Chicken Braised in Chocolate Milk
Here served with rice, roasted cauliflower, and the crema recipe below!
Sometimes I hear about a recipe that just seems so strange and so outrageous that I have to try it. Such was the case when Hank found a recipe for chicken braised in chocolate milk on the Washington Post website. This actually comes from a Food 52 cookbook and is posted on their website, exactly the same as on the Washington Post. You can find the recipe by clicking on one of the links above.
One suggestion from the Washington Post is to use good quality chocolate milk, which, of course, we can get from High Lawn Farm. The recipe calls for 1 cup, but it’s sold by the pint, so we actually made it twice! Other ingredients include chili powder and jalapeño peppers, but don’t think that those together with the chocolate flavor make a mole. This is nothing like a mole, so don’t be scared off if you don’t like mole.
Pulled off the bone ready to wrap in a tortilla with avocado, pickled ramps, and more crema!
Rather it is a pretty easy recipe, and we were quite happy with it, but I do have some comments to share. I decided to turn the chicken thighs part way through the cooking time, and then turn them back over toward the end, finishing skin side up. In addition, I found the need to cook it uncovered for the last 10 minutes or so for the sauce to reduce. I also used a small ladle to baste the chicken occasionally during these last 10 minutes. The original recipe, on the Food 52 website, claims that the milk will not curdle, but it does! Or at least it did for me. It’s still delicious, but it won’t necessarily look beautiful.
And this leads me to my next criticism of the recipe, both in the Washington Post and on Food 52 – It does not look like the photograph! This is a pet peeve of mine, when the photograph doesn’t look anything like the one published with the recipe! I understand that I may not have a wide array of elegant and interesting dishes, and I rarely use garnishes when I plate a dish, but, still, the end result should look somewhat like the published photo. In the Food 52 picture, there are 5 chicken thighs and the recipe only calls for 4! I have learned that food stylists often do not take pictures of a dish as it was actually cooked, but rather will change the recipe to make sure it photographs well. I do understand that they want the photo to entice the reader to cook the recipe, but most readers also use the visual for guidance on how to cook it.
We’ve now eaten this with rice, in a tortilla, and with macaroni and cheese. I decided it would be good with some sour cream, and turned to a recent cookbook, Amá, for an idea. There I found a charred green onion crema, with a variation for key lime. Instead of just one, I used both flavors, but used grilled ramps that I had foraged in place of the green onions.
Lime and Grilled Ramp Crema
Makes 1 cup
4-6 ramps, cleaned and trimmed, or 2-3 green onions
Pinch of salt
1 teaspoon olive oil
1 cup sour cream
½ lime, zest and juice
Place the ramps in a small dish and sprinkle with salt. Drizzle the olive oil on the bulbs and stems only. (The leaves cook too fast with oil on them.)
Preheat the grill to high, then turn down to medium. Place the ramps on the grill with the bulbs over the hotter area and the leaves over the less hot area. Grill the ramps, watching closely for 1-2 minutes, until they begin to char. If using green onions, grill for 3-5 minutes until the bulbs soften and the green portions begin to char.
Place the sour cream in a small mixing bowl. Chop the bulbs, stems, and leaves of the ramps, and add to the sour cream. Zest the half lime right into the bowl, and then squeeze in the juice. Mix and taste for seasoning. Add a pinch of salt or more lime juice if desired.
