A handful of Asian pantry/fridge staples turns chicken thighs into a delicious, weeknight-quick dinner. Recipe below.
[su_dropcap style=”flat”]H[/su_dropcap]ere is a very simple, very tasty weeknight dish. So simple, in fact, that we thought it was only going to be dinner, not a post. But as it baked in the oven, the aroma filling the kitchen told us we should photograph it, just in case.
This dish is also so simple that is has no cool back story to share here. It is, however, an example of the value of a well-stocked pantry/fridge. In this case, we’re talking about a handful of key Asian ingredients, three readily available in many supermarkets—soy sauce, rice wine vinegar and sesame oil—and one a little more esoteric: Lao Gan Ma Spicy Chili Crisp.
This ingredient has quite the back story, which we shared in our “Old Godmother” Spicy Potatoes and Pork post. You’ll find Lao Gan Ma Spicy Chili Crisp in some Asian markets and on Amazon—and once you do, you’ll always keep it in stock.
Start with the four aforementioned Asian pantry/fridge ingredients, add in some fresh ginger, which we try to keep around, and some sugar, and you’ve got a quick, amazing sauce. And this delicious dinner.
“Old Godmother” Oven-braised Chicken
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup soy sauce
- 1/3 cup rice wine vinegar
- 2 tablespoons Lao Gan Ma Spicy Chili Crisp
- 1 tablespoon finely minced ginger
- 2 teaspoons sugar
- 1 teaspoon sesame oil
- 4 bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs, about 1/2 pound each
- salt and freshly ground black pepper
- olive or canola oil
- 1 or 2 scallions, green parts only, thinly sliced
- 2 teaspoons cornstarch optional
Instructions
- In a medium bowl, mix together the sauce ingredients, through sesame oil.
- Preheat oven to 350ºF. Put the chicken thighs into a lightly oiled baking dish. Lightly season with salt and pepper. Bake for 15 minutes.
- Take chicken out of the oven and ladle the sauce around it—it should come no more than half way up on the thighs. Return to oven and bake another 30 minutes, or until the internal temperature of the chicken reaches at least 160ºF. Remove from oven, plate chicken and garnish with scallions.
- Finish the sauce. You may serve the chicken just like this, simply discarding the sauce. But to up your dinner game, decant the sauce into a small saucepan and thicken it with a little cornstarch: mix 1 or 2 teaspoons of cornstarch with a little cold water, stir in some of the hot sauce liquid, then stir the cornstarch mixture into the sauce and heat gently until it’s clear and thicker—you want it slightly thick, not hideously globby. Now you can spoon this wonderful sauce over cooked rice—or, as we did, kasha.
This looks incredibly flavorful! I haven’t used Lao Gan Ma Spicy Chili Crisp (love the crisp part of the name!) but I need to get some. And make this recipe — neat dish. Thanks!
If it has ‘Old Godmother’ in it, it has to be good – that stuff is fantastic!
Why do you wait to add the sauce until after adding the chicken 15 minutes?
Why do you pour the sauce around the meat, not over it?
Thank you?
MER, these are good questions. You wait to add the sauce because first you want the chicken to start to dry and get crisp in the oven. This gives the chicken skin a head start on developing a nice crispy finish. When you add the sauce, you can pour it over the chicken if you like, but because it is a watery sauce, not thick at all, it will flow down to the level you see in the picture. Adding more sauce – immersing the chicken – results in a very different dish, more of a stew.