A whole chicken, part 2

The first meal I made from my chicken used the tenderloins and skin with a nice slew of veggies. I wanted to make something quick and tasty since I'd just spent half an hour cutting up a chicken and was getting hungry.

Just so you know, the blue bowl had diced onion, chopped kale stem, and diced radish; the black bowl had sliced mushroom and diced orange bell pepper, and the red bowl had chopped kale leaves. Like I mentioned in part 1, skins are great for a snack while you're cooking, so, first, I cooked those up to tide me over.

I seasoned the skin and the ass flap with salt, pepper, and paprika, then fried them in butter and olive oil to get them nice and crispy. It's a pretty simple, quick process, and has the perfect combination of crispy texture and amazing flavor. Sure, you can deep fry the skins, and that's got its own charm, but I like biting into that partially rendered fat; you really can't beat that feeling.

Next, I seasoned the tenderloins with salt, pepper, and paprika (my favorite seasoning combo for chicken, to be honest). Once again, a quick pan fry in butter and olive oil. I don't mind the simple pleasures in life.

Between the skin and the tenderloin, I had some nice bits built up on the pan, so I deglazed with a bit of white wine and scraped it all up. Those bits are known in professional culinary circles as "flavor." You want that shit. You want it so bad. I added in a tablespoon of butter, let that melt in, then started up the veggies. The blue bowl went in first, then the black a few minutes later. I got those all sautéed up and set them aside, then the kale leaves went in for a slight wilt.

The plating was a fun little bit of presentation practice. First went a bed of kale, topped with the sautéed veggies. I poured the leftover liquid (aka a tasty little white wine butter sauce) over the veggies. I cut the tenderloins at a slight angle and put them on either side. It was pretty scrum-diddly-dumptious.

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