Chicken skin

Some months ago I wrote about the contents of my freezer, listing among them chicken skins. Someone asked me in the comments if they were for my cats. I felt too sheepish to answer. The truth is, I don't have any cats, and if I did, I would certainly not share the chicken skin with them. I could have shouted it out from the rooftops, though, because it seems chicken skin is The New Bacon.

Cooked chicken skin can be flabby, slippery and rather gross. Even if you take care to brown your chicken pieces, after braising the whole thing goes soft, and what's the point of that? I don't usually bother to brown anything, anyway. And please, don't talk to me about Maillard reaction. Bla bla bla whatever. 

I cook chicken without the skin, at least for everyday chicken things like rice or soups or a sandwich. But because I now live the suburban life of the supermarket chicken thigh package, I have had to learn how to deal with the skin myself. A deft pull and you have your skinless thigh. A few inept wiggles and cuts and it is now boneless. 

The meat for whatever dish I'm making, the bones for stock, and the skin? It pains me to say that I used to toss it. No longer. 

Now the skin goes, salted and cut into small strips, into a non-stick pan on a low flame. And if you have one of those things that look like the child of a strainer and a ping-pong paddle, put it over.

Leave it on its own while you make whatever else you're making. It starts to change colour, spitting a little, shrivelling and crisping and after a few more minutes and a bit of turning becomes crunchy and golden and irresistible. Properly irresistible. It is the most delicious thing, and I can't think of any chicken dish it doesn't improve. Sandwiches, soups, noodles, rice, anything, really. 

If you don't want to use it right away you can leave it in the fridge, and use it to enliven leftovers. My favourites: crisp some to crumble over soups of the heartier variety, like black beans. 

Let them cook til golden and use the rendered fat to cook fried rice, or to make a hash with cooked potatoes, or for the most heavenly ropa vieja.

Add them to poached chicken for  the whole foods, beak-to-tail answer to the Club Sandwich.

You can think of it as kosher chicharrones and serve it as a snack, but that is something I have never got round to. To me, they are simply a very handy way to make sure that I have the best of both worlds, crisp chicken skin and juicy, flavourful meat.

Noodle soups

Yes, Scottish weather is back to normal, which is to say, cold. Which is to say, soup. Remember that chicken I wrote about, that I poach with no particular purpose in mind, and stash in the freezer in handy 500 ml containers? Here it is again.

It can be broth, chicken sandwiches, risotto, risotto soup. Or  maybe made chicken pie, or chicken and dumplings. All these things are lovely, but they are a bit…I won´t say boring, of course, but staid. Pale in colour, gentle in taste. Wonderful in every way, but about as exciting as an afternoon on a cushy sofa re-reading Georgette Heyer.

Let´s look to Asia, then. And let´s be broadminded about this, ok? Don´t beat me up on regional stuff. I´m Spanish and I add a dash of ketchup to my gazpacho, so I´m pretty sure there are things going on all over the world that would shock the recipe police.

Here´s the game. You have chicken broth, and you have poached chicken. You only need noodles to make noodle soup, and a few bits and bobs to make it interesting.

Quantities are imprecise, not because I want to be annoying but because leftovers are not an exact science. You have to wing it with what you have.

The simplest is to heat the broth, add a pinch of sugar, lots of fish sauce, lime juice (or lemon), chilies and ginger, and pour it over noodles and the chicken. A few sprigs of herbs to make it pretty and that´s it. I sometimes cook the noodles inside the broth, but that´s false economy. It really is better to boil them apart. And as for the herbs, whatever you have. I hate cilantro, so tend to use parsley, or chives, or mint, or all three. 

As far as I can tell, that puts us in or near Vietnam.

Another one I like is to heat the broth, dissolve a heaped spoonful of miso and let some wakame seaweed swell. Boil noodles (and they should be ramen noodles, but anything goes, and actually fresh spaghetti work very well) float chicken. Poach an egg, directly in the soup if you like, and serve, with some nori, a bit of chopped scallion for colour, and, if you have it, that moreish sichimi togarashi.

Would a Japanese granny approve? Who cares.

Prettiest of all is this third option, flirting with Malaysia or Thailand. Boil noodles in a pot, rice noodles for preference.Heat another  pan and fry some Thai red curry or  tom yum paste.  I add more ginger because I really, really love ginger. Add the broth and coconut milk, fish sauce, lime or lemon juice, chili, etc. Tweak and see how you like it.

At the last minute add the chicken and some frozen prawns, and when the prawns are done, so is the soup.

I like to add peanuts and fried onions (from a bag) and any pretty herb I have. In fact, it´s so hearty that even if there is no chicken it´s more than fine. And if you have little or no broth, make it less soupy and serve it over rice instead. 

