Chicken thigh recipes

I just wrote an article for 501 Life Magazine entitled The Glory of Chicken Thigh Quarters: Seven dollars for Three Meals Worth of Meat.  The title may be changed somewhat in the editing. Can you blame me for being a bit dramatic?  In any case, I promised my readers that I would make a post giving them more recipes to try using cooked, boned thigh quarter meat, and I can write as much as I want on this blog post.  Ha!  I love not being limited to 500 words.

Here are some recipes.  Some are for people with very boring taste palates, while others are not for the faint of heart, but they are all yummy and should serve a family of six.  Take your pick.


There are so many other recipes that I use chicken thigh quarters for.  I hope you enjoy these!  I realize that you may have questions, so my blog is always open for comments.

Sincerely,
April



Chicken noodle soup

Saute sliced mirepoix (2 carrots, 1 onion, 2 stalks celery) in 2 T. butter until soft.  Cover with a gallon of stock made from chicken base (best found at Sam's Club) and boil.  Add half a package of egg noodles and 3 (boned, cooked, cut up) chicken thigh quarters and cook until the noodles are soft.  Serve with crackers or freshly made bread.  Yum!

Red chicken curry

This is a Thai dish that is easy to make.  Red curry paste can be found in health food stores, international groceries, and sometimes even at Kroger.  The recipe is usually on the bottle, but here is a similar one.  Heat one can coconut milk, 2 T. brown sugar, 1 T. Fish sauce, 1 t. lime juice and add chicken from 3 thigh quarters.  Add peas and any veggies that you wish (I like little canned corns or zucchini).  Cook through and serve over rice with more veggies for a side dish.

Chicken fried rice

I use day old rice for this usually, but it can be made with new rice as well.  Also, this recipe can be converted to a ham fried rice recipe and used for using up leftover ham from the holidays.  First, saute three diced bacon slices, 3 minced garlic cloves, 2 sliced celery stalks and 4 green onion stems in 2 tablespoons of butter and 1 teaspoon of sesame oil until soft and lightly browned (medium-high).  Then add 1.5 cups of cooked rice and cook until slightly brown (add some vegetable oil if it sticks together too much).  Add cooked chicken.  Mix half a cup of soy sauce (kikkoman is best - it really makes a difference!) with an eighth of a cup of brown sugar and pour over the rice (stir - I always taste it at this point and see if I want more soy sauce).  Then make a hole in the middle of the rice and pour in 2 whipped eggs. Stir until cooked and then mix in. (Optional) Add diced tomatoes and 1/2 cup of white wine and season to taste with garlic salt and MSG, if desired.

Pizza

I love garlic and chicken pizza!  To make the crust from scratch, heat oven to 475 F.   Mix 4 cups of bread flour with 1.5 teaspoons of salt.  Then (separately) add 2.25 teaspoons of yeast (1 pack) to 1.75 warm water, stir to dissolve, and add 1 tablespoon olive oil.  Add this to the flour mixture and knead for 5 minutes.  Then rub oil on the outside of the dough and let it sit for 1 hour. Saute chicken from 2 thigh quarters and 3 cloves of garlic in a little butter and salt. Prepare two greased pizza pans with a dusting of cornmeal.  Put half of the dough on each pan and push it out towards the edge with your palms until it is rolled out.  Spread spaghetti sauce over pizza crust(1/4 to 1/2 cup, depending on taste), followed by cheese (half a pound mozzarella per pizza and some pecorino romano) and then chicken mixture.  Cook for 7 minutes, switch places of the pans and then cook another 5 minutes.  Let cool for 5 minutes.  Every oven is different, so you might need to experiment a little with pans and cooking times.