Christopher Kimball’s Milk Street Television

- Today on Milk Street, we're traveling the world to-- dress up chicken.

We start in China, with a white poached chicken.

It's a great recipe you could use every day of the year.

And we finish it with a very simple ginger soy dressing.

Then in South Africa, we do a piri piri chicken which is superhot, it will blow your head off if you're not careful.

And it also looks great.

And then, we do a great potato chicken traybake.

This is from Reem Kassis who's the author of The Palestinian Table.

And finally, we do this great glaze you can use on any roast chicken that really turns it into something special, even during a weeknight.

So please stay tuned, as we love to dress up chicken.

- Funding for this series was provided by the following: - MOWI Salmon comes ready to cook, ready to grill, ready to season, or pre-seasoned and ready to eat.

In an assortment of flavors for an assortment of people.

MOWI Salmon.

- We pass down traditions here.

We create and connect.

We enjoy special moments-- some simple, some grand.

The heart of your home is the kitchen.

The heart of your kitchen is The Galley.

- Americans eat on average 100 pounds of chicken, per person, per year.

So this episode is about getting you comfortable with expanding your chicken palate.

We're going to start with a little chicken cheat sheet so that you know the Milk Street approaches to using chicken.

So first, boneless, skinless or bone-in skin on.

Most of the time we're going to call for bone-in skin on.

And there are a couple of reasons why.

One, the flavor is better-- most important.

Two, this skin... actually gives you more wiggle room with your chicken cooking.

So that you're less likely to overcook it, which is especially important with chicken breasts, which we all know are notorious for becoming dry from being overcooked.

We do call for boneless, skinless chicken parts often when it's a really quick cooking application, classically a stir-fry.

And in case you're saying, "But wait, I love to poach my chicken."

As you're about to see, you can poach bone-in skin on chicken.

When you're ready to serve it, you just remove the skin and the bones, and you have beautifully poached chicken that's actually got a better texture than when you poach it-- boneless, skinless.

Another thing I just want to make sure you're comfortable with, is when you bring home your chicken parts sometimes there's a little extra skin.

There may be a little extra chicken anatomy.

What do you do so that your recipe works out?

So, four chicken breasts.

I'm going to show you two different ones.

This one is what we want the chicken breast to look like, when we start cooking.

But often you come home with a chicken breast that looks like this.

A very different shape.

The reason for this extra shape is there's actually a little bit of the rib cage still attached to this chicken.

So you just want to grab your kitchen shears, which you'll see we also use when we spatchcock whole chickens to roast.

So you look for a fat line, and a good pair of shears will just cut right through.

And there you go.

Now we have two pieces of chicken breast that look the same.

And now we have bone-in skin on thighs.

So usually... they come home and they look like this.

And you want to get them so they look like this.

This is very simple.

You just need to trim along here.

If you're going to sear the thighs, you don't want to cut the skin too close, because it shrinks when you brown them.

And that's all you need to do to get your bone-in skin-on pieces ready.

Boneless, skinless rarely need any prep, except cutting them down to the size they're supposed to be for the recipe.

So there you have it.

There are chicken basics to set you up for the rest of this episode, and 100 pounds worth of chicken dinners over the next year.

- Here's the good news.

If you give up this obsession with dark, crisp chicken skin, you can do all sorts of wonderful things with a chicken, as in a white cooked chicken, it's a poached chicken.

And then you can do all sorts of things with it, including serving it cold with a sauce.

And that's what we're going to do today.

The other thing about this that I really love is you're making a broth.

And that broth can be used to make chicken soup, it can be used to make rice, et cetera.

So it's really a twofer.

So we're going to flavor this water, as I said, for the broth.

We'll take off stems; cilantro.

We'll take these scallions, and we'll just tie these together.

I like to use a little slipknot for that.

And we're going to take some ginger as well.

And the great thing about using ginger uh, just to flavor a broth, is you don't have to peel it.

And we have a tablespoon of Kosher salt.

And we have-- you can use Shaoxing wine.

It's sort of like a... a very weak, very dry sherry.

Or you can use a dry sherry.

And now... We'll put the chicken in.

So I'm going to bring that up to a simmer.

Now, we're going to use some of this cilantro later, so.

Okay.

So we'll use that later.

So it's been, uh, 15 minutes, and we're just going to turn it over.

Ten more minutes at this sub-simmer, and then we'll take it off the heat, cover it, and let it sit for 30 minutes, which means you get a really gently poached chicken.

So, the chicken, uh, has rested now, and now, we're going to carve it.

Now, in many places in the world, including China, they would like to eat the skin.

I'm probably going to take it off and serve it without.

One other little trick I use sometimes when I roast the chicken, is I'll actually take the wings off before I cook it and get the wishbone out, which makes it a little bit easier to carve.

