Happy 2nd Cake Day, International Wota (Part 1)
Last year, I posted two bakery-related videos from MiniMoni at this blog’s predecessor, Stuck In A Pagoda With Motoko Aoyama, and a post with more substantial food over at So Hot She Shits Fire. Since there’s no way I’m going to repost those videos (or make that joke about the kind of pie people were getting from certain ex-MiniMoni’s around the time of that post), I’m going to do things in reverse: First, here at the Pagoda, some more substantial food, since there’s going to be a boatload of cake going around the IW circuit (I’ve already seen Vee’s at the time I wrote these posts, and it looked multilple levels of great to me). Specifically, one of my favorite chicken recipes:
SMOKED PAPRIKA CHICKEN THIGHS
First, we start off with some music to accompany the food prep: in this case, my iPod in its JBL speaker/dock delivering the Cramps’ first long-player Songs The Lord Taught Us (RIP, Lux Interior).
While Lux’s vocals and Ivy’s guitars permeate the air of my kitchen, we gather the ingredients:
- 10 – 12 boneless, skinless chicken thighs (appx. 2 packages)
- Extra virgin olive oil
- Smoked paprika
- Kosher or sea salt
- Cracked pepper
On the day I shot the photos for this post, I only made half the recipe, enough for one person (me!). One package of chicken thighs should feed two people, but these are so addictive that often it ends up being one package per person.
Preheat oven to 350°F. Lightly coat the bottom of the baking dish with the olive oil. Open up the chicken thighs as much as possible and arrange in the dish (it is perfectly okay to have the thighs touching together). Cover the thighs with smoked paprika, but not so much that you can’t see the original color of the chicken underneath.
Sprinkle pinches of kosher or sea salt onto the thighs to taste. (Yes, that is an Alton Brown salt container of my very own, filled with kosher salt. Alton is the man. Fans of any other Food Network star that isn’t Raechel Ray or Masaharu Morimoto from Iron Chef can e-mail toughshit@thegroovemusiclife.com!)
With a peppermill, add the pepper to taste. Sprinkle the thighs with olive oil. Bake uncovered for at least 45 minutes or until the internal temperature of the thighs reaches the standard 165°F.
Serve immediately. Devour like you’re Edward Cullen and the chicken is Bella Swann.
For those of you that still want cake, some special cake is being served over at So Hot She Shits Fire…
