(no subject)

[coraa]

Today, in a fit of boredom, I hot-smoked some chicken thighs.

(As opposed to the roast-with-smoke I did before. In short, this time I brined the bone-in, skin-on thighs with orange juice, lit the gas grill on one burner only [on high], put the packet of woodchips over that burner, put the chicken on the farthest side away from the heat, and let it cook, very slowly, for hours and hours and hours, well past 'well done.' This was perfectly tolerable even with the high heat because, of course, the grill was outside. The thighs turned very tender and very smoky-flavored indeed.)

(When I have a smoking method more precise than 'throw some stuff on the grill and see what happens,' I'll post more comprehensively about it.)

Neither the boy or I are hungry tonight for anything but maybe ice cream, and we're pretty well covered for dinners until Sunday or Monday, so I'll ask now: what would you do with some homemade fruitwood-smoked chicken thigh meat? Inquiring minds want to know!

Comments

[daedala]

Belatedly, I'd use 'em on top of salad.

[http://users.livejournal.com/greensleeves_/]

Mix it into some sort of fancy salad.

[canis-ridens.livejournal.com]

My experience has been that additional light cooking of the meat (eg, as part of a stir fry) emphasizes the specific smoke character even more. For example, hickory-smoked chicken in a marsala-style sauce seems to get more distinctly hickory-tasting (and works well with cheese-stuffed tortellini and the typical Italian spice complement). I don't have much experience with fruit woods at all; maybe something with a honeyed glaze? (Thinking that a sweet glaze would complement rather than conflict with applewood-smoked bacon, so it might work with chicken... )

[geekjul.livejournal.com]

That would make awesome chicken salad. A little mayo (I like to cut mine with plain yogurt), some diced red bell peppers, celery, red onion... YUM.

[dancinghorse.livejournal.com]

Third the vote for salad (considering the weather). Make a dressing with a little light mayo and some yogurt, squeeze in lemon juice, add chopped fresh basil and/or any other fresh chopped herbs that you have handy (dill, mint, oregano, thyme...), some sea salt, a little freshly ground black pepper. Make salad with greens and diced apple, maybe some diced peach or nectarine. Red or green onion. Chopped celery. A little cucumber. Might serve on flatbread or in a pita.

This is wonderful with smoked fish, too.

[coraa.livejournal.com]

Oooh, this is an excellent idea. And we have a couple of different kinds of lettuce, plus fresh cilantro and dill and Rainier cherries, in the produce box. And spring onions and cucumber.

The pita is a great idea. Actually I think I have some frozen garlic naan that would be a great container for it....

Thank you, I think I know what Sunday dinner is going to be, now!

[vom-marlowe.livejournal.com]

I would toss it on salad, or, alternately, I would make it into rollups with nice loose-lettuce leaves in a sort of riff on the way Koreans eat bulgogi. Mmmmmmm. Possibly with some sort of plum sauce.

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

Quesadilla.

[donaithnen.livejournal.com]

I don't think i will ever figure out how you ever have time for work, reading lots of books, watching lots of shows, playing games, writing lots of stuff, keeping up with all kinds of internet forums, _and_ all kinds of fancy cooking stuff =P

[coraa.livejournal.com]

I have no social life!

(That's actually not a joke, I'm afraid.)

(I also don't get as much exercise as I ought to, which I do need to remedy.)

[coraa.livejournal.com]

(I suppose you could also say that it's because I'm jack of all trades and master of none: I do a lot of things, but I do very few of them excellently. I have a lot of hobbies, I guess, is the other way to put it.)

[donaithnen.livejournal.com]

Well, you _may_ have as little of an in-person social life as i do, but you certainly have a much better social life than i do online! (That part about keeping up on all kinds of internet forums.)

And i'm not sure what you consider to be "excellently", but you're certainly a lot better at the writing stuff than i am! And you're certainly better than most of the people that shelleycat reads snippets of off of that online critique site.

You also seem to read pretty darn fast and still do a good job of analyzing what you read. (Which probably corresponds at least in part to the being better at writing.)

I'm guessing that i'm probably better at video games than you (though i've never actually watched you play a lot of them, so it's hard to judge) but honestly of the two, i'd rather have the skill at writing :)

Oh yeah, and the cooking, i am in no way comparable to you in terms of cooking.

So you manage to do more stuff than me, and on average do it better than me. You rock! (Or alternatively i just suck, but in my more optimistic moods i prefer to think that you rock ;)

[coraa.livejournal.com]

You rollerblade, though! You go to Wumpskate and things like that! You play board games! You keep on top of video game news! I do none of those things.

I am a fast reader, it's true, and I'd say the two things that I do do well are writing and cooking. Also, I play very few games. (I mostly watch Pav do it.)