It's not a big deal, but it's something you might want to try.

So, we're going to start with getting the wings off.

As Jacques Ppin has said many times, uh, if you're preparing a chicken or carving a chicken, you're really not cutting through bone.

You're finding out where the joints are, like here... And I'm going to pull it back, and I can actually see the bone there.

Okay.

Same thing here.

We just make a cut about there, and gently pull it back.

And you can see the joint right there.

And you cut through the joint.

The legs come off very easily.

Same thing.

We'll just make a little cut here.

And, then...

Pulling it up, you can see the thigh bone right there.

The breastbone obviously goes... down the middle.

The knife goes down, and then it follows the contour like that.

So, we'll start to go down, turn the knife.

Same thing on this side.

There.

So, I would... definitely make a soup with this with the leftover broth.

(chuckling): In fact, I saw someone once did a, a piece on taking one, three or four pound chicken and serving 12 people.

So you can do an awful lot with one chicken.

Same thing with the leg... and the thigh.

The joint is actually closer to the leg than you might think.

So it should be about... there?

There we are.

Perfect.

So we're going to put together a really quick sauce.

This is some of the stock, uh, the liquid we used for poaching the chicken.

Um, scallions, a neutral vegetable oil... a lot of grated ginger, a little sugar... soy sauce.

Toasted sesame oil, which has a very strong flavor, and a little vinegar as well.

Let's put this over.

Okay, I think we're... good to go.

So, that is about as simple a chicken dish as you can make.

A Chinese white-cooked chicken.

Sometimes they'll poach it using a lot of soy sauce in the water, which would not be white-cooked.

And as I said, you can serve this cold, you can serve it warm.

Uh, and that sauce we just made, or some variation of that, you can use in hundreds of other dishes.

Next time you want a really easy dish that you can obviously make ahead, and, you relax your concerns about having crispy roasted skin.

This is absolutely delicious.

Uh, and the sauce goes on at the end, which makes it absolutely perfect anytime you want chicken supper.

- When you have a dish whose reach extends primarily within one culture, you're still going to have a lot of cooks within that culture debating about what makes the dish right or the best.

And each region in Africa has taken piri piri and turned it into their very own.

So we are going to make a piri piri that was inspired by one from South Africa.

And we are going to begin by making the sauce.

We have cumin, coriander, a little bit of paprika and salt, and those will go into the bowl here.

Then, we have the chili powder.

We did toast and grind our own New Mexico chilies.

Okay.

That goes in.

Okay, so these are all the dry spices.

We're going to use this spice blend several times within the recipe.

So we'll take out two tablespoons of it now.

And then, the rest of this mixture goes right into the food processor.

Great.

Then, all these fresh chilies that we have de-seeded and taken the membranes out of.

A little bit of garlic, of course.

And our piri piri has a little bit of sugar in it.

There's a lot of spicy heat in this.

The sugar helps temper that a little bit, and it also smooths out some of the stronger flavors from the vinegar we're adding a little bit later.

So we're going to pulse this a little bit till it's really finely chopped.

This is really beautiful.

It's not completely smooth just yet.

It's still got a little bit of texture to it.

We'll turn this on and add our liquids, which are lemon juice and vinegar.

We're going to reserve a little bit of the sauce because we're going to use it in two different places, within the recipe.

We'll take a quarter cup of it out now, and we will set this aside for later.

Okay.

Now that we have our incredibly delicious piri piri sauce made, it's like what are we going to put it on?

Today we're going to use a whole chicken, and I'm about to show you how to spatchcock it so it lays flat, cooks faster, and then you have more surface area also for more piri piri.

You can do this with a knife, but it's a little tricky.

It's really better to have a really good, strong pair of kitchen shears.

And it's very easy to do from there.

I like to start from the butt end and just cut through the bones-- you can hear.

(bones crunching) Okay.

Then we'll flip it around and do the other side.

(bones crunching) (chuckling): You can see why scissors work better here.

So from here...

I like to do a little bit of cutting right through that middle cartilage, which is right here.

And then look how flat the chicken lays-- like that.

So then, we will flip it over, (chuckling): and let's deal with these wings.

You're going to have these wing tips stick up, and they get singed on the end, which isn't the worst that could happen.

But you can just tuck them under like that, and you have a nice, tidy little wing thing.

That dry seasoning that we made in the beginning, and we set a little bit aside, we're using that like a dry rub, and we're going to rub it underneath the skin of the chicken.

This spoon is really nice.

It has a longer reach than your fingers, and look how easily it goes under the skin like that.

And we're going to use the whole two tablespoons over this chicken.

We have the breast that we loosened here.

This way you can feel exactly where the spices are going.

You know, all in all, (chuckling): the fingers are really your best kitchen tool.

And then, we have a little bit on the outside, And then, a little bit on, on the underside too.

