While she likes to recall her mother cooking in sturdy Club aluminum pans, these days she recommends using stainless steel, something “semi-sticky”. That’s how you get what Thielen’s grandmother used to call pan schmutz (and what Thielen calls, in her first cookbook, “New Midwest Table,” pan smut, “that delicious crumb, pure flavor separated from the bottom of the pan”). This simple magic spell is the basis of many chicken stews, sauces, and dinners.
Most pan sauces rely on broth or alcohol to deglaze, but this sauce has one difference. Thielen writes: “If someone were to stand on a pan of sautéed chicken, pick up an ice-cold martini and casually pour it into the pan, you would have this sauce. The idea for the gin came from her time cooking on the line at French restaurant Bouley, which closed in 2017. But that version uses duck and broth as a thickener so it takes a long time to make. . (Thielen’s chicken is a bit more streamlined, though still detailed.) The dish, as she learned in the kitchens of restaurants like Bouley, is the culmination of all the smallest details that make up. make something great.
As with any recipe, this crispy, golden-skinned chicken – complete with a killer saute sauce – can be thought of as more of a general technique than a strict recipe, one you have Can be adjusted to suit your kitchen. But there is one caveat: Breasts must still have skin. In most supermarkets in the United States, chicken breasts are sold boneless and skinless or with bones and skin. Boneless is fine, but “without skin there is no formula,” she told me. That’s because chicken cooks almost entirely in the skin, relying on insulation and fat to keep the meat moist, not to mention you’ll have the crispest crust. To achieve this, Thielen recommends cutting the meat out of the rib cage of a bony breast, or doing as she does in the remote woods of northern Minnesota, where she lives with her family: Get her own. out of the whole bird. If we want good things, sometimes we have to work for them a little.
When I made this chicken for the first time for me and my boyfriend, he sat at the kitchen island talking to me while I cooked. I’m a terrible multitasker, but I can listen. Like a good true crime podcast on a long road trip, his chatter helps me maintain my focus and when I don’t have a third or fourth hand to dry the sage leaves first when frying them in butter or pounding breasts to an even thickness, I know I can turn to him. Every chef needs a hunter, someone who always accompanies you in the kitchen, but even better and more useful is their taste buds. When he took a bite, he said, “This is the best chicken I’ve ever had.” I agreed. The white meat is cooked to perfection with a delicious gravy, through the juniper, in the midst of crunchy sage leaves, full of fun and surprises that you can only achieve by paying close attention.
To me, this is the chicken dinner of chicken dinners, comfortable and familiar but fancy enough to cook for friends, or for Valentine’s Day. Even better if your date is sitting on the kitchen island chatting.
