Emeril's Dinner for Four Under $10
People magazine printed another of those "Dinner for Four Under $10" ideas. This week, it's from Emeril Lagasse. The recipe is for Chicken Thighs with Brazilian "Vinaigrette" Salsa. It seems easy enough and, best of all, you can look at it and read through it without a studio audience clapping and clapping every time he does something as simple as add salt to the food.
Two interesting things about chicken thighs. One, a butcher once told me that it's the easiest meat to cook for inexperienced chefs, since it's a much harder cut of meat to dry out. It will still be juicy if you forget and overcook it. Second, I didn't even know you could leave the skin on a thigh, but remove the bone, as Emeril calls for. That's some fancy carpentry at the meat counter.
At one point in the directions, he has you putting the chicken on the "grill." At another, he has you removing it from "the pan." I'm thinking he must mean an indoor grill pan.
Ingredients:
8 chicken thighs, skin on and bones removed
2 tsp course sea salt
6 tbs. butter, melted
2 tbs garlic, minced
1 tsp. bay leaf, ground
1 cup tomato, peeled, seeded, and diced
1/2 cup red bell pepper, diced
1/2 cup green bell pepper, diced
3 tbs. white wine vinegar
3-4 tbs. olive oil
salt and freshly ground black pepper
Directions:
1. Season chicken with salt (have your family clap a lot here).
2. In a small bowl, combine butter, garlic and bay leaf.
3. Place the chicken skin-side down on the grill and brush with the butter-garlic blend. Cook for seven minutes, turn over, and baste with more of the butter mixture. Continue to cook for another seven minutes, turn back to the skin side and cook for seven minutes more. Turn over one last time and cook until a thermometer inserted into the deepest portion of the thigh registers 160 degrees to 165 degrees (about 7 minutes longer). Remove from pan. Serves four to six.
4. For the Brazilian vinaigrette salsa, combine diced tomato, red and green bell peppers, white wine vinegar, olive oil and salt and pepper in a medium bowl and stir well. Allow it to sit at room temperature for at least an hour before serving.
--Sweet B
photo courtesy of New York Times.
DrGaellon on April 28, 2009 at 11:25 AM
You can actually extract the bone from a chicken thigh fairly easily from the underside without disturbing the skin at all. Just run the tip of your knife down the length of the bone on the meat side, then slide the knife underneath the bone and work it down to one side, then the other. It's pretty simple.
Also, I suspect he really did mean "grill" and just has a sloppy editor. :D Especially seeing "coarse" misspelled in the ingredient list.
Paul A'Barge on April 29, 2009 at 03:49 PM
Add a vegetable and a salad and a bottle of wine and you're not serving that for 4 people for under $10.
BlogDog on April 29, 2009 at 03:59 PM
"course" sea salt?
Maybe I can find it in the coarse of my usual shopping.
Olive on April 29, 2009 at 04:23 PM
What Paul said. You could also do cheaper, easier and a lot more flavorful (and good grief, less saturated fat!) by sauteing skinless chicken pieces in a bit of olive oil and adding half a jar of vinegar peppers.
Sweet B on April 29, 2009 at 06:00 PM
Yes, I thought Emeril's dinner seemed a bit thin on food myself. But rice is cheap and green peas are cheap...It *could* be done cheaply, but if you don't like this one, then just leave it. Try Olive's idea instead. Sounds good to me.
Quilly Mammoth on April 29, 2009 at 07:00 PM
Actually, I just priced it out at the local chain's website and added a bad of salad and a bunch of broccoli. Add in a bottle of Two Buck Chuck and it comes to a _bit_ under $10.00.
I don;t know where you people are buying your food but all of the local stores are selling Thighs and Split Chicken Breasts for $1.29 per pound.
Here's the weird thing about how I feed my family. I look through the flyers on Wednesday and based on the deals there _design_ a menu surrounding them. Most foodies don't do that.
For example, one local store has pork country ribs for $1.00 per pound. YUM...Lechon Asado! Perfect for the slow cooker, but do cut the excess fat off for this.
You _can_ feed your family well and on the cheap if you reverse the way most foodies do things!
Quilly Mammoth on April 29, 2009 at 07:09 PM
Just came across a Piggly Wiggly flyer showing Thighs or Legs for .99 per pound. It's a family pack so I'll freeze half. The question is whether I will make Emeril's recipe or one I have for a delicious "Chicken Thigh Cordon Bleu"...it all depends if I can find a sale on Pit Ham.
Duncan on April 30, 2009 at 05:35 AM
Yep. Chicken parts are cheap, as are whole chickens. I think a lot of people are intimidated by the idea of disjointing a chicken, but it's not difficult (though it's good to have a really sharp knife), and only takes a couple minutes once you're good at it. The nice thing about starting with a whole chicken is that you get a meaty carcass that you can use for stock.
I know a lot of recipes for various fricassees of chicken- Marcella Hazan's cacciatori recipes are really good, and there are a lot of other nice recipes. I just made a fricassee of chicken with lemon thyme, lemon, and onions that I thought was pretty tasty. A lot of fricassee recipes come in at not much more than a dollar a serving if you're using cheap chicken, and are still quite inexpensive if you're using a better bird.
But I'm going to have to disagree with Olivia. The skin is where a lot of the flavor is, so if you're interested in flavor, unless you're really concerned about fat, you want to keep the skin on.
Mitch on January 05, 2010 at 04:14 PM
SWEET THIS IS THE BEST WEBSITE I HAVE EVER SEEN GOOD IDEA!!!!!!!