Never Fry Your Chicken Thighs Again. Try This Old Mexican Trick Instead

#chickenthighs #mexicanfood #polloadobado

every recipe in this kitchen written down (372 pages): https://berthascookbook.com

Mija, look at the stove. Oil on the backsplash, a burn on your wrist, and six thighs dark outside and pink at the bone with skin like a wet raincoat. It was never you. It was the oil. In my mother's kitchen a thigh went skin down into a cold, dry, black pan with nothing under it, fried itself in its own fat, and got dressed in red adobo under a lid. At number one I show you the cold pan.

⭐ POLLO ADOBADO ON THE CAST IRON (6 thighs)
• 6 bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs, the family pack (about $1.50/lb)
• Salt, 1/2 tsp per thigh, the night before, DRY, uncovered in the refrigerator (page 197)
• NO oil, NO manteca. The thigh brings its own.
• A 12 inch cast iron or carbon steel pan. Never nonstick (page 48)
• THE QUICK ADOBO: 4 guajillo chiles (stemmed, seeded, toasted seconds on the dry comal, soaked 20 min), juice of 1 orange, 2 garlic cloves, 1 tbsp white vinegar, 1/2 tsp Mexican oregano, pinch of cumin, 1/2 tsp salt. Blend a full minute, strain. (The deep one is the mother sauce on page 66: half a cup of it plus the orange juice, no blender.)

⭐ THE 7, COUNTING DOWN
7. THE PACKAGE: bone in, skin on. Boneless skinless is a thigh with its coat taken off. It curls into a knot and dries out.
6. DRY SALT, NOT BRINE: the salt water in September was for the breast. A wet thigh never crackles. Salt both sides, skin up on a plate, uncovered, overnight or 4 hours. Pull the skin flat over the meat.
5. THE PAN: cast iron, 12 inches, 6 thighs with room between them. 8 means two rounds. Thighs that touch each other steam where they touch.
4. THE ADOBO: the quick guajillo and orange one above, 15 minutes while the pan works. A scorched chile is bitter forever.
3. AROUND, NEVER ON: orange and guajillo are sugar and sugar turns black on a hot pan. The adobo goes between the thighs, where it fries in the chicken fat. The skin stays up, dry and loud.
2. THE LID, AND THE ARGUMENT: lid on, low, 10 minutes. 165°F in the thigh is the safety floor (page 192), not the ceiling. A thigh at 165 is safe and chewy. Take it to 175 to 185 and it falls off the bone. A little pink at the bone at 180 is the bone's color, not raw chicken. The thermometer decides.
1. NEVER FRY THEM, THE COLD PAN: thighs skin down in the COLD cast iron, no oil, medium heat, walk away. Hiss at minute two, a puddle of clear fat by minute five. 12 to 15 minutes without moving them, until the skin slides on its own. Flip, 2 minutes. Pour the fat into a jar (keep 2 spoons), adobo around, lid, low, 10 minutes, lid off 2 minutes, rest 5. Hot oil seizes the skin before the fat under it melts (the greasy raincoat). A cold start renders the fat out gently and completely, the same reason chorizo starts in a cold pan (page 157).

THE HONEST WORDS:
• Soft skin → thighs were wet, adobo went on top, or no 2 minutes with the lid off.
• Skin stuck and tore → flipped before it let go.
• Skin too dark before the meat was done → fire was high, or the pan was not cold.
• Chewy at the bone → pulled at 165. Go further.
• Bitter adobo → a chile burned. Toast them again and watch.

WHO PROFITS: the tray of pre-marinated pollo adobado next to the plain thighs is almost 3x the price per pound, and the label says water, sugar, salt, color. Six thighs, four guajillos and an orange come to about $6, a dollar a thigh, with a jar of chicken fat left over. There is no money in a woman who owns a black pan and knows to start it cold.

THE HABIT: salt two packs Sunday night, uncovered. One is Monday, the other waits salted until Wednesday and only gets better. The jar of fat is the week's rice and beans.

And the pan afterward, with the adobo baked onto the iron? That is the other half of my life: