new recipes for chicken thighs
voiceover: this is a productionof wtvi pbs, charlotte. narrator: the followingepisode of charlotte cooks is brought to you by centralpiedmont community college, and viewers like you. thank you.
new recipes for chicken thighs, [music playing] hi and welcome to thisedition of charlotte cooks. i'm very happyyou're here with me. i'm chef pamelaroberts and today,
we're going to be making astuffed chicken leg quarter. we're going to takethe leg and the thigh, where they're still attached. we're going to removethe bones, and we're going to stuff them with afabulous spinach and mushroom filling. and then we're going to showyou how to plate them up. they're absolutely delicious. this is a really nice way ofhaving a really good, delicious
chicken dishwithout having to go through a whole lot of trouble. it's a little bit offuss, but you know what, it's worth it in the end. so we're going to start offby sauteing our mushrooms. we're going tosaute our spinach. we're going to putthat aside to cool. we're going to take our chicken,we're going to debone it. we're going to stuffit with the filling,
and then we're going to trussit in a neat little special way, i'll show you how. we're going to roast them. and then at the end, we'regoing to cut the strings off and then we're going tocut them and plate them up. and you're going to justfind this dish irresistible. now there's two waysyou can cook this dish. you can cook itin the oven, which is what we're going to dotoday, or you can cook it
in the grill kind of offset. but let's get started becausewe've got a lot to do. we're going to takea pan, we're going to take a nice deep saute pan. now you could use onethat's a little bit um-- with a sloped side, soyou could actually give a toss. but we're justgoing to saute this because we've got a lotof mushrooms to saute. i usually encouragepeople, when you're
cooking mushrooms andspinach in particular, to buy more thanyou think you need. because these thingsshrink down quite a bit, and we want to makesure that you're going to have enough for everybody. because once you taste this,the pan is just-- i mean, everything's justgoing to disappear. ok so we're going toput a little bit of oil in the bottom of the pan.
and then we're going to usea little bit of diced onion. and we're goingto take a spatula that we're going to be ableto stir the stuff around with. so we're going to put alittle bit of diced onion now remember, when youguys are cooking at home, you always get your pans hotbefore you put food in there. you want to make sure you'rehearing the sizzle, ok? so that's something i'm alwaystelling students in school. make sure that pan is hot first.
so after this is goingand you hear it sizzling, we're going to besauteing our mushrooms. and they're going to takea little while to cook, so you want to go aheadand get them in there. but get your onionsin there first, so they can get down onthe bottom of the pan. add your mushrooms. you're just goingto slice them up. now you can use any kindof mushroom you like.
in this batch, i'vegot some baby bellas. i've got some shiitakes. i've got a littlebit of chanterelle, which that's thatlovely chanterelle mushroom right there. we have some regular whitebutton mushrooms and some baby bellas, so there's a goodcombination of things in there. while these arecooking, we're going to take a little bitof salt. sprinkle
them with a little bitof salt. and whenever you salt things,one of the things-- especially when i'mteaching people how to cook, they always ask whyhow much is too much, how much is too little? when you're seasoningsomething, i suggest it's alwaysgood to put enough salt, or particular salt, overthe surface of the item. and that way it willbe enough that you
can be able to actually seasonthe depth of the pan as well. i hope that makes sense. but you always want to testyour food before you serve it, by tasting. you have to also remember thatsalt concentrates as it cooks, ok? so you don't want to add allyour salt in the beginning and think, that's the end. add a little bit ofsalt at the beginning,
and test it at theend and make sure you don't need to add any more. i'm also going to beadding a little bit of fresh black pepper. i'm going to grind this freshover them, because i'm-- just, there's nothing likefresh ground black pepper. there we go. and then the next thingi'm going to add to this, and you always want to getyour pan going before you
add your fresh garlic. i'm going to takesome fresh garlic and put it on the microplane. and i'm going toput this in here. and i know, if youguys watch this show, you know this already, buti'm going to tell you again. when you put your freshgarlic into a hot pan, it can't be the first thingyou put in there because garlic burns really, really fast, ok.
so always get things going. and then add your garlic. now the microplane is one ofthose tools that-- you know, if you want to smash and doyour garlic with that, you can. but the microplane is oneof these wonderful tools that-- it's actually a woodrasp that someone decided, let's take that out ofthe woodworking tool and put it into the kitchen. and they did that and itreally does work very well.
