Cast Iron chicken thighs with a chimichurri sauce

I wanted some crispy chicken, but sometimes it’s so hard to get super juicy fried chicken, especially when I don’t own an air fryer or a deep fryer. I found the method years ago (when I was in grad school) for this chicken. I believe it was a Food and Wine recipe, but I never had a cast iron, so I always did some baked chicken. The reason why I love this recipe is that I used my new garlic infused Olive Oil that I got from allspice. Right before Iowa got hit by the polar vortex, I went to the East Village in Des Moines. Which now that I am not in education, I do not go over there as often as I like. I went on a slight spending spree (not that huge, but still). I went to “The Kitchen” a specialty store, got some awesome accessories, went to Allspice got some of their oils, and tried their Raspberry balsamic vinaigrette (it was AWESOME), checked out their spices and finished at Raygun (the greatest store in the universe). I just learned that they are a dog friendly store, so when it gets warmer my trusty office assistant Moe, will visit them. Maybe they have doggo treats. Maybe not.

Now, if you are in the Des Moines metro, I typically get my meat from Fareway, but Price chopper (where I go when I need a quick trip to get something) has some surprising good prices on meat. I got these chicken thighs for 3 dollars. Which was pretty surprising. I was also going to eat this the same day, so I jumped and grabbed it!

Here’s what I do to make these thighs:

Ingredients

6 chicken thighs
Salt & Pepper to taste
Mexican oregano (optional)
Oil (enough to coat the pan slightly, aprox 1 Tbsp); I used allspice Garlic infused Oil (YUM) I got a small bottle for 7 bucks.

Hardware

Cast iron Skillet

How to make them!

Preheat the oven to 475 degrees.
Pat dry your chicken thighs to ensure that they will get a good sear. Preheat your cast iron to medium -medium high heat .
Sear chicken thighs skin side down for about 2 minutes. Reduce to medium. Keep cooking chicken thighs skin side down for 10-12 minutes (until chicken skin fully renders down to be crispy golden color)
Flip chicken thighs (skin side up) and tranfer to oven and bake for 13 minutes. If your chicken thighs are SUPER THICK (which mine where not this time around), flip chicken and put back in the oven for max of 5 mins.

I made this chicken with a chimichurri sauce, which if you have not tried it’s essentially an Argentinian pesto. There are multiple MULTIPLE recipes out there for this sauce, but this has a more balanced flavor compared to others.

Chimicurri sauce:

Bunch of parsley, cilantro, basil
1 Tbsp of red wine vinegar
The juice of 1 lemon
3 cloves of garlic
1 medium shallot (I used 4 because they were really small)
1/4 cup of Olive oil (you can use some garlic infused oil, or just regular)
1/2 tsp of ground coriander and cumin (optional)
1 tsp of red pepper flakes
1/2 tsp of kosher salt (more if needed)

How to make it!

Completely optional: garlic shallot lemon and vinegar in a small bowl and let it chill and know each other for 5 mins.
Super lazy way: Put everything in a food processor and give it a whirl! Plus all of the herbs, shallots, and spices 3 times. Scrape the processor to combine everything and then slowly add your oil.