I have seen
TV chefs raving about how much better chicken is cooked on the bone and with
skin on, so when I saw a reasonably priced pack of free range chicken thighs I
snapped it up to see if I agreed. I think they have a point.
As usual I
used a bunch of other ingredients I had on hand – the idea being to balance
saltiness, sweetness, sourness and heat:
Leftover
pomegranate juice
Brown sugar
Brandy
Fish sauce
(for saltiness)
Mixed fresh
herbs (bay and thyme mostly)
1 red
chilli
Garlic oil/
olive oil
Butter
Salt &
Pepper
To make
this beautiful golden succulent chicken thighs, first I patted each thigh dry
with paper towels (I don't believe in washing chicken because I think that just
splashes germs about the kitchen). I
then oiled each thigh with a mix of garlic oil and olive oil and popped them
onto a bed of the fresh herbs. I kept back a couple of sprigs of thyme for
garnish.
Then I
added the other ingredients (except the butter) into the roasting dish – making
sure that the liquid ones were poured around the meat rather than on top of
it. I put the chilli in in hunks (after
keeping a couple of daintier pieces for garnish).
The last
thing to go on was the brown sugar – I put a dessertspoonful on top of each
thigh – I think this is what resulted in such a nice colour.
I had
heated the oven up to quite hot and then turned it down when I put the chicken
in. After about half an hour I popped a
knob of butter on the top of each thigh and then gave it another 15 minutes and
then took the chicken out to rest while my better half cooked up some asparagus.
I did brush
some of the liquid over the meat a couple of times during the cook.
While the
chicken was resting I boiled the liquid in the tray to reduce it a bit and then
used it as a sauce. I was lazy and
didn't pour off the fat first so I served it in one of those jugs that pour
from the bottom so that the fat stays at the top.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Your comments are most welcome. I have currently disabled anonymous comments due to unwanted spam. Cheers