Saturday night Chicken fest



Last night's experiment with making oven fried chicken;

I created a flour bath for the chicken legs (Diablo foods butcher shop) with cilantro, coriander, garlic (duh), kosher salt, cracked pepper, a toss of curry when no one was looking cause I likes the curry, then sautéed in butter on the stove top and baked on a rack in the over for 40 mins. Dang, i should have made more, it was so good!

Bonus points for my first shot at a chicken drippings gravy over my go to mashed potatoes with chives to which I added a dash of cayenne to substitute for salt. At first bite I was all, "Holy Shit, I ruined my potatoes."Then it sunk in how the cayenne slightly took my breath away and enhanced the chives.


Very homey Saturday night meal. A quick hour or two in the gym today will pay off the butter and sour creme extravaganza in those mashed potatoes:


I love potatoes. A lot. This is a variation on my Grandma's old Irish mashed potato recipe.

Start with a couple of lbs of potatoes -- floury types, not shiny Yukon critters or anything too smooth. Peel and wash and cut up into wedges, then boil till a fork passes through them easily but they still maintain a structural integrity of sorts.

Drain and let sit for a few minutes. Potatoes are solitary, contemplative creatures and they like that.

Add more butter than you think you need (3 to 4 tbls) and lots of sour creme and mash em up by hand with an old fashioned masher. Add as much sour creme as needed to achieve a creamy, yet still slightly chunky texture. Think Close Encounters. You should be able to sculpt something interesting with them.

Add plenty of chives ( I cut them up with poultry shears) and a dash of cayenne for sparkle and a hefty pinch of coarse ground black pepper.

Let those that enjoy salt add their own to taste. The Cayenne substitutes that saltish twang just fine for me.

This photo is with a chicken drippings gravy which was amazing, but 99% of the time I eat them as is, with at most, a dollop of butter drilzzled on the top.

Erin Go bragh!


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