BABISH'S TOP 5 (NEW) CHICKEN RECIPES

Start by spatchcocking the chicken. With kitchen shears, cut out the spine, crack the breastbone, remove keel bone, and lay flat. For a tutorial, watch the episode. Or this one. Or this one.

Dry brine the chicken. Coat every surface of the chicken with kosher salt. Put it in the fridge uncovered overnight to dry out.

Make your chimichurri (chickichurri). Put 2 sticks of unsalted butter into a saucepan. Add thyme, sage, and 3-4 garlic cloves. Bring to a simmer and wait for the milk solids to separate. You’ll see a foamy layer form, and the butter around it becomes very clear - that’s the clarified butter!

Once you see that, before the butter solids brown, you’re going to pass the butter through a layer of cheese cloth in a fine mesh sieve. This will catch the herbs and garlic as well as the milk solids. What’s left is your delicious clarified butter.

To continue making the chickichurri, combine parsley, dill, and rosemary in a container. Add 1 smashed clove of garlic and shallot. Add ¼ cup clarified butter to the container. Add ½ lemon, juiced.

Season with 1 tsp kosher salt and a little freshly ground black pepper to start. Blitz the entire mixture together with an immersion blender. Taste for seasoning and add salt and pepper (or more clarified butter) as desired. If you don’t have an immersion blender, you could use a food processor or a blender. Or finely chop the herbs before adding the butter and lemon juice. Store in the fridge for up to a few days.

Remove the chicken from the fridge. Line a rimmed baking sheet with foil. Put a wire rack on top and then put the bird on top. Brush the chicken with the reserved clarified butter (not the herby one, the one you made and added some to the herbs!). Tip: to lessen the smoke in the oven, you can pour some liquid into the bottom of the rimmed baking sheet. I used beer!

Put into a 450F oven until the thickest part of the breast registers 165F and the thigh registers 175F. Remove from oven and let it rest for 10 minutes uncovered.

Slice the chicken and plate it with some chickichurri.

Cover your chicken with plastic wrap and pound them out using a meat mallet or heavy-bottomed skillet. You want the pieces to be about ½ an inch thick. LIghtly season with kosher salt on both sides.

Take a large pasta pot and fill with heavily salted water. Add a steamer basket to the pot. This keeps the chicken pieces off the bottom of the pot. Then add the juice of 1 lemon (and the lemon halves), 3 cloves of garlic, bay leaves, and peppercorns. Lastly, add the chicken. Top with more water.

Crank up the heat and bring the water to 175F. Then kill the heat and partially cover with a lid and remove from the burner. Let sit undisturbed until the chicken reaches 155F. This takes about 15 minutes.

Remove chicken from the pot and put on a rimmed baking sheet and allow to cool completely at room temperature before putting them in the refrigerator.

To make your own mayonnaise, combine the following in a container: 1 whole egg, half a small clove of garlic, dijon, and ½ tsp kosher salt. Pro tip: You want your container to be the exact same width as your immersion blender head. Sometimes your immersion blender comes with one! Also make sure the container is plastic or metal, not glass.

Gently pulse a little bit to combine. Keep the immersion blender head in the container while you pour 1 cup of oil down the side of the immersion blender into the container so that the oil settles on top of the egg.

Blast on full speed until an emulsion forms on the bottom and then gently pull the blender up and down until you have a smooth and creamy mayonnaise.

To start combining your chicken salad, prep your mix ins: celery, green onion, dried apricot, pistachios, parsley, and tarragon. Put all of the mix ins in a large bowl and season with salt and pepper.

Cut the chicken down into roughly the size of the chopped vegetables so that the sizing is consistent.

In another large bowl, take 1 cups’ worth of your homemade mayo and add ½ cup sour cream. Add the juice of ½ a lemon. Whisk together to make the dressing.

Once combined, dump in the chicken, vegetables, and herbs. Stir to combine. Taste for seasoning and add more salt and pepper as necessary. It will only get better after a night in the fridge!

To eat it NY-Deli-Style, take some whole wheat bread and top with a huge ice cream scoop of chicken salad. Top with a couple leaves of butter lettuce and top with more bread.

For the FOR THE HOT HONEY:

Put the honey in a small saucepan with ½ cup water. Bring to a simmer and cook until it’s reduced and gotten very dark. If it foams a lot, remove from the heat and keep it swirling before continuing.

If it gets too thick (and not drizzlable), add more water. The goal is to get the honey to 300F. Once it’s there, turn off the heat and let it cool for 2-3 minutes.

Then add the calabrian chiles while the honey is still hot. Set aside for serving with the chicken.

For the FOR THE FRIED CHICKEN

Thinly slice 5 large cloves of garlic. Add them to a large sautepan of cold frying oil. As the oil heats up, the garlic will fry gently.

Once the garlic is blonde, remove them and put on a paper towel to drain. Let the oil stay warm while you dredge the chicken. You want the oil to eventually reach 300F.

Combine flour, potato starch, and kosher salt in a bowl. Tiny whisk until homogenous. This is your dry dredge.

For the wet dredge, combine flour with white rice flour and whisk until homogenous. Add buttermilk, egg white, 25g vodka (ICE COLD!), and cold seltzer water. Whisk together. It should be the consistency of paint. If too thick, add a little more seltzer water.

Drizzle a couple tablespoons of wet batter into the dry dredge. Mix with a fork until it forms a whole bunch of tiny flakes. Make sure your dry dredge is in a bowl large enough for tossing.

I recommend dry brining chicken pieces before frying them. Either way, you’re going to take your chicken pieces and dip into the wet dredge, then into the dry dredge. Make sure every nook and cranny is coated.