you see the garlic justtotally goes out to nothing. you come out with this beautifulpaste on the other side. you can use two cloves ofgarlic, however many pieces of garlic you like. i like lots of garlic,especially with mushrooms. oh you guys should smellthis, it smells great. it really smells good. and i'm going to say that'senough garlic for today. put it down in there and giveyour mushrooms another stir.
now what you're lookingfor, when you're doing these mushrooms, is youwant to see some brown forming on the bottom of the pan, ok. when you see that brownforming on the bottom of the pan, that meansthat, number one, your pan is hot enough. and number two, yourmushrooms are cooking. now i don't know if youcan hear this very well, but i'm going to bequiet here for a second
so you can hear this. when you stir yourmushrooms around the pan, they should make littlesquealing sounds. [makes squealing sound] just a little bit sound. not a lot, not aloud. but you're goingto hear it, so i'm going to be quiet, now,so you can hear it. [pan sizzles]
i don't know if youcan hear it very well, but sometimes when theyget going, they squeal. they-- "squee squee." and it's really kindof a neat little sound. but it's unique to mushroom. all right, so, when yousee the little brown on the bottom ofyour pan, you're also going to be noticing thatthere's some liquid coming out of these mushrooms.
the liquid comingout of the mushrooms is what we call mushroom liquor. we just love it so much, it'ssuch concentrated mushroom flavor. you want to, sort of,want to capture that. if you're making like a wildmushroom soup, or something, that all that--that mushroom liquor just adds so much tothe flavor of that dish. it's just amazing.
ok so once these aredone and you starting getting to the brown inthe bottom of the pan, we're going to adda secret thing. our secret thing is marsala. we're going touse a dry marsala. now you can use asherry for this, as well-- just as long asit's not the sweet kind, just use the dry kind. marsala, madeira, sherryare all very good.
now remember, this is alcohol. you want to take it,your pan off the heat. add your alcohol. how much are we adding? a couple of tablespoons. basically, just enough tocover the bottom of the pan. we're going to tiltit forward, just in case there's any alcohol toburn off, which there's not. we're going to just letthat sit and simmer, ok.
so what we're lookingfor here, once again, is for this mushroomliquor to evaporate. and now that it reallyhas some liquor in it, it is essentially amushroom liquor, really. ok, so we're goingto let that simmer. now once it's done,we're going to take it and we're going to--let me get a towel here, because that handle's hot. wrap it up.
and we're going totake a strainer, and we're going to strain it. now you can use a wiremesh strainer over a bowl. you can use any kindof a perforated pan that you might have. but what's really importantis that you have somewhere to capture any liquidthat comes out of here. why are we draining it? because we're going tostuff the chicken with it,
and we don't really haveany use for this liquid. we kind of, sort of do. and i say we kind of,sort of do because we're going to pop thatliquid into our spinach when we're sauteing our spinach. so take your mushroomsand put them in a pan where it's going tocapture that liquid. now don't even botherto clean your pan. put the pan back down.
come and get some spinach thatyou have washed and trimmed. and any kind oflarge leaves like this, folks, go ahead and trimthem off and toss them away. but anything large-- if you'reusing baby spinach, it's fine-- but if you get a largestem, just pick it off. and you don't have togo through every leaf because that's quite tedious. we're going to popthat into your pan with just the amount of waterthat clings to the leaves
after you've washed it. that's it. spinach will cookdown to nothing. this will, actually, go down toa nice tiny little thimbleful in just a moment. if we didn't haveenough liquid, this is where we can take this liquidfrom the bottom of this pan-- let me show you real quick. we've got a lot of thisnice little liquid here.
pour this in here,because that's going to flavor ourspinach just amazingly so. we're going totake our mushrooms and push them over to oneside of the pan, here. we're going to give ourspinach a little toss. now you want to makesure that you're making more stuffingthan you need to stuff your chicken with,because we're going to use it to plate up later, as well.
so now this is done. we're going to take this--because this handle is hot, better use a towel-- andjust take this spinach. see that spinach probably tookless than two minutes to cook. and you may see thatsome of the leaves aren't totally wilted yet. that's ok, because bythe time you use it, they will be completely wilted. so now just set this off tothe side, and let it cool.
