Lately we’ve been eating a fair amount of red meat in our household, so to cut back, we are going back to chicken as our protein of choice.  Stir frying it becomes boring after a while, and I don’t believe in deep frying.  Could there be a compromise between the crispy juiciness of battered-oil-soaked-chicken and bland skinless-white-meat?  Why yes!  Confit the crap out of it!

Why call it South Central?  That is my current hood* here in Vancouver! (* 6 Mar 2015)

Ingredients:

• Chicken Thighs
• Salt
• Black Pepper
• Garlic Powder
• Onion Powder

As you may have noticed, there are no measurements listed in the ingredients.  Everything is added to taste.  This post isn’t so much about ingredients, as it is about the technique used to make the chicken.

Directions:

The first step is to generously season the washed, and patted dry chicken.  Add a good layer of salt, black peper, garlic powder and onion powder.  Massage it all in.

Heat your cast iron skillet on high.  Remember, when using cast iron, you never want to use it before it heats up.  Add in enough oil to coat the bottom, and then wait until it’s reached cooking temperature — just before the point of burning.

Turn on your oven as well.  We will want to preheat it to at a hot 245 °C

Place each piece of chicken skin side down.  In a 10″ skillet 4 pieces fit comfortably, while a 12″ skillet could fit 6.

Sear that sucker for a solid 2 minutes without touching it!  Resist the temptation to move it around.  The point is to seal in all of the juices.

Turn the heat down to medium-high after the 2 minutes are up.  Continue cooking for 10-11 minutes, this time moving the pieces around the pan to ensure even heating.

The skin should be a golden, crispy brown colour.

Keeping the skin side down in all of its own oil, place the skillet directly into the oven, and continue cooking for another 10-12 minutes.  Don’t overcook!

Take it out, and then flip each piece over, so skin side is up.  It won’t look pretty yet, but don’t worry.  The high heat will crisp the skin nicely.

Continue cooking for another 5 minutes.

After fully cooked, take the chicken out and let it rest.  Resting meat is always important!  If you eat it too soon, all of the juices will run out and make a mess.

While the chicken is roasting in the oven, and then resting, why not make some veggies and a sauce to accompany it?

A good pairing of greens would be something super flavourful — such as Anchovy Garlic Broccoli!

Pan fry a can of anchovies and 5 cloves of minced garlic.

Throw in your broccoli and drizzle with some oil.  Cook for about 5 minutes.

You can also create a dipping sauce for the chicken.  I had chives on hand, so a simple garlic-chive sauce goes well.  Throw some chives, 1 clove of garlic, and oil in your blender, and puree until smooth.

You can strain it to make it look pretty, however I like the taste of chives so I kept everything in.

This sauce will be very strong, so a little goes a long way.

Ta da!  There you have it — cs’s SCC/SCSSC – my South Central Confit/Seared Castiron Skillet Savory Chicken!  Without deep frying, you can make a crispy skin chicken that is still moist on the inside!