The great thing about these soups is that they are just as good for any weather, so don´t feel you have to wait for the nippy winds of the North Sea to have a go.

Mars and Venus and the chicken sandwich

Every now and then I poach a chicken. 

It´s very easy: salt it when you get back home, let it sit for a while as you put the shopping away and after, put it in a pressure cooker with a few aromatics and water to

come up to just below the breast. 20 minutes under pressure, 15 for it to come down and there you are. Chicken meat, tender and juicy and delicate, plus a bucketful of jellied broth. No particular purpose in mind, something´s bound to come up that will make good use of it. And if it doesn´t, freeze in pint bags, some chicken and some broth. You´ll be glad to have that on hand.

The first thing we make are usually chicken sandwiches, which can be taken anywhere you like, and made into pop psychology, even.

José makes a chicken version of the classic Cuban sandwich, called habanero in Madrid and bocadito in Cuba. Chicken, ham, cheese, pickles, mustard, white bread, and let the panini press work its magic. Manly.

I tend towards the ladylike in mine. Breast meat, with a little bit of the jelly still on it. Mayonaise, from a jar, with plenty of lemon juice. A few slices of avocado. A suggestion of black pepper. Chopped celery leaves, chives, and parsley. Lightly toasted white bread, or very fresh brown. Green and fresh,  it feels light, although who are we kidding?

Some crisps/chips, for crunch. And if it´s cold, have a cup of the broth, well salted and spiked with Sherry.

Extremely crunchy chicken wings

I made these wings yesterday, inspired by a recipe from Mad Hungry. Since I had no breadcrumbs I substituted oatmeal and polenta and oh, wow. Serious crunch, serious flavour. I´m sold, particullary as the type of breadcrumbs found here look like day-glo orange fish food.

I also roasted a head of cauliflower alongside, and made some hummus. It was a very simple meal, all finger food, great with cold beer, easy to serve outside. The perfect menu for watching a Wimbledon semifinal?

heat the oven to 225ºC

Take one kg of chicken wings (that´s about ten, with the tips off).
Salt them, then mix in a bowl a heaping spoonful of flour, half a cup of oatmeal and a quarter cup of polenta and a quarter cup of sesame seeds. You can add crushed garlic and cayenne pepper to this, if you like.

Now beat one egg in another bowl and put the wings in there, making sure they´re all coated in egg. You may need two but then will surely have egg left over and that´s annoying.

Coat the wings in the floury mixture, put them on a greased baking sheet and into the oven for 45 minutes or so, until golden and oh, shatteringly crunchy.

Serve with something to dip them in. My favorite is Thai sweet chili sauce mixed with Dijon mustard.

Feeds two as a main dish, more as an appetizer, though there will be fights for the last piece.

Chicken with additives

I recently read an article about Spanish food, and once again I had to do the eye roll when I heard that old chestnut about "the very best ingredients, simply prepared".
There´s some truth in that, but it ignores skill. Skill, experience, a good hand, call it what you will; that´s the quality that´s going to make the food sing. Give an organic chicken to an inept cook and you may very well get a stringy, tasteless dishcloth in gravy. Give one of those Spanish grannies a battery horror and watch as she magics it into croquetas that will make you sing. Rest assured, she will have used factory eggs and shop bought crumbs for that crispy coating, and I am quite happy to bet a substantial sum that she won´t have used extra virgin olive oil to fry them.
The process, the cooking, the things that you add and the care that you take, they matter as much as the ingredients. I hate to think that there are people out there being discouraged when they hear that patter about organic birds and heirloom tomatoes, who think they might as well reach for the frozen pizza because they don´t have time to make a sourdough starter.

So anyway, here´s a recipe for chicken thighs. If I can find organic chicken thighs I buy them, but often I can only find free range, and most of the time not even that; my local supermarket carries something they say is guaranteed by some humane sounding association and only fed vegetables, but I doubt we´re talking about prize poultry here. Not that it matters, they really are delicious:

First, salt them well. Then put them in a freezer bag with a glug of olive oil, a squeeze of lemon juice, some Sherry, a couple of smashed garlic cloves, a spoonful of sugar and some herbs; dried, to add insult to injury. I like oregano.
All these things are, of course, additives, but they are good things that you add yourself, and have no numbers or unpronounceable names. Their purpose, however, is the same; to amplify the flavor of your chicken.
Leave it in the fridge overnight, or just an hour out of it.

Roast in a 200ºC oven until crisp and golden, about 45 minutes, but do check, because ovens vary.
You can bake these on a bed of parboiled or boiled potatoes and they will be out of this world, having soaked up all that wonderful chicken fat.

