What do you make for the guy who has everything? A dish that has everything.
Triston Casas, whom the Sox should not trade, has it all: the talent, the looks, the charm. He’s also quite the chef. In honor of our young star, who we hope will be a staple of the team for years to come, I’m going to share my staple dish, the one I make when I need something to come through in the clutch.
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Lost in the discussion of egg prices is how low chicken prices are, at least if you’re not (or not economically able) to be concerned about factory farming and all that jazz. The flip side of this is that assembly line chicken tastes nothing like the chicken our grandparents ate, not even the organic stuff. I’m talking the ultimate primo shit. Absent that, you have to make the flavor yourself, and who’s more inspiring to help than this guy?
Stan Grossfeld/Boston Globe
Casas’s Cupboard Chicken
The whole point of this dish is that you use whatever you have. So you will need to collect:
- Bone-in chicken thighs
- A whole bunch of spices and sauces and oils and syrups and honey maybe?
Bryan’s Notes
If you make this dish with just salt and pepper, it’ll taste great. You don’t even need to marinate. The point is to experiment, though, and leave it all out on the field, so to speak. If you think it’ll taste good, make a marinade and add anything that feels right. The last time I made this I used salt, pepper, olive oil, paprika, garlic powder, red pepper flakes, onion powder, a little soy sauce, maple syrup and I couple more things I’m forgetting, one of which was NOT cayenne powder, which I would have added in abundance, and would have made an unforgettable dish even moreso, though I don’t know if you can actually not forget something more than you can not forget any other thing. You either can or can’t, right?
- If you’re marinating, and you should, put the chicken thighs in a container you can cover
- Add whatever you want and cover and refrigerate it for however long you like
- When you’re ready to cook, place the chicken thighs skin-side down and bake at 425 for 20 minutes
- (OPTIONAL: While the chicken cooks, pop open a can of black beans and do the same “that might taste good” spicing up process to those bad boys on low heat)
- After 20 minutes, flip the chicken over and cook for another 20 minutes
- Remove from heat, let sit for a few minutes, then enjoy while Casas goes yard