Chicken

Smoked Chicken

Nearly every time we’re out grocery shopping, I pick up a whole chicken. It seems like at least once a week we end up roasting or grilling a whole bird, and using its carcass for chicken stock and its leftover meat for soup. The flexibility that comes with buying a whole chicken just can’t be beat, plus everyone gets to fight over their favorite pieces (luckily, we have varying preferences). Furthermore, it is often more economical than buying individual parts, and when buying quality chicken, every penny counts; there is probably no bigger price disparity than between industrially-raised and well-raised chicken (eggs are a close second).

A few years ago, I posted a smoked turkey recipe that continues to be popular today; we’ve smoked a turkey for every Thanksgiving since first developing this method. Similarly, I’ve come to enjoy using a similar approach for smoking chickens, which has much lower stakes since it’s not the centerpiece of a holiday meal.

While this preparation is very simple, I’ve tagged it as “moderate” difficulty in the recipe box below, if only because there are quite a few tools and techniques involved. You’ll need a grill (gas or charcoal) or smoker, smoking wood, aluminum pans to hold the wood, and a thermometer. We’re going to smoke the chicken at 300F, which might initially seem high when compared to other smoked meats, but a higher heat produces a well-flavored chicken without rubbery skin. To keep the chicken moist, I recommend brining it beforehand, and have provided instructions below.

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Arroz con Pollo

Arroz con Pollo is a chicken and rice dish popular in Spain and Latin America. While its origin is difficult to trace, it is likely an adaptation of the Paella, a staple Spanish (Valencian) rice dish dating as far back as the 15th century. As with many dishes stemming from Spain’s exploration and colonization, Arroz con Pollo deliciously marries both worlds; Spanish rice and technique combine with ingredients native to the Americas (namely tomatoes and peppers).

There are dozens of variations on Arroz con Pollo, and I fully expect a few comments below lamenting the fact that my version is not exactly like abuelita’s recipe. It’s understandable that this dish evokes some fairly raw emotion, as it is closely aligned with what I’d consider comfort food. I find that there is beauty in creating a personal version of an oft-tweaked recipe; I think that personalization is part of being human, and the many variations of this dish stand as a testament to this concept.

Some common extra add-ins for Arroz con Pollo include pimento-stuffed green olives, beer, and/or ham. Its flavoring paste, known as sofrito, is also the subject of some debate; some call for tomatoes, others eschew them, and still others use an added fat like lard or olive oil.

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Vietnamese Chicken and Cabbage Salad

Summer’s heat is finally, lazily, starting to wane here in NW Florida; but it’s nowhere near stew season yet. And judging from recent reports, the rest of the US is experiencing some pretty hot weather, so you’re likely not ready to crank on the oven right now, either. So I think it’s the perfect time to share my Gỏi Gà (Vietnamese Chicken and Cabbage Salad) recipe.

Gỏi is the common salad dish in Southern Vietnam (called Nộm in Northern Vietnam), with Gỏi Gà, its chicken variety, being the most popular. While many shredded chicken salad recipes call for boiled chicken, I just can’t stomach the idea of boiling chicken – it seems like such an impersonal way to prepare meat, and it runs the risk of creating a dry, mealy texture.

I respect the reason why boiled chicken is used for shredding, as the water-saturated chicken is easy to break apart. But today, we’ll employ a technique I first learned in a restaurant job, nearly 20 years ago, to get the best of both worlds: we’ll grill the chicken to give it a nice crust and flavor, then dunk it in an ice water bath to cool. This has a secondary effect of preventing the grilled chicken from shrinking, making it a breeze to shred.

One of my favorite aspects of this recipe is that nothing goes to waste. For example, we’ll fry up some shallots and garlic as a salad topping, then cool and use the oil to create the salad dressing – infused with toasted shallot and garlic flavor.

