Tool Time - Crispy Chicken Thighs

Whole Foods has been doing some good specials on skinless thighs, so we've been trying to get them extra crispy without using a lot of oil.

Here's an example of a chicken thigh cooked WITH the skin on...cripsy, golden brown and delicious! We seared it off in the pan, topped it with thinly sliced lemons and then baked it off on a 375 oven for 30 minutes.



We sliced the thigh pieces in half, soaked them in buttermilk and then dredged them in rice flour.

Next I heated up two pans...one had some peanut oil in it, the other dry.

We seared off the thigh pieces, getting them slightly browned on each side; the rice flour, while crispier, will char faster then regular breadings.




Once each side of the chicken pieces was browned, we lowered the heat to med-low and placed the other pan on top, now super hot.

We found this brick laying on the sidewalk...I washed it up and double-wrapped it in foil...the Society Hill Chicken Press.

We added the foil wrapped brick to the top to weigh the pan down and press the chicken flat; this slowly squeezed out the chicken's grease & moisture to continue the browning while avoiding the charring.



Here's the end result...a good crispy coating on tender boneless chicken thighs. The heat and weight of the second pan helped to cook the chicken off faster while keeping it from becoming dry or charred.

Although this technique didn't use skin-on chicken, I think it's similar to the Italian Brick Chicken, Pollo al Mattone, which uses the weight of a brick to keep a splayed whole chicken flat on a hot plate.


C & E