One-pan chicken

My chicken guy at the market is a very sweet fellow who doesn´t mind selling me only half a chicken. Free range chickens are so big that even half is over a kilo, and that´s a lot of chicken for me. Not that I dislike chicken, but I do find it hard to be fascinated by it. However, stomach flu being what it is, and my baby being now in the grip of it, chicken breast must be gently poached.
So my half of a big chicken gives me one big breast half, skin off, that the butcher cuts out. The thigh and the drumstick. A wing. A piece of backbone, and the neck.
Wing, neck and bone go into the freezer for the making of stock whenever my storage runs low. The other two pieces I roasted today following the method called by la Lawson "one-pan chicken". It results in roast chicken that is quite ok, but that I am happy to leave for a sandwich or pot pie some other day. The star of the show for me are the vegetables; potatoes, onions and carrots that soak up the chicken juices and the fat, char and burn and turn crispy or melting and are just the best thing ever.
This time, I spooned yogurt over them and it was quite a revelation.

Chicken soup in a relative hurry

Ideally the freezer should never be out of some chicken stock, neatly parcelled and labelled, the sort that has simmered for hours and is full of jellied goodness. But we all know that is not always possible, and so, here´s a way to make chicken soup that will give you a steaming bowlful in thirty minutes or so.

Buy some chicken, preferably on the bone.Chop leeks and carrots, onion perhaps, celery if you like (I do), potato if you don´t want pasta later. Chop them small. This might seem counter productive if you´re in a hurry, but the smaller you chop the quicker they cook. Sweat them in a bit of oil, then add water and some good bouillon powder. I have some Marigold I brought over from the UK, but plain old Knorr is quite ok, really. And yes, I know it´s just flavoured salt, but what do you think is in those nice looking cartons of broth? Stock cubes and water, my friends, marked up to make us all look like idiots.

So, stock cube, water. Now the chicken bits. If it´s breast, then you don´t want to give it much time, but thighs or drumsticks can take twenty minutes´ slow simmer very well, by which time the vegetables will have cooked to an agreeably soft texture. At the end, throw in a handful of tiny pasta and take out the chicken. Let it rest a little and tear the meat, put it back in the pot, and taste. You´ll probably need salt, possibly some lemon juice to perk it up, definitely a dash of sherry to enliven it, a small cube of butter because it´s always a good idea, and a sprinkling of parsley to make it look good.

A bowl of this won´t keep you on your feet for a day´s skiing, but it´s just the thing for a blustery January evening.

The most finger-lickin´chicken EVER

On Monday I did my shopping at the Corte Inglés supermarket. I go there once in a while, to buy the heavy stuff I don´t want to drag up my own stairs. Beers, washing powder, that sort of thing.
Of course, once inside, it´s very hard not to succumb to other stuff, and so the trolley ends up piled high with filo pastry, blueberry jam, flour tortillas, dark chocolate chips and the like.
Another thing I find hard to resist is the portioned organic chicken. At the market, if I don´t want a sorry-looking bird, I have to buy an animal the size of a young condor. I´m not averse to leftover chicken, quite the opposite, but really, for two, it can last for ever. And it would be silly to try out a recipe with enormous amounts. What if I don´t like it?

This was the perfect occasion to try out the Barefoot Contessa´s Indonesian Ginger Chicken.
Now, of course, I wish I´d used a mammoth champion chicken, and could eat it again today. It was the best thing ever. Moreish, lip-smacking, and literally finger-licking good. Even if it had been bad you´d have to lick your fingers, because it is sticky. I don´t know if my oven pan will survive the experience, but it´s totally worth it.
I entreat you, do this chicken. It is the platonic ideal of all roast chickens; crisp, glazed a deep golden brown, charred in parts, juicy and eye-poppingly flavourful.
I think it would taste very good cold, but sadly, I don´t know, because it all went in one go.
And did I mention, it practically cooks itself?

Indonesian ginger chicken,
adapted from The Barefoot Contessa cookbook
( and the quantities are scaled down. The original calls for three whole chickens. What sort of ovens do people have in the States?)

1 kg. chicken pieces
1/3 cup honey
1/3 cup soy sauce
1 chunk of ginger, roughly chopped
4 cloves of garlic, smashed

Put everything in a freezer bag. Maybe it would be best to mix it in a bowl first, buy I just bunged everything in, and it was fine.
Marinade overnight.

Bake, skin down, in a 180ºC oven for thirty minutes. Turn the oven up to 230ºC, turn the chicken over, and leave it another half an hour.
Let it stand for 20 minutes or so, the better to tear it with your fingers. You really don´t want cutlery with this. And you might want to use one of those disposable trays, because the burnt honey and soy are a bit of a nightmare.