all right. put it off to the side there. now we're going to getbusy on our chicken. one thing i forgot to tellyou about spinach-- whenever you cook spinach, always adda little bit of fresh nutmeg. your fresh nutmeg willdo tremendous things to the flavor of spinach. just add a little bit in. take your microplane once again.
now you can use groundnutmeg, but come on, folks, how often do you use nutmeg? nutmeg may not beone of the things you grab in your pantry everysingle day, every single time. so get the big nuts ofnutmeg, and just scrape off what you need, so youget that wonderful aroma. now one thing that you needto know about nutmeg is nutmeg will help you relax. and so when you have nutmeg inyour dishes, just smelling it
is a wonderful thing to helpyou relax just a little bit. ok, so now that we haveour stuffing finished, we're ready to do our chicken. now here, i've got alittle tip for you. whenever you do chickenat home, i particularly have a cutting board iuse just for chicken. and you can do that. and now here's a littleprofessional tip. whenever you put yourcutting board on the counter
and you're going to use itfor any reason whatsoever, put, like, a damp papertowel underneath it. just a little damp, doesn't haveto be soaking wet, just damp. and what that does is it keepsit from sliding around on you. instead of havingto chase the cutting board across the counter,it's going to stay right there and you can do your work, ok. so now we're gettingready for the chicken. we've got bonelesslegs and thighs, here.
this one has alreadybeen deboned out. as you can see, thisis what the final piece is going to look like. and this one is whatwe're going to show you how to get this done. now that burner's hot, so i'mnot going to put that there. so when you get yourthighs-- now i have really, just for the sake of the show,here, i've already done this. and so i'm going toshow you how to do it,
but i'm not going toactually do the procedure. if that doesn't make anysense, you'll see in a minute. well when you getyour legs and thighs, you're going to see that youhave this thigh bone that's very visible. and so all you'regoing to want to do is take your knife and scrapethe meat off of this bone. now you'll have to cutaround where the ball joints are, just to remove a lotof the tendons that are here.
and especially when you getup into the leg portion, there's a lot of tendonsthat hold this meat together. and so you're goingto cut around, you're going to cut around. and then when youscrape around and you see the knuckleon the other side, here, you're goingto take your knife and you're going to wraparound it and find that bone and continue to scrape.
and then when you scrapeand you get all this meat down to the end, you're goingto take your knife-- now use the back end of yourknife, not the sharp end of your knife, because you don'twant to cut the skin-- whack it, right there. and then pull the bone out. now one thing you're going tonotice is around this knuckle here, where the thighand the drumstick meet, you're going to have a littlechunk of meat around here.
don't stress about that, ok. i'm not lookingfor a naked bone, here, because this isvirtually impossible to get this to be a nakedbone for this process, ok. so once you're done withthis, you can take this. you can either save this andfreeze it and use it for stock, or you can throw it away. so i'm going throw it away. so now we have our chickenthigh and our drumstick, which
is still completely solid, andour chicken thigh all laid out. there is no bone in hereexcept this little bitty bit on the end. most people don'teat that anyway. so now we have to stuff. the first thingwe're going to do is season it with alittle bit of salt. we'll season this onetoo while we're at it. and a little bit of pepper.
salt and pepper. standard seasoning. universal, found everywhere. if you don't likeit, don't use it. if you don't like-- do salt,don't use it, that's ok. all right, so now i'vegot my cooled stuffing. i've got a little bit ofstuffing i prepared earlier. that's a combination of thespinach and the mushrooms. and here's something elsethat i've added to this--
and you can dothis at home too-- is you can add a littlebit of feta cheese to it. you can leave thefeta cheese out, but if you want to add fetacheese, you certainly can. so i got my feta cheeseand i crumbled it. and you can addthis when it's hot, you can add it when it's cold. it really, really,really doesn't matter because it's going to bebaked in the oven anyway, ok.
so this is what we'regoing to do next. now the thing is, most peoplewhen they do this dish, they want to overstuffthis product. so one thing youwant to make sure of is that you don'toverstuff these. because when you overstuff,they're-- number one, they're hard to truss. and number two, theyget overstuffed. ok it's not necessary to overstuff them, ok, so my point is.