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Seasoned Southern Fried Chicken

About four years ago, I posted a recipe for Southern Fried Chicken, which quickly became one of the more popular recipes on this site. I liked the recipe so much that I ended up adding it to my first cookbook, The Ancestral Table, and then improving it for my second cookbook, Paleo Takeout, to incorporate seasonings similar to those you’d find at a certain famous fried chicken chain restaurant (you know, the kind that comes in a bucket).

As I mentioned in that first fried chicken post, this dish is the convergence of three different events. First, the West African practice of frying chicken was brought to the US as a result of the slave trade. Second, the mass production of pork in the South resulted in an excess of lard for cooking. And finally, cast-iron cookware became a staple of every kitchen during the 19th century. It’s only natural that these elements came together as they did, to create one of the tastiest ways to prepare chicken.

Colonel Harland Sanders first started selling fried chicken during the Great Depression, in Kentucky, and opened his first franchise restaurant in 1952; his success challenged the assumption that “fast food” was limited to hamburgers. His original recipe of “11 herbs and spices” was finalized in 1940, and has been a closely guarded secret ever since. In honor of the original Kentucky Fried Chicken recipe, I also used 11 herbs and spices (although, to be fair, the pinch of thyme used in my recipe was added mostly to reach 11!).

The original preparation for KFC chicken was through traditional pan-frying, but it would take upwards of 30 minutes to prepare one batch of chicken. Ultimately, Colonel Sanders modified a pressure cooker to make the first pressure fryer, which is the method they use today. For my recipe, we’ll be returning to KFC’s roots and pan-frying the chicken – no modified pressure cooker needed.

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Chicken in Champagne Sauce

When creating recipes, I find inspiration in several places. I’ll typically stumble upon traditional recipes while researching random food facts (quite a black hole of information, trust me). Other times, I solicit ideas from friends, or readers via my facebook page, and add potential dishes to a growing list of contenders. But how I created this dish is unique for me, so I’d like to share that story.

I recently stumbled upon a photo on Instagram from Food & Wine’s Chefs Club, a restaurant concept featuring a line-up of visiting chefs. For this particular event, they offered menu items from La Caravelle, a classic French restaurant that closed its NYC doors in 2004. One of their signature dishes, Chicken in Champagne Sauce, was a favorite of the Kennedys; the restaurant re-named the dish Poularde Maison Blanche (“White House Chicken”) when JFK was elected president.

Inspired by that photo, I set out to make my own Chicken in Champagne Sauce. Let me be clear: I did not attempt to recreate this famous dish, but rather, I wanted to make a dish that tasted as good as this picture looks. Considering I’m late to the party and wasn’t able to attend the event (or visit the restaurant before it closed), this may be the closest thing I experience to the dish, and I’m fine with that.

Champagne is the name of a sparkling wine made from grapes grown in the Champagne wine region in Northeast France, fermented under strict guidelines; sparkling wines that don’t feature Champagne grapes, or weren’t produced under the required guidelines, cannot legally be called Champagne. For this recipe, any sparkling white wine will do. Fun fact: the bubbles in sparkling wine are a result of second fermentation, similar to how kombucha achieves its effervescence.

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Gai Yang (Thai Grilled Chicken)

Gai Yang (ไก่ย่าง, sometimes spelled Kai Yang) is a barbecue grilled chicken recipe originally from Laos, but most commonly associated with Thailand today; it is a popular street food often served alongside Green Papaya Salad and sticky rice.

This dish is quickly becoming a favorite at our house because it is super simple to put together and all of the ingredients are relatively easy to find – only one ingredient (lemongrass) isn’t available in our everyday grocery store. Luckily, we keep chopped lemongrass in our freezer, and if that runs out, our local Asian market is only a few minutes away.

I enjoy preparing this dish because it gives me an opportunity to roll up my sleeves and get physical with its preparation – by spatchcocking the chicken, pounding some ingredients in a mortar and pestle, and finally chopping the entire bird up with a cleaver at the end.

