Feel free to make a big batch, it freezes well.
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lbs chicken thighs
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Ingredients
- 2 lbs bone-in chicken thighs — or 20% less boneless
- 2 Tbsp chicken fat, lard, or clarified butter — Or cooking oil in a pinch
- 1 large onion roughly chopped
- 2 cloves garlic — smashed and chopped.
- 1 Tbsp ground cumin
- 1 tsp chili powder — Be creative with this. Try a specific powder (e.g. ancho or chipotle) rather than generic "chili powder". Or go to the "hot" side - just don't get ahead of your audience.
- 1.5 cups salsa/picante sauce — Homemade is best, but Pace is darn good and available in mild, medium, and hot.
- 2 cups chicken stock — Substitute water if you're snowed in and it's an emergency, or if you're just a monster. (recipe)
- 1 zest and juice from whole fresh lime
- to taste Salt and fresh ground black pepper — At final step. If you dry-brined the thighs, be careful with the salt.
Ingredients
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Instructions
- Remove thigh skin. Either discard or see "notes" below.
- Pat thighs dry with paper towels.
- Lightly salt both sides of thighs and refrigerate uncovered on a rack for between 2 hours and overnight (this is called dry-brining).
- Chop the onion and garlic.
- Select a covered pan or pot wide enough to brown all thighs at once. Anything but cast iron, which is not suited for reducing an acidic sauce. Add fat/oil and heat to shimmering.
- Pat thighs dry, add to pot and Brown on both sides (about 4 minutes each). Remove and set aside.
- Add onion, cumin, chili powder and a big pinch of ground black pepper. Cook onion a couple of minutes.
- Add a big pinch of salt UNLESS you dry-brined the thighs.
- Add garlic. Continue cooking until onions are well softened and starting to brown.
- Return chicken, add salsa and stock then bring to a simmer.
- Cover and slow simmer for 30 minutes.
- Remove chicken and set aside.
- Add lime zest to sauce.
- Simmer sauce uncovered until reduced by half, stirring periodically.
- While sauce is reducing, debone and shred thigh meat with a couple of forks. Either let it cool a bit first, or delegate the task to someone annoying.
- Mix shredded meat back into sauce and reduce heat to low. Add lime juice. Salt and pepper to taste.
Recipe Notes
Any time you are about to discard raw chicken skin, stop. Consider packaging and freezing it for the next time you make poultry stock. You can either toss it in the stock pot frozen, or even better thaw and brown it then toss it in the stock pot. This adds great flavor to the stock and lets you rescue the rendered fat (schmaltz) from the pan for a variety of other uses. Om nom nom nom!
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