grab a little bit of yourspinach with the feta cheese, and you're going to findthe little hole where you pull the bone out. and you're going tostuff this stuff up. you're going to get a mushroom,and you going to stuff it up. now notice my hands are goinginto raw chicken, right? raw chicken is notsomething you want to necessarily spread around. so make sure, when you have yourlittle bowl of stuffing done,
that you either keep itclean from raw chicken, or use it all in your chicken. because if you have any leftover after you stuff this, you're not going to beable to use it again because it will be contaminatedwith the raw chicken. so i'm going to show youhow to do with this again on the other one. now notice you're goingto be able to take this, and you're going to be ableto wrap this skin around it
here like this, ok. bring it together. that's all we'regoing to do, here. i'll show you howto do this again. mushrooms andspinach, stuff it up into the cavity ofthe leg and the thigh. just want to make surethat this has enough to be plump, and then justa little bit down here. one mushroom slice isusually enough, some cheese
and some feta. ok and that's it. going to bring themaround and you're going to make sure thatyou can wrap them up. ok now here's the tricky part onhow to truss them and tie them. this is a very interesting trickand it's a lot of fun to do. we're going to takea piece of string. you can take yourstring-- make sure that you've got a nicelong piece of string,
usually about two yards long. don't let your strengthfall on the floor, don't let the stringget in any other things. you're going tograb it, and you're going to slide it underneath,and you're going to tie it. remember, "right overleft, left over right makes a square knot neat,tidy, and tight." so square knot,so it won't slip. using your hand, putyour hand away from you.
wrap the string around youso you have this loop, ok? you're going tobring this around, and you're going to tighten itup around the top of the thigh, where the thigh andthe drumstick meet. and do this again,all the way around. and you have to dragit all the way down. you can't start liftingit up from the bottom because that'scheating, and your knots will all go in a different way.
once again, hand away fromyou-- wrap it around your hand. notice my hand isfacing away from me. wrap it around. twist, like you are goingto reach down and pick up just this thigh, ok. and notice i've got mystring, here, like this, ok. it's got to be that way. thread it around, andtie it around again. this is a trussing techniquethat you can use for pork loin.
you could use this forany kind of a-- like if you had a beeftenderloin, even. and what this doesis it, basically, is just holding itin shape while it cooks, becauseafter it cooks we're going to cut this string off. so about four sectionsof string on this side. and what we'regoing to do next is we're going to fold this under.
we're going to roll it over. and over the string,basically, the same way we did on the other side. just like this. and all this does isit hold it together so the stuffing doesn't fallout, and once it's cooked, it's going tomaintain its shape. rolling back over againand give it a tie. right over left,left over right.
what does it do? "makes a squareknot neat, tidy, and tight." throw that away. ok. that's what you're looking for. we're going to takethis, we're going to put it on our sheet pan. now while you're doingthis, get your oven heated up to 350degrees, 375 degrees if you want it to cook fast.
we're going to take it andwe're going to oil our chicken, and we're going tosalt and pepper it. and we're going to roast it, orgrill it, whatever you choose. let me do this foryou again, real quick, so you can see how it's done. over your hand, loop it. bring it down, and tie it. now this seems likeit's kind of tedious, but once you practice this andget this done, you can pop this
out really, really quickly. the key thing-- and i tell mystudents this all the time-- practice, practice, practice. you can't practice too much. i still practice and i'vebeen cooking forever. forever and ever and ever. older than salt. so,ever and ever and ever. ok, here we go. flip it over.
make sure this piece ofmeat gets stayed in there. flip him over, we're going todo a nice little truss here. nice little truss here. nice little truss. and another one. flipping back overand tie it off. and then trim your excess rope. rope, we're using rope. we're tying ourchickens up with rope.
all right, now we're readyto put them in the oven. we're going to take them,we're going to sprinkle them with a little bit of oil. give him a littlerub down, like you're giving him a little massage. make your chickens happy. little bit of salton the outside, because i don't know aboutyou, but i like chicken skin, and i like it crispyand i like it's salty.
a little bit of freshcracked black pepper. and you know, folks, that'sreally all the seasonings you need on these. fresh pepper, salt. inthe oven 350 degrees, approximately 45 minutes. but you want to checkthe internal temperature. what temperatureare you looking for? 165 degrees fahrenheit, ok? and when they'redone, they'll be done.
