Bacon got REALLY expensive the year before I left the chef life for the wide world of food sales. I ended up running this as a special on the bars but it’s become a staple for me whenever I get the craving.
Sourdough, dukes mayo, good tomato, lettuce, battered and fried chicken skins. You get that crunch and savory you want from a BLT at a WAY better price.
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Oh man, a few minutes alone with this and I would be the CLT commander
No one rules the CLT like me.
Coalition for the liberation of itinerant tree-dwellers
Reminds me of the Committee for the Liberation and Integration of Terrifying Organisms and their Rehabilitation In to Society
Your CLT is huge. And delicious looking.
Fried chicken skins? Do you make the chicken just to use the skins? How are you using the de-skinned fried chickens?
Distributors package the skins separately. It’s basically boxing up all the skins from the boneless skinless chicken breast you buy in the store. I got it for something ridiculous like $0.49/# and use it so it doesn’t go to waste.
How much do you have to buy to get that price? Or is getting a pound ok from your distributor?
The cases I have on hand are usually 10#.
NOW if you have a local butcher chances are they’re still getting some stuff from the big boys, (US Foods/Sysco/Performance) and all of them will have cases on hand. Just need to convince them to get it in and move it. Odd’s are any markup is only going to be about 10%, you’ll still get a good price.
End of summer’s a good time to push since you’ll have football season kicking off, it’s good for them to sell as a game night snack.
But the skin is the best part?
If it were me, I’d buy packs of chicken thighs or legs, take the skins off, then use the meat for soup to serve with the sandwiches.
With bread crumbs, egg and then fry it for example, or simply chicken a la plancha.
Buy bone in, skin on chicken thighs. Remove the skin, set aside. Remove the bones, set aside. Portion your new boneless, skinless chicken thighs and throw them in the freezer (I recommend a vacuum sealer). Throw the bones in a reusable silicon freezer bag. Bread and fry your chicken skins.
Use the chicken thighs for whatever you might want boneless, skinless, chicken for. It’s got uses beyond counting.
For the bones, you’re going to make stock. I keep a silicon bag of vegetable scraps in my freezer. Crack the bones so the marrow can get out, throw them in a boiling pot with all manner of vegetable scraps (onion tops/roots, carrot ends and skins, celery tops and roots, the), some herbs, and some salt. Strain this through a fine mesh to prevent any accidental broken chicken bones, and you’ve got a great stock.
Buy a whole chicken, when you’re breaking it down remove and save the skins. Little oil in a pan, add your raw skins and cook until crispy. Then you also have a bunch of raw chicken and a carcass to use for whatever you want and stock.
Also, fun tip, the fat that comes off the chicken skins is schmaltz, and is really delicious. I like to put a bit into my ramen.
I misinterpreted the C as standing for Chicharon, and the image of it cut the inside of my mouth.
Maybe the C stands for Chicken skin
In the Philippines this is considered chicharron manok or chicken chicharron.
Same here, only I can’t stop salivating though.
I imagine he is 100kg+
I would never have thought to do that, thanks for this. It looks delicious, I could really go for some Chicken, Lettuce including Tomato right now.
Chicken, Lettuce including Tomato
I see what you did there
I wanna try it but can’t find it anywhere. Help!
I actually got the idea from a BBQ spot in Carolina that tried it out. Really glad I was scrolling IG that day.
This sounds really good to me - probably because I’m a huge fan of fried chicken skin. A lot of places have picked up on it here, and some burger joints will sell them as a side like fries.
Needs some Italian sausage 😜
I don’t agree, but somehow, I really agree
I mean anything beginning with I really but sausage is always good. 😀
You could sell the shit out of those on Charlotte (airport code CLT).
That looks really really fucking good.
Did bacon really get that expensive? I just buy the Great Value bacon and the price seems fair to me.
I do too, but the last pack of bacon I bought was mostly fat.
Wow. I want that so bad. And the fact you use Dukes tells me you are a chef of refined taste. I need to stop by my butcher and see if he has chicken skins, I never stopped to consider what they do with those to sell the abomination of skinless, boneless breasts.
Dukes & Heinz, we might have been putting out $40 plates at night, but this is the South baby. They should definitely have it, if not they’ll have access to it. They’re pretty versatile. I jumped to the sales side of the industry and I’m constantly suggesting this stuff as a way to push your cost down if you need to.
Bar bites with some chicken skins, bibimbap sauce with benne seed instead of the sesame (cos it’s classier right?) and pimento cheese… you’re good to go.
Never thought about that before, but it looks delicious.
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Never seen anything like this :o hopefully the rest of the chicken is also being used 🐔
Always!
Can you share the process for making the fried skin?
Of course! We tried it two ways, but the most effective was this
-Dry your chicken skins
-Hold them in a brine of buttermilk, hot sauce, egg mix (purely for ease of use on line, I’d only leave them 15-20 minutes if you’re doing it at the house)
-Toss them in a flour dredge
-Once coated deep fry, you could probably get away with a pan fry with shallow oil but I was blessed with a deep fryer.
Drying the skins and then frying without the wet/dry mix did not yield the crisp you would want (just a warning).
Thank you!
Did you ever try blanching the skin before frying it? Here’s an article for getting crispy skin on chicken cooked sous vide, which isn’t exactly the same, but I wonder if the technique could apply here.
I’m going to look into that a little more, I get how it would work by making the skin on the breast contract but I feel like a quick pan fry before sous vide would give you the same effect with their application?
I feel like it should work? I’ll try it next time and get back with results. I’m wondering if leaving it with salt (the same way you would fake dry age a steak) would pull enough moisture out to crisp it without breading.
Thanks for giving me something to play with!
I should be thanking you for the interesting concept! Looking forward to your results!
How to keep them from curling up into a tube?
It was a crap shoot but I used the old two fry baskets together trick. Keeps them reasonably flat. You’ll still have a couple that get through… for home anything metal that you can hold something down with?
My process…place chicken skin in frying pan flat over medium heat. They release their own oil to fry them. They’ll release from the pan when they are ready to flip, but they will almost fry completely crispy by that point. Drain on paper towel, season with salt immediately out of the pan. You don’t need to do anything fancy to get nice crispy chicken cracklings. And you get smaltz out of the deal too.
That’s gorgeous. I’ve never fried chicken skins before, how do you prepare and season them?
I like to lay them out on paper towel or newspaper and salt them. Let it draw out a bunch of moisture, then I put them on a sheet pan in the oven until crispy.