Put the pieces on a wire rimmed baking sheet until you have them all covered. By now, your oil should be at 300F. Drop the chicken pieces in and fry anywhere from 7-10 minutes, until they’re turning lightly blonde. This is the first fry, which cooks the chicken and sets the crust.

Take them out and let drain on a wire rack set in a rimmed baking sheet. Let the pieces sit for at least 30 minutes, ideally an hour.

Increase temperature of the fry oil to 400F for the second fry.

Add the pieces to the oil and fry for 3 minutes, until golden brown. Set aside on a wire rack set in a rimmed baking sheet.

Plate the chicken topped with a generous drizzle of the burnt honey. Garnish with sliced scallions and the crispy garlic chips.

For the FOR THE CHICKEN STOCK

Put your chicken bones on a rimmed baking sheet. Drizzle with a little neutral oil and roast at 425F until they’re deeply golden brown. Reserve the fat from the pan and set aside.

Slice your vegetables (onion, fennel, parsnip, carrot, celery) thinly on a mandolin. Also smash 6 garlic cloves.

Scald your chicken feet. Add to a pot, cover with cold water, and bring to a boil. Drain them, rinse them, and then add them to your stock pot.

To your pressure cooker (or instant pot), add the chicken bones, chicken feet, vegetables and garlic, bay leaves, peppercorns, and parsley. Add as much water as you can, to your cooker’s MAX FILL line.

Cover and let cook on high pressure for 1 hour. Let the pressure release naturally.

Pour the liquid through a fine mesh sieve and then you have a bunch of liquid gold.

For the CHICKEN SKIN CHLI CRISP

Add chicken skin to a saute pan and cover with a little water. Bring to a boil and cook until all the water has evaporated. This takes 15-20 minutes. If there isn’t enough fat in the pan, feel free to add some vegetable oil or whatever you have.

Deep fry skins until golden brown. Set aside the fat from the pan and let the skins dry on a paper towel.

Strain the hot fat into a heat-proof bowl. While still hot, add 1 cinnamon stick (broken in half) and 1 star anise pod.

Prep the rest of your crisp: Slice 1 shallot very thinly with a knife of mandolin. Take 2 or 3 garlic cloves and slice the same way.

Put garlic and shallots in a small fry pan. Cover with reserved chicken fat. Add some vegetable oil, if needed. You want to make sure you have enough fat to cover all vegetables.

Gently heat until the fat is bubbling, to slowly fry the vegetables until crisp. Do this slowly, as the vegetables contain a lot of water. Once golden brown, continue.

Prepare your dry ingredients - peanuts, Szechuan peppercorns, sesame seeds, salt, and sugar. Finely chop your chicken skins and add to the other dry ingredients. Add chili flakes.

Pour the golden brown fat mixture on top of your dry ingredients. Stir and set aside until ready to serve. Don’t hold onto the crisp for too long - keep it in the fridge and it will only last a day or two.

For the FOR THE SOUP

Put your cooking oil in a saute pot. Add onion, parsnips, celery, and carrots. Saute until nice and translucent. In the last 30 seconds of cooking, grate in 1 inch of fresh ginger and 2 cloves of garlic.

Add 8 cups of stock to the pot and bring to a simmer.

Add your meat of choice - skin removed. I used drumsticks and thighs. Let simmer for 25 minutes. The chicken is done when the meat is pulling back from the bones. Set the chicken aside to cool for 10 minutes.

While chicken is cooling, add pasta. While pasta cooks, shred chicken and chop into bite sized pieces and add back to the pot.

Toward the end of cooking, add chopped parsley tarragon, and dill along with the chicken right as the pasta is finished cooking.

Season to taste with salt and pepper. Top with chicken skin chili crisp.

Dry brine your chicken by covering in salt and putting in the fridge uncovered overnight.

Cook the chicken. Pat the thighs dry and put them skin-side down in a cold skillet. Turn on the heat and cook over medium heat. The chicken should eventually lift up off the pan once it’s ready. Once the skin is crisped, pull the chicken off on to a paper towel (they won’t be completely cooked).

To the pan where you cooked the chicken skin, add 2 Tbsp neutral oil. Then add chopped onion, bell pepper, and carrot. Saute for 3-5 minutes. Add 3 cloves crushed garlic.

Add paprika and stir. Toast for 30 seconds. Then add 1 Tbsp of flour and saute another 30 seconds.

Add chicken stock, a little at a time to deglaze the pan. Then add it all in with your tomatoes. Simmer for a few minutes, then add chicken. Keep the skin above the water line!

Put the pan into a 325F oven for 30 minutes to braise.

Meanwhile, make the dumplings. Into a bowl, add 2 eggs. Add salt and sour cream. Whisk to combine until nice and smooth. Add flour and stir.

Cook your dumplings! Set 1 pot of water to boil. Add 1 cup of the boiling water to a heatproof cup. You’re going to use this to keep your spoons hot.

Using two spoons, take a spoonful of batter and use the other spoon to scrape the batter into the water. You’re aiming for half teaspoons of the batter.

Cook for roughly 6 minutes, until chewy, bouncy, and tender. Drain them (reserving a little cooking water), then add them back to the hot pan with a big pat of butter. Add in a splash of cooking water and stir.

Make a sour cream sauce with 2 parts sour cream and 1 part preserved lemon juice. It should be drizzlable. Add 1 tsp chopped fresh dill and a handful of chopped chives. Whisk.

Plate by putting a serving of dumplings on a plate. Top with a whole lot of stew liquid and then some chicken thighs. Sprinkle with kosher salt and then drizzle with sour cream. Garnish with chives.