Illia Chicken
It's so easy and delicious and useful!
Hello, my lovelies! How are you holding up? Are you remembering to put your phone down and go outside and look up at the sky? Every time I do that I feel so much less trapped and panicky. The sun, the blue, the clouds, the gray, the rain: all of it just unfolding above us as it does. Also if you are looking forward to making a new sign or two, the next big event I have my eye on is the May Day Strong day of action, which follows of a long tradition of workers banding together on May 1st to show our mutual support and our defiance of unrighteous power. (Excuse me for sounding like a Marxist undergrad! It is in my DNA.)
Also, here’s another GREAT book I reviewed here and recommend completely.
Meanwhile, we have to eat, right? Birdy brought her very beloved friends over to dinner last weekend (she goes to college two towns over from us), and I made them DIY bowls: rice, beans, and toppings galore, including this chicken, which is utterly foolproof and wonderful. Fittingly enough, it was one of Birdy’s friends who taught me to make it, last summer, when we enjoyed the glorious experience of her living here with us. It’s the main way I learned to love chicken thighs, being a lifelong breast girl myself. (??? I AM STILL SO GAY!) Anyhoo, it was very fitting and fun to serve it back to her.
Illia Chicken
This is a very forgiving recipe. Our preference is green salsa, and we use our summer homemade until we run out around March, when we have to start using BOUGHTEN SALSA like commoners. The thing about this chicken is that if you use enough salt and cook it long enough, it will be good, more or less regardless of whatever else you do or don’t do. Please note in advance that I am asking you to salt and sauce the raw chicken at least a day before you plan to cook it! If you don’t, you can still make it, but it will be less deeply seasoned. Use this chicken to stuff enchiladas or tacos, to top bean and grain bowls, to add protein to nachos, or simply to eat because it’s delicious.
8 boneless, skinless chicken thighs (fewer if they’re massive—or just use more salsa)
Kosher salt (something like 2 teaspoons, or half as much if you’re using table salt)
Granulated garlic aka garlic powder
1 to 1 1/2 cups green salsa (or, less ideally, red salsa)
Limes for juice and/or some of the liquid from a jar of pickled pepperoncini
Place the chicken thighs in an oven-proof dish in which they fit snugly. (A sentence from a cooking-themed grammar book of the year 1840?) Salt them very well on one side and then the other, then give them a sprinkle of garlic powder. Now pour the salsa over them and then squeeze the juice from a lime over and/or pour in some liquid from a jar of pickled pepperoncini. (I do both, obviously, because I’m a fiend for the tangy—in a pinch, you could add a splash of white vinegar instead of either or both.)
Use your hand to rub this mixture over them then flip them all over and rub them some more, then remove your hands and boil them because RAW CHICKEN YUCK KILL ME. Cover the dish with foil (or an oven-proof lid if your baking dish has one) and refrigerate at least overnight and up to 2 days.
Heat the oven to 350 and put the chicken in it, still covered. Cook covered for 45 minutes and then uncovered (so it can brown a bit and the liquid can reduce) for another 45 minutes to an hour, or until it no longer looks like it’s swimming in liquid, and the meat pulls apart very easily when you try shredding it with two forks. If it doesn’t pull apart easily, put it back in the oven for a while.
When it is really and truly tender, shred all the chicken with 2 forks and stir it a bit to distribute any of the remaining liquid. Yummmm.
Thank you, Illia! We love you.
Sending this gentleman a Tesla full of thoughts, prayers, and dicks.
BOUGHTEN SALSA. Made me laugh.