So, I've cooked 3 pounds of chicken leg drumsticks for a chicken soup. The soup had great flavor, and now I have a couple of pounds of cooked chicken leg meat. I was planning to use it in a chicken salad and I did. Unfortunately, chicken leg meat does not taste very good in chicken salad. It tasted greasy and it had this liverish flavor, not unlike a liver pate. So, this experiment did not quite work out. I'll either need to find another source of chicken bones or another way to use up chicken leg meat.

• Make chicken stock by simmering de-skinned chicken leg drumsticks (10 items, about 3-3.5 pounds) in 8 cups of water for 1.5 hours.
• Remove chicken, preserve for making chicken salad. At this point chicken should be so tender, the meat will be falling off the bones.
• To the stock pot with chicken stock, add pinto beans. I started out with half a cup of dried pinto beans that I hydrated in the fridge overnight. They expanded to about 1.25 cups of wet beans. Later I decided that the soup did not have enough beans, so next time I'll start with a whole cup of dried pinto beans.
• Add one potato, chopped. I added a big baking potato. It was too much. Next time I'll use half of that. Need to cut it into very small pieces.
• 4 roasted corn cubs. Cut the corn off and put into the pot.
• 6 roasted poblano peppers. Remove the charred skin, chop, put into the stock. It ended up being way too hot for me. Next time - maybe 2 poblanos and 3 red bell peppers?
• 2 carrots, sliced
• 2 stalks of celery, chopped
• 2 onions, chopped and sauteed.
• Simmer until beans are tender, about 45 min.
• Adjust salt. In total I have used 1.5 tsp.

The soup had great flavor, but was way too spicy for me to enjoy. Need to cut down on poblanos.

So far, every time I made soup I have made it with beef stock. The reason is economics: I can easily obtain beef (or venison) bones. I can just buy them at a local grocery store. Making chicken stock requires chicken bones and I don't have a ready source of these. I tried buying boned chicken and deboning it myself and cooking the meat and preserving the bones. It was pain in the ass.

I tried cooking boned chicken and eating the meat and preserving the bones. It was just plain disgusting. I even tried to make stock from turkey necks and chicken gibblets that I can buy at HEB. The stock did not taste very good, and it smelled foul.

On last source I was thinking of was buying chicken leg drumsticks. I can boil them to make an excellent stock (I tried, it works), but then I'm left with boiled chicken meat that I do not like. It seemed like such a waste, I was not gonna do it.

Luckily, the resident food critic (RFC) has solved this problem for me. The last soup I made was done with rabbit and after finishing the soup, we still had a lot of boiled rabbit flesh. I do not like boiled meat outside of the soup, and in the soup there is only so much meat I can take. Basically I had a lot of left overs that I was going to have to throw away.

The RFC made a "chicken" salad with it.

• Chop up all the boiled meat you have
• Add a bit of finely chopped onion
• Salt, black pepper, paprika, chili powder
• Mayonnaise
• Mix it all up well and add a splash of heavy whipping cream to moisten it up
• serve on a toast

The RFC knew that I have liked the chicken salad sandwiches that I have had before, so she tried to make one and it turned out great. The salad tasted great, and it was really good on a toast. Now I can in good conscience make chicken stock from leg drumsticks and not waste the meat, but have RFC turn it into yummy salad and sandwiches. 

A little while ago I described a recipe for Chicken Schnitzel. This is basically breaded and fried chicken. I claimed that the best cut of chicken to use in that recipe is chicken thighs. It is absolutely true, I tried chicken breast before and it comes out way too dry for my taste. But here is a new twist to the story.

The resident food critic has been pushing me to switch to the organic chicken, raised without antibiotics. Apparently, antibiotic used for chickens is arsenic based and is not too good for humans. Of course, the industry claims that the levels of arsenic in chicken is perfectly acceptable, but they never quite make it clear acceptable to whom these levels are. The good news is arsenic tends to accumulate in the skin, so if you mostly buy boneless skinless chicken, like I do, you should be OK.

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I love mole, but the way it's normally served in Mexican restaurants, on top of the boiled chicken, just rubs me the wrong way. I thought I could do better. Better cooked, more flavorful chicken. You be the judge.

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I've learned the basics of the breading and frying in Alton Brown's book "I'm just here for the food" and refined the recipe over a couple of years of trying different things to it. If you use chicken, this recipe comes out best with boneless skinless chicken thighs. Pork - use pork sirloin. Fish - use speckled trout. You can also make it with beef. Use a very thin (5mm) cut of top round, cut across the grain. In some grocery stores it is sold pre-made as "milanesa". The thin slice of beef will not require the last step of baking in the oven.

