To be completely honest, I don’t care that much whether chicken meat is white or dark. For me, it’s all about the skin. (Well, it’s also about the feet, tail and innards, but that’s a newsletter for another time.)
It doesn’t even have to be crispy skin — I like it steamed and chewy, brittle and ultracrisp, or anywhere in between. Not everyone appreciates the softer, floppy side of chicken skin, but I definitely know Team Crispy is out there. And it is with the latter in mind that Eric “Captain Crunch” Kim brings us a crackling new recipe for crispy chicken with lime butter.
Using a technique borrowed from the chef Paul Bertolli, Eric sears chicken thighs gently in a skillet over medium heat, skin side down, until the fat renders and the meat mostly cooks through. Then he flips the pieces briefly to finish them, adding garlic to the pan. A quick pan sauce with lime, maple and a little butter makes a final, complex flourish that’s fragrant with citrus. It’s a crisp-skinned keeper — and the meat is great, too.
Featured Recipe
Crispy Chicken With Lime Butter
More food for thought:
Lemony turmeric potato soup: You know what else is crispy? Potato chips! And Zaynab Issa floats them in a bowl of bright yellow, chile-spiked broth teeming with potato cubes soft and fluffy as pillows.
Vegetarian pad Thai: New from Hetty Lui McKinnon, this vegetable-packed noodle dish skips the fish sauce found in most pad Thai recipes and replaces it with a tangy mix of miso, tamarind and soy sauce that packs an umami punch. Tossed into a pan of springy rice noodles rounded out with tofu, snow peas and broccoli, it makes a satisfying meatless meal that perfectly balances sweet, sour and salty notes.
Creamy fish with mushrooms and bacon: I adapted this recipe from the chef Hugue Dufour of M. Wells. Based on a classic French dish, Hugue’s recipe calls for simmering fish fillets in a homey yet refined sauce of white wine, bacon and cream, adding some canned tomatoes for acidity and sweetness. You can use any kind of mild, white fish to make it, or substitute shrimp if you happen to have some at the ready in the freezer.
Charred bok choy and cannellini bean salad: We’ve got more Hetty goodness in this robust main-course salad. She starts by charring the bok choy (or another sturdy vegetable like gai lan or cabbage) in a skillet, until the hardy stalks get toasty in spots and imbued with smoky flavors. She then adds canned beans, a handful of cilantro and a gingery sesame-oil dressing.
Easy banana bread: This simple-to-make gem from Lidey Heuck is the fate I have mapped out for the brown-speckled bananas on my kitchen counter. With a light, moist texture and a warm cinnamon scent, it’s lovely served as is, or toasted and buttered for breakfast or a midafternoon snack. Adding a handful of chocolate chips to the batter couldn’t hurt, either.
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That’s all for now. I’ll see you on Monday.
Melissa Clark has been writing her column, A Good Appetite, for The Times’s Food section since 2007. She creates recipes for New York Times Cooking, makes videos and reports on food trends. She is the author of 45 cookbooks, and counting.
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