in the oven. here's another quicktip from my kitchen. i'm going to show youhow to separate an egg. you going to need a bowl. you're going to needan egg, of course. crack it on a flat surface. cracking an eggon a flat surface will allow you to getmore of an even crack all the way around the egg.
if you crack it on anedge of a bowl or pot, typically, you'll rupturethat membrane that's inside. and you get lots oflittle shards of shell within your separated egg. you could take your egg and youcould toss it back and forth, just like this inbetween your whites. and your whites willfall down, and your yolk will become separatedinto your egg like this. and we have a yolk, ok?
set that aside. there's another way to do it. crack your egg. break it open. now i kind of like this way. just let the whites siftout between your fingers. see how that's happening? it's kind of weird, andit feels really weird, but it works really well.
just pinch your fingers togetherand pinch that white off. and now you've got a perfectlyseparated white and a yolk. put that in your bowl. now here's another way toseparate an egg that's really a lot of fun, and you canget your kids involved with this one. you can use a plate,you can use a bowl also, but i'm going to do a plateso you can see how this goes. crack the egg and put itdirectly into the plate.
and for this nexttrick, you're going to need an empty water bottle. not someone's-- you don't wantone someone's drunk out of, ok? but pour the water out, squeezethe bottle, and there you go. separated egg yolk. right in there. you want me to do it again? i'll do it again. take your egg-- let me getrid of this so you can see it.
put it in your plate. kids love to do this,because it's a lot of fun. you know, adults like to doit too, because it is fun. squeeze your water bottle, putit on the yolk, suck it in. just like that. leaves your white behindand there's your yolk. perfectly separated, readyto go into your recipe. isn't that fun? try it.
you'll have a fun time doing it. now it's been about 45 minutes,and these chickens are done. look at how nice andgolden brown they are. they're lovely. they're absolutely lovely. so what we'regoing to do next is we're going to show youhow to cut those strings. because they're hot,use your pair of tongs. put it on your cutting board.
we're going to take our rope--rope, rope i'm stuck on a rope today-- we're goingto take our string, and we're just going to clip itall the way down on one side. and it should justroll right off, ok. and look, they stay together. and they're gorgeous. isn't that marvelous? so clean your knife off. cut them in half,and look at this.
you have a beautiful littlepair of chicken leg and thighs that's going to make afabulous little setup. on our plate, we're goingto take a little bit of our spinach that we cooked. and since this isstill warm, i'm just going to go aheadand use this on our plate. a little bit ofspinach on your plate. put some of thosemushrooms on your plate, because you definitelywant this-- you definitely
want this stuff on your plate. because it's justso "dericious." for one serving-- oneleg and one thigh. let's put them in this way. cluster everythinghere in the center. we'll add a couple potatoesjust for-- round out the meal. you've got your mushrooms,you've got your spinach. you've got yourstuffed leg and thigh. now who wouldn't fillup with that meal?
that's one way of doing it. if you wanted to do it familystyle, where people can take their own, take your spinach--when i do this family style, i'm going to take yourspinach and your mushrooms and put them in thecenter of the plate. and you're going to cutyour legs and thighs, and you're just going to pilethese all up around there. take each one--because they are hot-- take each one offyour cutting board.
and you're going tocut them right where you see the leg and the thigh. just cut it. cut it. one, two, three, four, five--ah, that's a nice big one. nice big juicy one, there. and six, yeah let's do that. that will be fine. nice and juicy, ohso big and pretty.
take a look at that folks,isn't that gorgeous? yummy. look at that. now i gotta figure outhow to put this up here, so you can see them. there you go. our boneless stuffed chickenlegs and thighs for you guys to enjoy. i hope you do plan to make this.
if you don't want to bone outthe legs and thighs yourself, ask your butcher to remove them. and i'm sure they'll behappy to do it for you. enjoy this dish. it's a nice healthy dish. i think you'll love it. it's full of flavor. enjoy it. try it on the grill, it's great.
if you're looking for the recipeand you need something printed out, check out ourwebsite, pbscharlotte.org and you could find them there. if not, email me. pamela.roberts@cpcc.edu. thank you for watching thisepisode of charlotte cooks. i'm chef pamela robertsand i will see you later. narrator: a productionof wtvi pbs, charlotte.
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