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Here is another relatively easy thing to make with my Broiled Paprika Chicken. Tacos. Once you have the chicken ready, make tacos right away, they taste the best with freshly cooked chicken.

1. Heat up a corn tortilla with a droplet of olive oil in a small frying pan.
2. Chop half a broiled chicken thigh and put into tortilla.
3. Add a few drops of hot sauce. Sontava Habanero XX is my favorite.
4. Add sauteed onions.
5. Add guacamole.
6. Eat right away!!!

What makes this particular taco recipe truly special is the perfect pairing of the flavors between the spicy juicy chicken and the smooth cool guacamole. How do I know this? I've tried to make these tacos with a variety of ingredients. I've tried to substitute the chicken by fish and pork and the tacos weren't as good. I've tried to substitute the guacamole by cabbage, marinated onions, salsa, or just grilled veggies and it never tasted as good as the recipe above. I have since stopped experimenting with this recipe and just simply enjoy it the way it is.

A word on how I saute the onions.

I usually use sweet onions for cooking. I cry every time I try to cut anything else. So, I clean the onion and I slice it along its polar axis. I'm sure there is a French word for slicing the onion this way, but I can't be bothered to google for it right now. Heat up a bit of olive oil in a large skillet. Put onions into hot oil and cook, stirring often, for a few minutes, until they just start to develop some color. Then reduce the heat to medium-low and cook them for another 20-25 minutes stirring occasionally to let them develop rich brown color and cook fully. One large onion is enough for about 3-4 tacos.

And a word on how I make guacamole.

I really enjoy the taste of ripe avocados, so my guacamole recipe is very simple.

1. Two ripe avocados, cleaned and chopped into a bowl.
2. A quarter of a red onion chopped very finely (I have somebody else do it, because red onions make me cry). Put in the bowl with avocados.
3. A shake of salt.
4. A shake of black pepper.
5. Use a sharp fork to mash the avocados into a mashed paste and mix all ingredients thoroughly.
6. Use immediately, it browns as it stands on the air.

If you have to store the fresh guacamole, put a clear plastic wrap on top of it. Make sure there is no air left under the wrap. It needs to touch the guacamole and cover it completely. Air destroys the guacamole. I'm thinking a vacuum sealer would be nice. Refrigerate and it'll last for a couple of hours. Lime juice will not save your guacamole from oxidation and it'll make it taste BAD™.

In my previous post I have mentioned that broiled chicken thighs can be used in a large number of ways. Here is probably the easiest.

1. Toast two pieces of bread.
2. Spread some mayo on one side of each piece.
3. In between put salad greens (or just iceberg lettuce if you are not picky), sliced tomato, two strips of bacon, and one whole piece of broiled chicken thigh.

I swear, this is the best tasting chicken sandwich I've ever had. What makes it so good is the juiciness of the chicken meat. Bacon is also critical. I tried the sandwich once without it, and it was not half as good.

This broiled chicken is a starting point in a huge variety of recipes. I make it so often, I could probably do it in my sleep. Or, maybe, I have already done... The key to success is:

• Knowing for how long to cook it in your oven. I will give you my times, but I can guarantee, you'll need to experiment a few times in your own kitchen and you'll end up adjusting the times.
• Using the boneless skinless chicken thighs. No other cut will give you the same juicy, tender, tasty result.
• Lots of paprika. It's not there for the taste. Paprika is tasteless. It's there for the wonderful grilled color. We are faking it. Omit the paprika and the result will taste just as great, but it will not look very appetizing. We could have achieved the same by basting, but that's a lot of work and nowhere near as healthy.

So,

1. Place you chicken thighs on your broiling/grilling thingy.
2. A few shakes of salt.
3. A few shakes of black pepper.
4. A moderate amount of chili powder.
5. And very generously cover it with lots of paprika.
6. Turn over and repeat with the other side.
7. Put in the pre-heated broiler oven, toaster oven, or put on the grill.
8. In the toaster or oven set temperature to 350F. In the grill just do it however you normally do it. Start the timer.
9. After the required time has passed, flip the chicken on the other side and cook some more. Once you figured the timing, they will come out perfect every time.

I have cooked this in a small toaster oven ($40 variety). The first side took 15 min and the second side took 15 min as well. I have also cooked it in the normal electric kitchen stove that has an electric broiler element in the top part of the oven. It's set to 350F as well, but it puts out a lot more power, so the cooking times are less. The first side took 10 min, and the second side took 9 min. I imagine on a charcoal grill it'll be pretty fast (under 10 min).

One more note. Free range, antibiotic free chickens will have smaller thighs. They'll probably cook faster. Whatever timing you figured out, it'll only stay true as long as you keep buying the same brand of chicken. Once you change brands, you may need to adjust the timing again.