I’ve been getting into sous vide cooking in the past few months. Everything I have tried so far has been amazing, particularly meats. Because everything is cooked in a bag, there is significantly less loss of moisture than when cooking in a traditional vessel. Moreover, because sous vide cooking happens at the target temperature, fats render while food cooks, rather than burning off while it is browning. Both of these aspects are useful and beneficial to this recipe.

Chicken thighs are pretty amazing. They’re flavorful and very versatile. Fried chicken is great, but I think I actually prefer a thigh that is cooked well with the skin crispy; it’s a bit lighter and doesn’t make me want to take a nap. In the spirit of trying to write more recipes this year, I tasked myself with writing one for a chicken thigh like I described above. I first tried this recipe from nom nom paleo, and it was really good! Adding the butter gives it a nice, almost creamy flavor. More importantly, while it is in the water bath, a lot of the fat in the skin melts away, making the skin thinner and easier to get crispy without over-cooking the meat. What I found lacking was the seasoning - it was just a bit too much and muted the goodness of the chicken itself.

The next recipe I tried was Bon Appétit’s perfect pan-roasted chicken thighs. The seasoning was much better here! The simplicity of just salt and pepper gave a nice flavor without over-powering the chicken itself. I also liked the vegetable oil better than the shortening. I’m not totally sure why, but I did. What I didn’t like about this recipe was how quickly it set off the smoke detectors in my apartment. The chicken skin also didn’t have that time to melt, and it was still a tiny bit chewy underneath the crispiness.

Combining these two recipes, I came up with a recipe that I am very happy with. I used the seasoning from the Bon Appétit recipe and added it to the technique of the sous vide recipe. I stuck with the boneless thighs - it is a bit more pleasant to not have to worry about cutting around a bone at the table and removing those bones is easy enough. Anyway, here’s the recipe:

Ingredients

4 chicken thighs (really, make as many as you want. I think 2 per person is a good amount)

Salt

Pepper

Vegetable oil

Butter

Directions