Blackened Chicken – is it Cajun? Is it Mexican? It’s hard to say.
I’ve read somewhere that blackening is not a true cajun cooking technique, and only became known as one when Paul Prudhomme started serving blackened redfish in the 1980’s. But around the time when he was doing that, Michael’s Taqueria in Monterey, CA, was becoming famous for its own blackened chicken (according to the story on their menu board)… and certainly I ate more blackened chicken in a California summer than in three years in New Orleans.
Whatever its provenance, blackening has a reputation for being messy, excessively smoky, disproportionately troublesome and not to be attempted at home. Nevertheless, the attempt had to be made once we moved away from warm places and arrived at the cold grey dark wintry Pacific Northwest, which is nicey enough, but only spicy in the east/southeast Asian sort of way.
Thus, the following recipe came into being:
- Two chicken breasts (or as many as you want,) bones and skins removed
- Four or Five of the larger cloves from a head of garlic
- 3/8 cup plain white sugar (ie, somewhere between 1/4 and 1/2 cup)
- 3/8 cup plain table salt (ditto^)
- Cajun Spice Mixture – I admit that I cheated here and bought the already-mixed spices. I feel justified in doing so, because 1) individual spices are terribly expensive for poor li’l ol’ me, and 2), the lady from South Louisiana who taught me to make gumbo used already-mixed spices, herself. FOR THIS RECIPE, you must use a spice mixture that does NOT include salt – for instance, do NOT use Tony’s, because the result will be inedible. The one I use, I admit, came from Sam’s Club, and is called “Tone’s.”
- Half a cup of Bacon Fat (or as much as you have on hand…)
- A cup or two of Vegetable Oil for the frying – I’ve used olive oil and canola oil and of course both are fine.
First, you prepare and brine the chicken – do this about four hours before you actually want to eat:
Get a large sturdy plastic ziplock freezer bag, put in the garlic cloves, and mash them in the bag with something flat and heavy (a wine bottle will do nicely if, like me, you don’t have anything more appropriate) until they are pulverized. Put the chicken breasts side by side in the bag, and flatten them as well (see how nicely the bag keeps the chicken juice off of your wine bottle). Get them as evenly flat as you can without beating them into a pulp – 1/2” or 3/4” – the idea is to get them even and thin so that they will cook evenly.
Take care not to puncture or beat-a-hole-into the plastic bag!
Now, drop the sugar and the salt into the bag as well – you see where this is going – and enough water to dissolve them and cover the chicken breasts. Seal up the bag and shake, shake until everything has dissolved and the garlic is well distributed, then open the bag a tiny bit and squeeze out as much air as you can. This is just a simple, simple brine which will cause the chicken meat to become moist and delicious later.
Put the bag of briny chicken into the fridge (or other cold cold place) for an hour or two. I’ve read and heard that it is possible to overbrine things – I wouldn’t leave them overnight in the brine – but a few hours don’t seem to harm anything.
Right.
Now it’s a couple of hours later and you will want to eat soon!
First, get the kitty cat and lock her in another room. You’re going to be dealing with hot, hot, hot oil here and it’s very dangerous for kitty cats, or any other small animals that tend to get underfoot at the worst possible moment.
Then, heat your oven to about 350, and put a cookie sheet inside on the middle rack.
Find a good sturdy thick-bottomed heavy pan with high sides – a so-called “chef’s pan” is especially nice, and if it has a lid, you can keep it handy in case of grease fires.
Put in the bacon fat and enough oil to get it 1/2 or 3/4 inch deep, then turn the heat on medium-medium high.
Now, take the chicken breasts out of their bag of brine. Pat them dry with clean paper towels, and remove any garlic bits that may be stuck, and cover one with a healthy coating of cajun spices – on both sides, all over, in every little chicken crevice.
When the grease is smoking hot, gently and carefully put the first chicken breast in there (use tongs). Be very careful not to splash yourself!
Fry the chicken breast for 5 minutes on the first side, then turn it over (use tongs again) and give it 3 minutes on the other side. Take it out of the hot grease and put it on the cookie sheet in the oven.
Give the same treatment – spice, fry, turn, oven – to the other chicken breast.
Now, you have two blackened chicken breasts. Leave them in the oven for five minutes or so, then turn off the heat and let them stay in there until you have salads assembled, bread sliced, table set, wine opened, etc. Take the pan off the heat right away and leave it until tomorrow – it’s too hot to handle right now anyway.
For all the detail I’ve gone into here, this really is an easy recipe: Cover Chicken With Spice, Fry In Hot Grease. I was very worried about the hot oil and the smoke, but it did NOT set off any smoke alarms and did NOT (knock on wood) cause any injuries. It does make a bit of a mess – it’s impossible not to splash some of the grease, and then you have to figure out how to dispose of the grease once it’s cool – but it’s cheap and tasty, which after all is what is really important.
A Note on Chicken Breasts: I said above that it’s “Cheap,” which is not exactly the case. These are the most expensive part of the chicken, for some reason, running around $6 or $7/lb in this area. But if you are patient and vigilant you’ll find a family pack with 6 or 8 chicken breasts for $4/lb. Get it, keep two out for using right away, and put the rest in the freezer individually or in sets of two.
A Note on Chicken: Of course you WANT to get the organic, free-range chicken. I want to, too. But those are never going to be the cheap ones. So, you will have to decide between Saving Money and Better (morally, ethically, environmentally, tastily) Chicken. Don’t fret about it. Life is full of choices. The chicken is dead either way.
