Raggedy skin and burnt garlic

It all started well!  First, I had my beloved Katherine with me in the kitchen; she was changing the aquarium water:

And I had my beloved little Evelyn with me in the kitchen too; she was yelling her head off:

And I had a glass of wine:

But in the end, I found tonight's recipe a little frustrating to make.  It is the time for Ad Hoc At Home, one of my favourite recipe books by one of my favourite chefs.

Previously, I had made confit of pork belly from this book, and it was out of this world (photos here).  I also made beef stock (mentioned in a couple of previous posts), which was a great success.  This recipe is crispy braised chicken thighs with fennel, olives, and lemon.  I thought it would be quick and easy (as opposed to some of his more elaborate dishes).  I even thought that it would be related to the dish I do quite often at home, braised chicken thighs with garlic, rosemary, and white wine.  But there were several catches.

First, the chicken thighs are salted ready to be sautéed.

4 minutes on the skin side, 1 minute on the meat side, the recipe says.  But the problem is, after 4 minutes, the skin is always going to be stuck to the pan.  Now, perhaps I didn't have the temperature right.  Or perhaps my pan isn't good enough.  Or perhaps I didn't put enough oil in (or too much, or should have oiled the thighs first, or...).  But they stuck.  And seeing as the point of this recipe is that at the end you put the whole dish under the broiler to crispen up the skin ("Crispy chicken thighs..." is after all the name of the recipe), this was something of a disaster, since the skin basically came off most of the thighs.  I felt as though I just not a very good cook.  (I wonder whether this is why this version of the recipe calls for 10 minutes for the skin side to cook - but surely after 10 minutes the skin is already crispy so there's no need for the broiling at the end?)

Then, I had to sauté onion, garlic, and fennel batons in the pan (having taken out the sautéed thighs).  Again, Keller calls for the garlic to be cooked for one minute, and then sautéed with the onion for a further 5 minutes, and then with the fennel for another 10.  I couldn't stop the garlic burning, however much I kept stirring and however much I tried to keep the heat down.  ('Medium-low heat', the recipe said.)  Anyway, after adding red pepper flakes, olives, wine, lemon zest, and stock, the whole thing was smelling not too bad, and simmering away, as instructed.  "Put the chicken pieces back in the pan and let the sauce come to a simmer again".  Something was not right: putting the chicken pieces back into the pan didn't make any difference to the simmering broth: it just carried on simmering.  That's when you know things aren't going perfectly.

Anyway, the whole assemblage goes into the oven for 20 minutes to cook the chicken through.  I didn't add the chicken juices to the dish, because the recipe doesn't say you should, and because they were pretty much raw chicken juices.  I just kept my fingers crossed that the whole thing would 'come together'.  You'll notice there aren't many photos of these interim stages.  I was too annoyed and stressed to take them!

But the crisping up of the chicken pieces was a success (although one of them lost its skin altogether):

And the broth was delicious too:

With rice and green beans, the whole thing was very nice.  I mean that: very nice.  The fennel in particular was very tender and not at all overpowering.  But the dish as a whole wasn't the explosion of zesty flavour that I had expected.  I blame myself, and not Thomas Keller.  Surely the man who made the ratatouille for Ratatouille makes no mistakes!

Next up, Nigel Slater's Real Food.  I can't wait!