Chicken Crispies

I think most people would agree that the best part about a really well-prepared bird is the skin. Whether it be picked from the slow-roasted duck my host family made for holidays, or part of the crisped exterior of fried chicken leaving grease on everything at a picnic, as long as it's crispy, it's delicious.  Now, imagine you could have that delicious skin without all the extra bird.  It'd be like bacon, wouldn't it?!?  Well, I've been trying for a while, and I think I've nailed it.

Chicken Crispies
Chicken skin 
salt
pepper
sage

Ok, I'm sorry, but I don't have measurements.  How much skin you use depends on how you want to get your chicken skin, and everything else just gets sprinkled on top to taste.  I think the easiest way to get chicken skin is to buy chicken breasts with the skin on (and usually the bone still in).  They're pretty easy to cut off the bone, and usually you can just peel the skin right off.  If you're really going for it, get a whole chicken.  I usually go for both options, because I have recipes that use whole chickens, but I mostly just cook with chicken breasts; the skin gets bagged and frozen until I want to use it.

Start by laying out the chicken and slicing it into approximately 2-3 inch wide strips.  It will contract as you cook it, so go slightly larger than what you want to munch on.  Arrange the pieces on an ungreased cookie sheet (they'll grease themselves, and the little bit of sticking at the beginning helps keep it flatter), outside up, and sprinkle with salt, pepper, and sage.  Bake at 375˚F for 30- 40 minutes or until crisp and brown.  Transfer to a plate lined with a paper towel, and save the rendered fat, if desired, for other recipes (it's often called "schmalz", and can be used to sauté veggies for soup, along with butter in a crust for, say, a chicken pot pie, or any purpose you need fat for).

Good Scotch Cooking

I may be misremembering, but I'm pretty sure in one of the Little House books, Pa compliments Ma's "good scotch cooking."  It's her Scotch something.  I know, I KNOW, the term these days is "Scottish", unless one is referring to whisky.  But I'm trying to quote something positive.  Trying.  Anyway, I found a Scottish cookbook at an estate sale a while back, and decided it was high time (or highland time?…  Sorry!  I love horrid puns.) I made something from it.  The following is a simple recipe-- simple ingredients, simple cooking, and ultimately simple (but filling) flavors.

Chicken Stovies
1  frying Chicken, cut up
4 large Potatoes
2 large Onions (Don't use red.  It tastes fine, but looks odd.)
2 tsp Salt
1/4 tsp Pepper
1/3 C Butter
1 C chicken stock or broth

Peel and slice the potatoes into quarter-inch slices.  Peel and slice onions thinly.  Arrange alternate layer of chicken, potatoes, and onions in a heavy frying pan.  Dot each later with butter and sprinkle with salt and pepper.  Add the broth.  Cover tightly, bring to a pin, and simmer very gently for about a hour.

Rereading this as I post it, I wonder if I didn't misinterpret the preparation of the chicken.  I interpreted "cut up" as meaning into little bite-sized bits, but now I'm thinking, since it was listed (as I have it here) in the ingredients, not in the prep work, that maybe the recipe just means broken down into parts (wings, thighs, etc.).  That would also explain why it needs an hour to cook.  I guess I'll have to try that next time.

This ended up being a grand way of using up the dark meat of the chicken that I'm not wild about.  (Join me in heaving a giant sigh at the culturally determined preference for bland white meat that I can't shake.)  As you can probably see from the photos, though, the choice of red onion wasn't the best.  The leftovers looked really unappetizing.  It's a little under-seasoned for the taste of my family, either from time or culture.  I would certainly use more salt, and probably include some herbs for additional flavor.  But it's easy enough to cook and was satisfyingly filling. Not bad for a first venture into a cuisine known for meat boiled in a stomach.  Though to be fair, other cultures used entrails as cooking vessels.  The Scots are just more famous for it than everyone else.