I love Chicken. I would rather have a lovely piece of Chicken with some crispy skin than a piece of Beef Fillet Steak ! My favourite cut is the Thigh. The meat tends to have a bit more flavour. You can take the bone out and stuff it with whatever flavour combination your culinary imagination can create. I like simple things like a Sage and sausage meat stuffing or a Sun dried Tomato paste with fresh basil leaves. I then tend to wrap it in streaky bacon just to increase the calorie content !
The cut is very cheap and has a lot of meat on it so you can use it in Stews or curries in fact anything hearty ! Slow cooking it for a few hours means the bone just falls away from the thigh when its cooked.
I marinaded this Thigh with a Honey, Dijon Mustard and olive oil overnight and just simply pan fried it and finished it off in the oven for about 12 minutes. I made a very simple Chili tomato sauce the day before so that was going to be smeared onto the thighs making them a bit saucy !!!
The Chili sauce was more of a ketchup consistency rather than something like a Italian Arrabbiata sauce.
To make the sauce I emptied the contents of my fresh Chili tub (about 8 chills of various types) into a pan, I added a good splash of White wine vinegar, 2 TBSP of Brown sugar, A pinch of Cinnamon, 1 star Anise, 1 200g pack of chopped tomatoes, Some Spring Onions, and finally a kaffir Lime leaf ! Yes I know it sounds like Ive just made this sauce up with no real Chef measurements…….but the truth is I did !! Sometimes you get into such a culinary creative flow that you just keep putting things into your dish until you think its gonna work ! The real trick is learning when to put the brakes on and not putting too many food types in your cauldron. ! I know I have a bit above average knowledge of flavour combinations because that's what I have trained in for the past 10 years. If you would like to know more about flavour combinations there is a very Good book by Niki Segenit called 'The Flavour Thesaurus' which is basically a dictionary of different types of food and what other foods can be paired with them successfully !
Now simmer your sauce for about an hour until thick.When ready you can either have it textured (lumpy) or smooth by placing it into your blender .As I said before I made this the day before mainly because it always tastes better the next day something to do with letting the flavours marry together I guess. I simply reheated it in a pan and then served it with the Chicken thighs. It was a lovely little supper……Enjoy !
A canny little book !
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