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Cock-A-Leekie Soup

I’m traveling this week, and feeling a little under the weather. These two events frequently coincide; that is just the price one pays for seeing new places and shaking new hands. So this week seems like an appropriate time to share one of my favorite chicken soups.

Cock-A-Leekie (sometimes spelled Cockie Leekie) is a Scottish soup likely derived from French chicken and onion soup during the Middle Ages. It was later adapted to Scottish regional ingredients (namely, leeks), and sometime down the line prunes were an added element of the dish – probably to increase the dish’s flavor and nutritional profile. The soup is often thickened with cooked rice or barley, or enjoyed plain, as in this recipe.

Fun fact: this soup is one of two items on the menu the day the Titanic sank.

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Claire’s Chicken Bibimbap

This week’s recipe has a personal twist to it. I recently teamed up with Skype to help create some healthy eating challenges for popular vlogger Claire Marshall as part of their SkypeFit project. I’ve had a few roles in the campaign, to include jumping on Skype’s group chats to answer food-related questions, and taking over the Skype Instagram account for a weekend. My favorite piece has been brainstorming with Claire to help her find healthy food solutions.

In our chats, Claire had mentioned that she loves eating out (don’t we all!), Korean barbecue in particular, which is too often laden with sickeningly-sweet marinades. Additionally, she’s been trying to cut back on red meat. So we settled on a weeknight-friendly version of Bibimbap, made with spicy chicken (Dak Bulgogi, 닭불고기), and I challenged her to try and make it on her own. She made a video of the experience, which you can find after the recipe below.

Legend has it that Bibimbap (비빔밥) originated from the belief that leftover food cannot be brought into the New Year. For that reason, Koreans started the practice of mixing together various ingredients in one bowl, and this dish rose to prominence in the early 20th century. Today, you can find it on nearly every Korean restaurant menu.

Let’s talk about the tweaks I made for today’s recipe; in the end, this dish isn’t unlike the Bibimbap found in my first cookbook, but with a few conscious steps to speed up the cooking process for our busy lives. Bibimbap is typically served with Gochujang (고추장), a spicy red sauce, but the intensely flavorful chicken replaces the Gochujang while eliminating the need to make a separate sauce. I also sweetened the marinade with my favorite one-two punch when making Korean barbecue: honey and applesauce. Finally, instead of asking Claire to make her own kimchi (the recipe is in both of my cookbooks, but takes upwards of 5 days to prepare traditionally), I left it as an optional side assuming that your local market sells some.

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Three Cup Chicken (Sanbeiji)

Sanbeiji is a popular Chinese dish, most often served in Southern China and Taiwan. The dish derives its name from its three key ingredients: sweet rice wine, soy sauce, and sesame oil. Garlic, ginger, fish sauce, honey, and basil round out the flavors in this deceptively simple preparation. Chicken is the most common protein, but pork, and occasionally frog, are also used.

What sets this dish apart is that there is no real trickery involved; the chicken and sauce simmer until the sauce evaporates, then it is removed from heat right when the chicken starts to sizzle and pop. The result is fully-flavored with a delightful texture – no breading or thickener required.

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Chicken Teriyaki Bowls

I’m the kind of guy who likes to grill in the winter. Well, let me rephrase that – so long as there isn’t a ton of snow on the ground, I like to grill in the winter. Living in Florida has its perks; we still have surprisingly cold weather here in the panhandle, but it rarely snows, and so I get to fire up my grill year-round.

One of my favorite reasons to grill in the cold is that it creates contrasting experiences. Winter in the air, summer in your bowl. This idea is best exemplified in these Chicken Teriyaki Bowls, accented with apple slices and white rice seasoned with furikake (I like Urashima furikake, which is made without additives).

Teriyaki sauce can be traced back to the Edo age in Japan, which started in the 17th century. An increase in urbanization and exposure to outside cultures resulted in an influx of new ingredients, which converged to make this tangy, sweet sauce that is perfect for grilling. Japanese restaurants gained prominence in the United States in the 1960s, and teriyaki sauce became the household name that it is today.

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