Chicken Thighs au Pépin

We return to the works of Jacques Pépin this time. As mentioned before, Pépin has been really innovative in making French cuisine and French tastes more accessible to American cooks, and really, to home cooks in general. Classic French cuisine was largely derived from the cooking of professional chefs, primarily via the works of Auguste Escoffier. Although he is a classically trained chef, Pépin has been extremely successful in adapting French (or French-influenced) cooking for weeknights—as much as I love JC, her books lean more toward the spend-a-weekend-afternoon-making-dinner end of the spectrum rather than to fast-dinner-thrown-together-after-a-long-day end.

Pépin is particularly skilled with chicken, in my opinion, and so I’m showcasing his method of cooking chicken thighs this time. We’re really talking more about a technique rather than a recipe on this one. Once you’ve cooked them, you can serve them plain (my tendency), or make a deglazing sauce (Pépin’s approach), but they lend themselves to other applications as well. I’ve been known to dunk them in Buffalo sauce and serve them with celery sticks and blue cheese dressing, and was quite pleased with the results.

After the all the stuff I wrote about just parroting someone else’s recipe last time, I’ve realized that I’m pretty much doing the same thing here. And yet it feels somewhat different, in that I’m trying to share a cooking technique rather than a specific recipe. Plus, a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds[1], OK? Lay off.

The other reason I wanted to write about this one is to sing the praises of the chicken thigh. You may have noticed (I know, I know, you haven’t; just play along) that there are no recipes for skinless, boneless chicken breasts on this blog. This is intentional. They are boring. They are bland. They are dry. And removing the skin and bones makes cooking them even more difficult. Feh.

Which brings us to the chicken thigh. It has more flavor than the chicken breast does, and although it is theoretically possible to overcook one, I’ve never actually seen it happen. They are significantly cheaper than the breasts as well, which is always a good thing.

For this technique, you need bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs. Although skinless, boneless chicken thighs are increasingly available in supermarkets, do not try to substitute them here. They won’t work. The only cut that works for this is the standard chicken thigh, with skin and bone still intact.

Put the thighs on a cutting board, dry them with paper towels, and season them generously with salt and pepper on both sides.

Put the thighs skin-side down. Take a sharp knife, and make a ½-inch-deep cut on either side of the bone. This will help flatten the thigh so that it cooks more quickly. Before-and-after pictures are provided below. 

Now put the chicken skin-side down into a dry non-stick pan. No cooking oil is required, as the chicken will cook in the fat that renders from its skin. I love the economy of that.

Put the pan over high heat for 5 minutes or so, until the chicken starts sizzling. A splatter screen is a good idea.

Once the chicken is sizzling loudly, lower the heat to medium and put a cover on the pan. It needn’t be a matching cover—you can use a cookie sheet if need be. Let the chicken cook over medium heat for 15 – 18 minutes.

That’s it. That’s all you have to do. I mean, you can peek at them, poke at them, or move them around a bit during the cooking time if that makes you feel more diligent, but you really don’t have to. As best I can tell (I’m not a scientist), the chicken fat that is rendering on the surface of the pan is effectively frying and crisping the skin, while the lid traps steam, ensuring that the chicken cooks through.

When you remove the lid after 15 minutes or so, they will look like this. I took this picture at 15 minutes, which is why the larger pieces still look a bit red. At 18 minutes, they were perfect. You’ll note that the previously dry pan now has a large amount of fat sizzling away—all of this came from the chicken thighs.

And then there’s the skin.

It is difficult to convey the concept of “crispy” with photographs and words. You really have to try these to get a sense of it. But a close-up might help.

The skin practically shatters when you cut into it. It’s really very good, and requires amazingly little effort. The meat of the chicken is tender and flavorful, with none of the bland dryness that one gets with the accursed chicken breast. You can prepare your side dishes while the chicken cooks (mashed potatoes shown here, and no, they were not instant).

As I mentioned earlier, Pépin makes a deglazing sauce for these—he drains off most of the fat, sautés mushrooms and onions, and adds some white wine. And while this is quite good, I find it unnecessary—in case you hadn’t already guessed, the crisp skin is the highlight of this dish for me, so I find the wine sauce a distraction. But do as you like. And as mentioned above, I have been known to do the Buffalo wing thing with these, too. You could put some fresh herbs under the skin of the chicken if you wanted to get fancy about it.

Make this. Soon. Pépin knows his stuff. Bon appetìt, y’all.

From Jacques Pépin, More Fast Food My Way:

Crusty Chicken with Mushroom Sauce

4 large chicken thighs (about 1 ¾ pounds total), skin on

¾ teaspoon salt

¾ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1 cup diced (¼ inch) onion

1 ½ tablespoons coarsely chopped garlic

3 cups washed and diced (½ inch) baby bella or white mushrooms

⅓ cup dry white wine

1 tablespoon chopped fresh chives, for garnish

Arrange the chicken thighs skin side down on a cutting board. Using a sharp paring knife, trim off any excess skin at the edges and cut about ½ inch deep on either side of the thigh bone. (This will help the meat cook more quickly) Sprinkle the thighs with ½ teaspoon each of the salt and pepper and arrange them skin side down in one layer in a nonstick skillet with a tight-fitting lid.

Place the skillet over high heat and when the thighs start sizzling reduce the heat to medium, cover tightly, and cook for 16 to 18 minutes, checking occasionally to make sure the chicken is browning properly. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 150 degrees [F]. If the chicken seems to be cooking too fast after 10 minutes or so, reduce the heat to low. The skin of the chicken should be very crisp and brown. Transfer the chicken to an ovenproof platter and place it in the oven.

Discard all but 2 tablespoons fat from the skillet in which you cooked the chicken. Add the onion, garlic, and mushrooms and sauté them over high heat for about 3 minutes. Sprinkle the remaining ¼ teaspoon salt and ¼ teaspoon pepper on the mushroom and then add the wine and any liquid that has accumulated around the thighs on the platter. Cook the sauce over high heat for about 1 minute to reduce the liquid.

To serve, divide the sauce among four hot plates. Place a thigh in the middle of the mushroom sauce on each plate, spoon some sauce over, sprinkle on the chives, and serve.

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[1] Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance, for those of you keeping score at home.