Here we present a whole new twist on an American classic dish. Breakfast, brunch, dinner are all suited for this paring of savory and sweet. If you have never enjoyed this dish, please try it and read about the rich history following the recipe. It makes for interesting dinner conversation. IF you stop eating long enough to talk!
The best tasting chicken you ever had, cooked in the French “confit” (CON-fee) style and served on a rich bed of fresh Belgium waffle! Of course you deserve this dish.
Ingredients:
4 – 6 chicken thighs
2 Tbs salt
1 Tbs smoked paprika
½ tsp baking soda
½ tsp garlic powder
1 lbs Lard
Directions:
Mix the seasonings in a shallow bowl. Don't worry about using it all, you are going to wash it off latter. Roll each piece in the rub and place in zipper bags (2 per bag is fine). Refrigerate for about 10 hours.
Wash your hands anytime you touch raw chicken! When in doubt, wash again. Wash off any handles, doors, etc that you touch with raw chicken on your hands.
Now when you are ready for the overnight poaching:
Check to make sure your pans fit. A flat baking pan with a rack on the bottom rack, then the other rack needs to hold the dutch oven.
Wash off each piece of chicken to remove all the salt and seasonings. Pat them extra dry with paper towels.
Any water can cause small explosions when immersed in the hot oil.
Preheat oven to 200 degrees.
Scoop lard into a dutch oven and melt it over a medium heat. You want enough to cover the chicken by at least ½ inch.
The next day, carefully remove the pot and lift out the chicken to drain. The pieces will be fragile and tender. Let them drain well.
Raise heat in the oven to 350 degrees that the waffles call for. Carefully place the pieces on the rack of the baking tray along side of the waffles.
Bake in oven for at least 12 mins or as long as the waffles take. This will dry out the skin and get it extra crispy. This is the sign of “Confit”.
Remove from oven and let rest for 10 mins before serving.
Serve the waffles with the chicken either on the side or on top as you wish.
An elegant take on an old classic.
For our music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XeNaHAh5sPU
So happy to be serving this to my Master Indy!
socialslave
To satisfy and restore.
To nourish, support and maintain.
To gratify, spoil, comfort and please,
to nurture, assist, and sustain
…..I cook!
Please buy slave's cookbook:
The Little Black Book of Indiscreet Recipes by Dan White
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00F315Y4I/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_vAT4sb0934RTM via @amazon
What is Chicken & Waffles?
It is part of a variety of culinary traditions, including soul food and Pennsylvania Dutch cuisine. The pilgrims brought waffles to America in 1620. With the electric waffle irons introduced at the World's Fair of 1904, people fell in love with the Belgian waffles.
What do you need to say about fried chicken?
Around for thousands of years, in the 1800s, African slaves refined the recipe. Then Colonel Sanders brought fried chicken country-wide by the middle of the 20th century.
The culinary marriage
A Dutch version from the 1600s consists of waffles served with pulled chicken and gravy. By the end of the 19th century, the dish was a symbol of Pennsylvania Dutch Country.
By the 1840s, broiled chicken and waffles were the specialty at a Tavern in Springfield, Massachusetts. The cooks were African-American women, either freed or runaway slaves, who learned their trade in plantation house kitchens.
Prior to the Civil War, chicken and waffles were extravagant breakfast staples in plantation houses through much of the South, prepared by the slave cooks.
In 1917, Edna Ferber's “Fanny Herself” mentioned a Chicago restaurant advertising "Southern chicken dinner with waffles and real maple syrup, 35 cents each." Fried chicken and waffles came to Los Angeles by 1931, when they were served at a restaurant that marketed the dish as “Southern specialty”.
Then in 1938 in Harlem, musicians, after the shows, would arrive in at a supper club needing something to eat between the dinner and breakfast services. As a compromise, they were served chicken and waffles.
Which brings us to this slave's new twist. Frozen Belgian waffles heated in the oven. Then we do an elegant French take on the chicken.
A confit (CON – fee) is a Old French cooking technique used to preserve meats by poaching them in their own fat. The best-known example is duck confit. Here we use the method to give the chicken a crisp crunchy exterior but leaves the insides very soft and juicy. Almost like a candy bar made of chicken!
Haute Cuisine mixed with slave cooking! By the way, may I suggest only the best maple syrup. I saw a post the other day complaining about being offered a “sugar-free” maple syrup! I think that roughly translates into syrup from a telephone pole and I am just sure there is a verse in Leviticus prohibiting it!
As to the eating, it makes no difference if you choose to eat the chicken and waffle separately, alternately, or with chicken on top of each bite and soaked with syrup. Honey, this is all up to you. Enjoy!
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