Vernal Equinox

Pan-Roasting Chicken In Spite of the Spring Tropical Cyclone

By Willow Pennell

The start of spring is a bit of a joke. The air’s not warm and the sky’s overcast. After five years of drought in California, this year feels like we’re getting all the water at once, like our water packages were on hold at the post office. It’s a January storm in March.

© Susie Bright

Spring who?

On this wet first day of spring we’re celebrating by eating grass. That is, the fresh spring asparagus that’s finally at the grocery store. The spears will be coated in oil and salt and set in a hot oven until they’re caramelized in places. I pull them out of the oven before you’d think. They’ll keep cooking after they’re out.

To go with: chicken thighs and lemon.

Food52’s Genius Recipes don’t lie. They always hit with ideas and recipes that are way more than the the sum of their parts.

For example, stovetop pan roasted chicken thighs. You pull bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs straight from the fridge, and salt and pepper them.

Put the thighs skin side down in a cast iron pan that’s been gently warming over low heat. Leave them there until the skin is golden and rendered and you’ve guestimated that they’re about half-way done.

Flip them over, there will be plenty of chicken fat by now for the meat to not stick, and let the chicken roast (slowly!) some more.

I put a piece of parchment and another skillet on top—brick-chicken-style—but that’s not necessary.

How do you know they’re done?

Get an instant-read thermometer. I use mine every day: for bread, for meat, for caramel, for proving to my family that it’s hotter on the sidewalk than in the air. Chicken thighs should be at 165°. If you don’t have a thermometer, cut into one and check for doneness.

The recipe has you throw in some chopped preserved lemon skin here if you have it, which I do. But you could also throw in lemon zest, or capers, or anchovies— something salty and acidic. I also added some white wine and a pat of butter because I do want more pan sauce.

And I throw in the roasted asparagus—they’re back, bitches!—so it gets coated in the chickeny, lemony fat.

The chicken is going to knock your socks off, especially when you factor in the work- to-reward ratio. Cooked in its own fat, crispy and savory and you didn’t even have to pre-salt it. —Though you certainly could.

A pot of rice and some gochujang mixed with mirin and shoyu for spice, and we’re eating.

This tasted like Spring, and felt like warming wintry comfort.

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Soundtrack: Depeche Mode 101

This goes so hard.

How does a band have so many great songs before they have their breakout album? Someday I’ll tell you how great the movie is.

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Viewing: The Mandalorian

Andor is the sequel-prequel “Disney Star Wars” series that hits both head and heart, but The Mandalorian is the Star Warsiest post-Star War. It’s the one that makes me feel like the kid in rapture as Princess Leia kissed Luke Skywalker on the cheek “for luck” before they swing across the chasm in the star destroyer.

I was four or five, sitting on the warm engine that stuck up between the front seats of my step-dad’s green Ford Econoline van at the drive-in, eating handfuls of buttered popcorn from a greasy grocery bag. I couldn’t wait to see it again and again.

Happy Spring!