Chicken thighs under a brick, with noodled vegetables

so here's a quicker easier and to me tastier way to do chicken under a brick or almatone as they say in italian the way people usually do this is to spatchcock a whole chicken get a really big pan very hot whole thing goes in wrap your bricks in aluminum foil for hygiene and yes i find a whole chicken really takes two bricks and then it goes in the oven for a smaller scale kind of weeknight version i say just get a couple of thighs skin on the brick gives you amazing skin and you could leave the thigh bone in there but the meat cooks way better i think if you take it out a little paring knife is good for this i'll just cut down along one side of the bone rotate the meat around and run down along the other side then pick up the bone and i'll cut underneath it not along the whole length of the bone but just the middle just to the point where i can actually send my finger underneath the bone knife goes back under now blade away from me and i'll shave up and out up and out and there easy flip the meat around and do the exact same thing on the other side and you know a pro could do that a lot cleaner with some less waste but that method works good enough for me last thing you might consider doing is some shallow cuts along where the meat seems to be particularly thick that'll help the whole thing lie really flat and even in the pan there you go i've got two thighs one big one per person for a light weeknight meal and to keep it light no potatoes or any other big starch i'm going to do a vegetable side for this noodles of vegetable that will cook in the pan drippings from the chicken i'm just peeling the skin off a few big carrots once i've done that i'll discard those grab a carrot by the pointy end and keep peeling with the peeler i'm now making my noodles of carrot rotating the carrot as i peel i find you waste less if you use the little pointy end as your handle however there will be some waste when you reach the point where you can't slice anything off anymore i find it helps to focus your peeling initially on the fat end keep rotating as you peel and then once the carrot is a more even girth all the way across you can start peeling along its whole length that helps minimize waste too these ribbons of vegetable have a really satisfying mouth feel once lightly cooked i've got a zucchini here holding it by the stem again rotating as i peel off the noodles be careful about pushing with too much force zucchini is comparatively delicate and well this can happen back to the good take now when you get down to the seed core it'll just start shredding so toss that lastly i'll do some green onions snip off the roots and discard snip off the tops wherever they seem to be getting very dry and stringy and then peel off any outer layers that seem to be particularly dry or decaying or dirty worm sign is it worm sign now these you can't really do with the peeler i'm just bisecting them with my paring knife and then pulling the layers apart from each other bisect and pull the layers apart again to get that noodly ribbony texture tons of vegetables could work great for this asparagus would be great and just for flavor i'll grab a few garlic cloves peel them and slice them up and then i'll slice up a fresh red chili thin slices and you know if you want to limit the heat the easiest way is to slice them from the tip and then just stop when you get to the top here the ribs that contain most of the capsaicin are concentrated right at the top you can just toss it all out and there's going to be our healthy vegetable side that'll feel and function like a pasta side and if you're trying to watch your carb intake like i am you might consider patronizing the sponsor of this video magic spoon whom i'll now briefly thank magic spoon is a breakfast cereal that tastes just like your favorite sugar bomb childhood classics but check out the label zero sugar three net carbs and a whopping 11 grams of protein a serving just 110 calories plus whatever kind 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to keep it simple with just pepper and this smoked salt this is generally used as a finishing salt at the table but i increasingly like cooking with it too it does amazing things when cooked into chicken skin and yes that seemed like a lot because i always put on enough for both sides then i can just smoosh it around and get everything coated and i only have to wash my hands once a good coating of olive oil goes in it's shimmering it's hot i'll lay the chicken in skin side down you could obviously make twice the portions in a bigger pan if you have two bricks here's my one brick wrapped in foil and on it goes with a satisfying sizzle if the chicken pieces seem too big give them a sec they'll contract very fast as they cook and almost immediately i'm going to back the heat down to you almost low i can smell that skin is on the verge of burning you got to use your nose and look at the edge to make a judgment about heat because the skin won't release from the pan intact until it's really cooked brown so what exactly is the brick doing well it's flattening out the meat which helps it cook more evenly and it's pressing that skin into the hot metal without the weight lots of the skin would be tenting up and not getting the gorgeous color it deserves you can see we're at least halfway done just five minutes after the chicken went in anything really heavy could work not just a brick though i would not use something so wide that could block steam from escaping that gets you chicken that tastes more stewed than roasted or fried like this is gonna taste and notice that we're not transferring this to the oven something this thin can easily cook the whole way up top all right they've been in there for 10 minutes and all we need to do now is brown the flesh side i'd advise using a spatula just to get under there and make sure they'll release cleanly oh yeah skin is crispy and rigid it's not stuck at all anymore i cook those for another five minutes just to be safe one of the many advantages of working with only thighs is dark meat is good within a pretty wide internal temperature range it's not like breast meat where you have to nail it or you're going to feel like you're chewing on the white cliffs of dover i actually like thighs a little quote unquote overcooked the fat inside melts it all goes super moist and outfies come to a plate to rest all this rendered fat in here is going to be the dressing for the vegging noodles in they go and it might seem like you have way too much but crank the heat back up and you'll see them wilt down really fast all the water they release will deglaze your pan for you too after like five minutes of frequent stirring i'll fish out a ribbon and taste it tons of that delicious smoked salt was still in the pan from the chicken so this only needs a tiny pinch more salt and then i'm gonna squeeze in the juice from half a lemon mixed with the chicken fat it's like a warm vinaigrette coating these veggies and out they come to a plate you should pull them when they're not quite as cooked as you want because they'll keep cooking and softening a bit off the heat and with our chicken thigh there i'll have a wedge from the remaining lemon half now notice the skin has a kind of matte finish one fun thing you can do is go over to this plate where you've rested the chicken get some of that melted fat and juice onto a brush and just glaze it onto the skin at the very last second to preserve some crispiness in the skin a little squeeze of fresh lemon and it's time to go in for a bite that skin is almost chinese duck level skin cooking it most of the way skin side down has created some very deep umami taste for a second i could actually taste soy sauce in this even though there is none and you can see how the meat is juicy and soft even though i bet the internal temp was upwards of 200 degrees fahrenheit 90c thighs are just so easy to cook when they're not attached to a breast and those vegetables really do have the kind of slippery yet toothy texture of fresh egg pasta ribbons but they're sweet and oniony and the chicken fat and lemon dressing on them is just luxurious what are you waiting for borrow a brick from a local construction site today

Channel: Adam Ragusea

Views: 740,812

Rating: 4.9444447 out of 5

Keywords: chicken under a brick, brick chicken, al mattone, pollo al mattone

Id: EMXcrMBA4ys

Length: 8min 11sec (491 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 29 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/christchan_o3]

" if I had a nickel every time Adam cooked with a brick, I'd have two nickels. which isn't a lot but it weird it happened twice right? "

[u/i-like-hentai_]

Ah yes the iconic Culinary Brick of Doom

[u/The-Bigger-Fish]

Why I buy my cooking supplies at Home Depot, and not the cooking store.

[u/Craggy_Crevice]

Good vidya. The side dish looked really good, as well.

[u/Mako_sato_ftw]

where does he get all his bricks from?