Let’s Get Cookin’
Hello.
Hi there, and welcome to The Chicken Thigh Guy.
I’m Drew, a cook , writer, and food photographer living in Columbus, Ohio. A couple years ago, some friends joked that, because I was always posting recipes featuring them, I should write a cookbook about Chicken Thighs. So I did. I spent a year cooking thousands of chicken thighs, testing and retesting, and learning the ins and outs of photographing food as I went. I don’t have a publisher yet, and I’m still working on the book, but that’s not going to stop me from sharing the recipes, tips, tricks and techniques I developed in the process. I hope you’ll cook along with me and enjoy some really tasty chicken.
How this all started …
Sometime in the late winter of 2019, while working on an unrelated project, I began looking through my kitchen notes, photos I had posted to social media, and my own recipe files. I discovered that I had collected more than 40 recipes and dishes that specifically called for chicken thighs and even more that could be easily modified to be made with that thrifty cut.
There are several reasons for that surplus. In some cases, I was looking for an economical protein on which to experiment with a novel preparation. In other cases, chicken thighs were simply the right pieces of meat for the particular recipe.
The real reason is that chicken thighs are simply delicious. They are the most unctuous, flavorful, and forgiving cut of this most versatile bird.
The dark, flavorful meat, marbled with fat and collagen-heavy cartilage, gives sauces a rich mouthfeel, and can withstand the long, slow cooking that would turn a chicken breast into stringy paste.
On the grill or in the fryer, the rich meat of the thigh does not dry out and become tough, and the meat soaks up marinade flavors, yielding some of the best tasting pieces you will ever have – all without the stringy tendons and extra bones of the drumstick.
The chicken thigh is a perfect canvas on which to experiment, and I hope that the recipes in this book will give you the confidence to experiment with recipes and new preparations yourself.
And finally, yes. It is affordable and readily available. Most of the recipes on this site utilize ingredients that can be found in any large grocery store (though in a few cases you will have to venture into one of the specialty aisles) and utilize techniques that are easy to learn and to prepare in a home kitchen. This simple approach means you can build a quick, home-cooked, and delicious meal for yourself, your family, or your friends with confidence.
Be sure to check out my other food project, The Weekly Menu!
Chicken Man: I have a deep childhood issue you can help me get past. My mother used to torture the family with a dinner we called “Poyo”. This was a chicken cooked in a pot with water and rice that simmered on the stove on low all day. The resulting gelatinous mass was just short of inedible, the skin was disturbing but tortillas and salsa glossed over the texture to make taco bites edible. This was the chicken and rice of my childhood. Help me get a better technique to get the “Poyo” back into my imagination.