Chicken Under a Brick

I'm always a little worried when trying a new recipe I haven't been served: "how do I know if I got it right?" Since I was fortunate to eat Tom's cooking for 3 years, I felt confident making his Chicken Under a Brick from the cookbook for a guest who regularly goes to Italy. But if you're unfamiliar with the dish, have no worries when you follow his instruction. Just do what he says, and you'll nail it.

The Recipe...
is fine. Really, just do what he says. I was very happy he includes a variation for skinless, boneless chicken thighs, because that was all we could get in the all-natural chicken.

I fiddled with the recipe in two ways. I marinaded it for about 5 hours, far longer than suggested, and it wasn't overwhelmingly garlicky. In my house, time flexibility is a plus! And I didn't wrap it in bacon strips, but fried it in bacon grease & fond. It didn't crackle as it would have with bacon, but it still had a flavorful, crusty exterior.

It's pretty subtle. The meat is moist but not greasy. The bacon flavor from the hot grease doesn't penetrate, but the marinade does, so it still tastes like chicken, rather than bland hunk o' white stuff holding up bacon. I'll post the rest of the menu next.


The Method...
is classic, and I well remember Tom's collection of bricks in an out of the way corner of the Boarding House. My kitchen, alas, has no out of the way corners, being the size of a lentil. And I wanted to make a lot because leftovers make splendid spinach salad.

So, I improvised with the biggest, heaviest thing in my kitchen, a cast iron griddle that's as wide as my nonstick griddle but twice as long, so there's plenty of space for me to grab it. Serendipitous, no? It worked like a charm.




BUT, please notice I have a flat stove top, so there's no place for the grease to puddle. Since the bottom griddle didn't catch splatters, and they could just drip off the larger top griddle, a thin layer of hot grease surrounded the operation. I carefully mopped this up a couple of times and it wasn't a big deal. But if your stove isn't flat, doing what I did would be very dangerous. Use a brick or something smaller than the bottom pan. Tradition's smart on this one. If you're brickless but have nesting cast iron frying pans I think that would work well, too.

If you have a flat top stove, it's great. Be sure to use oven mitts to handle the iron griddle. It doesn't warm much itself, but the splattering grease and steam underneath could burn you. I did this twice with no trouble at all. The taste is worth it.