ligeia, Vincent Price plays the resident of a crumbling abbey who's convinced his wife, Ligeia, isn't really dead. However, he remarries and tries to start a new life, but the memory of his first wife and a certain black cat make things very difficult (especially for the new wife!).

The Tomb of Ligeia is available on Netflix Watch Instantly and is also available on DVD as a double feature with An Evening of Edgar Allan Poe.