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.

SHF nº22. A sweet and spicy chutney

José was saying just yesterday how he hates the end of August. Because it´s still hot, and nobody´s around, and you can´t get any work done, and the countryside is baked to a crust, dry and horrid.
I had just been thinking how I love the end of August. Because nobody´s around, and you don´t have to get any work done. And because that baked countryside is producing tons of my favourite foodstuffs. And since there´s not much to do, what better excuse to make preserves?
Evidently everyone seems to be thinking along the same lines, and Nicky and Oliver of Delicous Dayshave made them the subject of this month´s Sugar High Friday.
Now I am above all things lazy. And hooked on season one of The West Wing. So I have no time for candy thermometers, fruit pectin or jelly bags. I love the rush of smugness that hits when you label and put up your very own jars of fruit preserves, but I´m sloppy. And I love vinegar.
So of course it has to be chutney. I love chutney so much, I put it in practically anything that´s not breakfast cereal, and that only because I don´t have cereal for breakfast.

I use the "glutney" recipe from the River cottage cookbook, adapted to fit the two-litre capacity of a Thermomix.
It´s very accomodating, and works with any combination of fruits and vegetables you might come up with, within reason. As long as you respect the ratio of fruit to sugar and vinegar, you´re in business.

Chop one and a half kilos of fruit or veg, one onion, one apple, one fresh chili (or more),250 ml cider vinegar, 200 gr. of sugar, a handful of raisins.
The spices are negotiable, but I like 1 tbs black peppercorns, 1tsp coriander seeds, 1tsp. ground ginger, 3 cloves. You can tie them up in a teabag, but I think they look very pretty once the thing is in the jar.

You put all this in a pan, and leave it to simmer for about an hour and a half, or until thick and gloopy. It sticks. Beware.
For the Th, give it 45 minutes at 100º,speed 1, and 45 more at Varoma. Check near the end, in case it reduces too much.
Spoon into jars and give it 20 minutes in a bain marie.

Write down every batch that you make. No two are alike, but sometimes you strike a particulary wonderful one and it does well to keep a track record.
My own batch today was 4 nectarines and 4 tomatoes. It looks pretty amazing, a dark brown in which cunks of nectarine looks a paler ochre. The flecks of chili and the black peppercorns give it a pretty looking contrast. I won´t open it for a couple of months at least, but I think I´m onto a winning batch. I´ll keep you posted.
My labels are pretty pedestrian, typed on an old Hispano Olivetti, which gives them an early industrial mechanical feel that I quite like.

While it cooks, you can watch exactly two episodes of West Wing. Perfect.