Turn that over.

Let me wash up, and then we will finish prepping our chicken.

Now, we reserved a quarter cup of our piri piri sauce.

We're just going to brush that over the chicken, And then we're going to let this chicken sit, room temperature for about 45 minutes to an hour.

The chicken meat comes up to room temperature, and it will cook through much more evenly, and it gives these flavors time to meld together.

Get a little bit into the chicken meat there and just... You have this happy marriage of a lot of things happening at once.

What we'll do first is line a sheet pan with a little bit of aluminum foil because there's a lot of juices dripping off of that.

And because of all those juices, we'll use a cup of Kosher salt.

Just spread it over this.

That will help absorb the juices and prevent them from burning on the bottom of the pan.

There we go.

Then, we need a wire rack so the chicken's not sitting in a bed of salt.

We'll give this a little spray with some oil.

Put this down, and then transfer the chicken in its exact position there.

There.

Okay.

The color's gorgeous.

The shape is fantastic.

So our oven is preheated to 425 degrees.

The rack in the middle of the oven.

We'll cook the chicken for about 45 to 50 minutes or so.

Brush a little more sauce on the end, sort of that final basting sauce, and then it will go back in the oven for 15 minutes-ish until the thighs reach 175.

That's the main thing.

You want those thighs to be fully cooked before it comes out of the oven.

So we have our chicken that has been out of the oven, resting for about ten minutes.

Remember all that sauce we reserved out of the food processor?

This is it, right here.

We have some chopped cilantro.

Oh, man.

(chuckles) Well, you just saw me at home, (laughing): basically right here.

This is what happens quite often.

Okay.

(laughs) All right, we're going to stir this in, and we're going to use a little bit of this and baste it over the chicken one last time before we serve it.

Now, if you're someone who just really doesn't like cilantro, and believe me, I know what that's like, you can always use parsley in place of cilantro right here.

Okay.

Transfer this to the platter.

There we go.

(exhales) Quite gorgeous.

So, carving?

Really, you could put this on the table and let people help themselves.

And believe me, you're going to have a lot of hands reaching into here.

Or you could just cut the parts off separate and let people help themselves to the parts.

I'm just going to cut a little bit of this off here.

A little sauce on the side.

Piri piri is going to be like fireworks going off.

Not just the heat, but the intense flavors from all those spices, plus the lemon juice and the vinegar that went into it and that little bit of sugar.

If you've never had Piri Piri, you are going to be kind of blown away by this.

Mmm.

(grunts) Just like a dance, a whole entire opera, symphonic dance going on in your mouth.

Milk Street's piri piri chicken.

From our kitchen to your table.

You are going to love this.

(laughs) - People come and say, listen, I run out of ideas.

I don't know what to make for weeknight meals, and I'm tired of the same old thing.

So we took that task to heart, and figured out a universal chicken glaze to roast a chicken that is beautiful, burnished and easy.

And all of the ingredients come right out of your pantry.

So we tried lots of different ingredients: miso, gochujang.

For the sugary element, we tried agave, we tried maple syrup, we tried honey.

And then we tried a lot of different flavor combinations.

And we landed upon a combination of hoisin and Chinese five-spice powder, which you can find in any supermarket.

But those two flavors together with the other ingredients, gave us a beautifully lacquered brown chicken that is reminiscent of Peking duck.

So for the fat element here, rather than butter, we found that kind of burned and scorched easily, we're using a neutral oil.

A little salt, of course, our Chinese five-spice powder, our hoisin sauce, that's used a lot in sauces in Chinese food, and a little brown sugar, for a little more sweetness.

And that sugar will also break down and burnish and brown the chicken.

Just coat it all over.

Tuck the wings under so that they don't burn, and have your oven preheated to 375.

Now, one of the things I'm going to do here is also to truss the back legs.

It evens up the cavity and the meat of the chicken so that it cooks a little more evenly.

So this will roast, undisturbed in the oven, for about an hour and a quarter.

You want to cook this until an instant-read thermometer, inserted in the thickest part of the thigh, which is down here underneath the leg, reads 175.

Then you can pull it out, let it rest a few minutes, and dinner is served.

(sighs) Look at this beauty.

Beautifully burnished, golden brown, crispy skin.

And this is so simple to make.

Just a few ingredients: hoisin sauce, Chinese five-spice powder, vegetable oil, brown sugar, and salt.

That's it.

- All right, people, if there is one chicken recipe you need to know by heart, this is it.

And here's why.

It's also secretly a lesson on spices, a lesson on making a pan sauce, a lesson on browning.

All of the things wrapped into one template that is easy one sheet, weeknight dinner.

So this version of a chicken traybake is based off a recipe we learned from Reem Kassis, when we were visiting her in Galilee.

