Turn to the dark side

Enlarge Image

c_ (TRIBUNE MEDIA MCT)

Enlarge Image

As barbecue has increasingly become a national phenomenon, barbecue sauce has changed _ its flavors have expanded to reflect modern food trends in healthful and ethnic eating. Illustrates BBQ (category d), by Jim Shahin, special to The Washington Post. Moved Thursday, May 26, 2011. (MUST CREDIT: Photo for The Washington Post by Deb Lindsey.) (BLOOMBERG THE WASHINGTON POST)

If your relationship with chicken began with nuggets and stalled amid the supermarket's plastic-sealed trays of skinless/boneless breasts, we've got a bone to pick with you.

It's time to give bone-in chicken a chance, from the whole bird to the especially flavourful (and often less pricey) legs and thighs.

"The dark meat is the way poultry should really taste. It just evokes that beautiful flavor," says chef Hugh Acheson, who has several Georgia restaurants including Five and Ten and Empire State South.

Acheson, a cookbook author and Bravo Top Chef judge, understands the low-fat benefits of boneless, skinless chicken breast. "But everything in moderation. I want to equate my life to eating the most flavour I can, and flavour is really found in the dark meat.

"I have a family of four," he adds. "If I take four good chicken thighs and fry them or roast them in the oven really simply in a cast-iron pan and serve it with a bunch of sides, that's enough protein for us. ... That small amount of beautiful dark meat protein is definitely going to be a good meal."

And you'll often find bone-in thighs and legs are juicier than way-too-dry white meat.

At Yardbird Southern Table & Bar in Miami Beach, Fla., executive chef Jeff McInnis offers free-range chickens and Poulet Rouge birds from North Carolina. He favours bone-in poultry. "The meat is going to be richer and taste more like the bird," he says. "The bone is sort of like an insulator (that) keeps some of the juices in. That's what keeps a lot of the flavour in."

When grilling a bone-in bird, McInnis browns it close to the coals, then moves it up onto a rack (or away from the coals) before letting it slow cook until done. "You want to get it away from the coals and basically your grill will act like an oven," he says.

Acheson has another reason to consider adding a platter of bone-in chicken to your meal rotation. When he oven-roasts a whole chicken, maybe split spatchcock-style set in a lightly oiled cast-iron skillet, "You're going to get a beautiful dinner in about an hour. It can be on a platter to share with your family, and that kind of brings people together in a simple way that a sauteed chicken breast isn't going to do."

Grilled chicken with lemon, mint and soy

Ingredients:

1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons olive oil

1/4 cup soy sauce

2 tablespoons each: Dijon mustard, fresh lemon juice

2 teaspoons grated lemon zest

1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes

1/4 cup each, minced: fresh mint, fresh flat-leaf parsley

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

3 1/2 to 4 pounds chicken thighs and legs (about 6 medium pieces)

1. Prepare charcoal or gas grill that will give you medium to medium-high heat for 15 to 20 minutes cooking time. If you use charcoal, be sure coals are very grey and cooked down to help prevent flare-ups during cooking.

2. Mix oil, soy sauce, mustard, lemon juice, zest, pepper flakes, mint and parsley in a small bowl. Very lightly salt chicken thighs and legs. Place chicken, skin side down, on grill. Cook, about 8 minutes. Turn pieces skin side up; continue grilling. Divide herb sauce in half, placing portions in separate bowls. Baste tops of chicken with half the herb sauce; reserve remainder for serving. (Don't cross contaminate the bowls of sauce.) Continue grilling until internal temperature registers 165 degrees. Transfer cooked birds to a serving platter; drizzle with reserved herb sauce.

Note: Adapted from Hugh Acheson's book, A New Turn in the South: Southern Flavors Reinvented for Your Kitchen (Clarkson Potter). The original recipe calls for four poussin (young chickens) weighing about 1 pound each. We used chicken legs and thighs with excellent results.

Prep: 10 minutes

Cook: 40 minutes

Servings: 6

Nutrition information: Per serving: 490 calories, 37 g fat, 8 g saturated fat, 209 mg cholesterol, 3 g carbohydrates, 36 g protein, 1,293 mg sodium, 0 g fibre.

-- Chicago Tribune

Cooking tips

Cook time: "Bone-in tends to cook longer but it tends to keep its moisture a little bit," says Acheson.

Basting: Brush sweet sauces on in the last few minutes of cooking or the sugars will burn the bird. "When you're about to pull it off, baste it and you'll see it dry up and caramelize on there," says McInnis.

Basic basting sauce: Or "a mop sauce is what we call it in the South," says McInnis. Just chop up a bunch of herbs and mix with vinegar or lemon (or whatever your acid is) then a tomato product or olive oil (whatever your base is) and "just mop it on."

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition July 18, 2012 C1