It starts with six cinnamon sticks, six tablespoons... of allspice berries, and then we have three tablespoons of coriander, a tablespoon of black pepper.

That's our heat in this spice blend.

It's going to give it a nice kick.

And then, we have ten cloves and a half teaspoon of cumin seeds, 12 to 14 whole cardamom pods.

And then on top of that, you want half of a nutmeg, that you sort of crush up.

And then, this is blades of mace.

So all of these spices go into a cold pan.

You want to start in a cold pan because spices burn easily.

So I like to start over medium, medium low.

And you want to stir them gently from time to time.

You also want to smell them at the beginning because spices are already aromatic.

And the cue is always, "toast until aromatic," which makes no sense because, they already smell like something.

I can't smell anything from up here.

But once they're toasted, I will be able to smell them when I'm standing up.

That's a really nice cue for when you know they're toasted.

So our spices are now at room temperature.

They're not warm at all.

I don't have to worry about making paste.

And now we're just going to grind them all up in a spice grinder.

So we grind this until it's a very fine powder, with the cardamom seeds and the cinnamon pods.

This isn't one that you want coarsely ground.

You want it completely ground up.

So we just need two tablespoons of this.

I'm going to go ahead and put them in a bowl, and the rest I can store in a jar.

And you just want to keep it out of light and out of heat.

And it's good for your weekly Tuesday night dinner.

So to this base, we're going to add some pomegranate molasses, about two teaspoons.

And then we're going to add some olive oil... and some salt.

So you can see, if you had made that spice blend last week to make dinner this week, you would have skipped right to this step.

And it's such a simple marinade just with other pantry staples.

Pomegranate molasses lasts forever.

Olive oil and salt.

And to this we're going to add in potatoes.

You can vary this vegetable.

Cauliflower is fantastic.

Sweet potatoes are good.

We're also going to add in... some chicken.

So this is bone-in, skin-on, which is really important for a traybake.

You'll see in a second when we get to the garlic.

But this allows us to make a delicious pan sauce, completely hands off.

We're well coated.

We still have some sauce at the bottom, but don't worry about that.

We won't waste it.

So what you want to do, is put all of your potatoes and chicken on an ungreased, unlined sheet tray.

So we're going to keep the chicken towards the middle.

And this is why I said it was so important to have bone-in, skin-on.

We are going to use the fat that comes off of the chicken to protect the garlic and baste it and roast it.

And that's going to be that last flavor layer in the pan sauce that we'll make at the end.

Okay, so I have this little circle in the middle, and that's where I'm going to put eight garlic cloves.

All right, so this is ready to go into a 450-degree oven until the breasts register 160 and the thighs register 175.

Okay.

Check out that browning.

A really hot oven dries out the surface of the chicken and allows it to brown so thoroughly, in not a ton of time.

So we're going to remove our chicken pieces to our platter, and get our potatoes out here.

Another great cooking lesson is the sheet tray pan sauce that I've been talking about this whole time.

So what we want to do first, we're just going to smash our garlic cloves... into the fat.

I think the real reason pan sauces were invented was to make sure you don't waste any of the flavor that comes from when either you're roasting or you're skillet searing meats.

So we're going to add a little water in here, to help us scrape up these brown bits.

And now we're just going to... drizzle it right over.

Wonderful.

And now we add our final bit of acid.

You already opened a bottle of pomegranate molasses, so why not just use it again?

And I always like to save a little to serve.

Because some people like even more like, (whispering): like I do.

And then everything needs a fresh herb garnish.

Who are we kidding?

A little parsley is great.

If you like cilantro or mint, those would be wonderful.

And that's it.

Let's give it a taste.

Reem Kassis, thank you!

This is an amazing dish.

Just a few ingredients.

They have a ton of high impact flavor.

A simple template that you can customize.

So for this recipe, and all the recipes from this season, head on over to MilkStreetTV.com.

- Recipes and episodes from this season of Milk Street are available at MilkStreetTV.com, along with shopping lists, printer-ready recipes, and step-by-step videos.

Access our content anytime to change the way you cook.

- The new Milk Street Cookbook is now available and includes every recipe from our TV show.

From cacio e pepe and skillet spanakopita to Brazilian-style carrot cake and Thai coconut soup, the Milk Street Cookbook offers bolder, fresher, simpler recipes.

Order your copy of the Milk Street Cookbook for $27, 40% less than the cover price.

Call 855-MILK-177 or order online.

- Funding for this series was provided by the following: - MOWI salmon comes ready to cook, ready to grill, ready to season, or pre-seasoned and ready to eat.

In an assortment of flavors for an assortment of people.

MOWI Salmon.

- We pass down traditions here.

We create and connect.

We enjoy special moments-- some simple, some grand.

The heart of your home is the kitchen.

The heart of your kitchen is The Galley.