Chicken thighs with garlic and thyme butter with Northern Rock Faith

It is said that we all "stand on the shoulders of giants" and this is never more true than when looking at cooking. Those of us who take ourselves a little too seriously in the kitchen find ourselves looking at the same gods and goddesses of the culinary arts for inspiration. If you are a Brit of a certain age who likes to cook its hard to find yourself going much beyond the genius that is Nigel Slater.

The dish below is very firmly based on one of his earlier acts of genius. This is not a  perfectly produced copy of what Mr Slater wrote but it is so close that I am not taking any credit for its invention.

• Chicken thighs (enough for two each, make sure you have the skin on)
• Butter
• Crushed garlic
• Dried thyme

The first thing to do is to take the bone out of the thighs. This takes a bit of practice but pretty soon one becomes quite good at it! You should now have lovely flat pieces of meat with skin on one side. heat a tiny bit of the butter in a frying pan. When the butter is foaming add the thighs, skin side down. Fry until golden and crisp then turn over. In the mean time, mash up the rest of the butter with the crushed garlic and thyme. Make sure that the chicken is cooked through then pop on a plate smothered in the butter. 

I served it with dauphinoise potatoes and Brussel sprouts with bacon and chestnuts. These will appear in later matches around Christmas and New Year.

The Match

Northern Monk produce great beer. Faith is one of their classic brews. It is a genuine Hazy IPA coming in at 5.4%. It matched the, garlic heavy, dinner beautifully. With a solid malty spine topped off with an American hop finish it made all the ingredients sing a little. Its rich mouthfeel even worked well with the buttery fattiness of the dish.

Just as an aside, Northern Monk produce a superb lower alcohol IPA called Striding Edge (2.8% alcohol). It's perfect for a midweek beer followed by a morning with no consequences.   

The joys of getting back to the start.

I do not, nor have I ever owned a dishwasher. The kitchen at Corner Cottage, much like the rest of this lovely home, is small. There is no space for a dishwasher. As somebody who worked as a chef before he really cooked at home I was a bit of a late starter when it came to washing up. For many years it was a task to be avoided until either I or my flatmate finally cracked and went into a 3 hour frenzy to get the kitchen back into shape.
The tiny kitchen in our cottage and the clear standards set by the Beautiful Wife have meant that I have left those lazy days behind. As the kitchen is my domain, I too take the majority of the responsibility for the washing up and slowly, very slowly it is a process that I have grown to love.
Nigel Slater writes in his wonderful book Appetite about the "contented murmur of a full dishwasher from somewhere behind you in the kitchen" at the end of a night. This is not an experience I expect to have. He also talks of how washing up by hand "could be faintly relaxing, especially if you have got the water to the perfect temperature and were taking your time over it".
My experience of washing up is one of getting back to the start point. There is something slightly heroic about entering your kitchen for the first time in the day and seeing everything in its place, everything clean and eager for action, everything just ready. Knowing that my kitchen is ready for its (and my) next adventure is a source of both deep satisfaction and excitement to me. Once I know my cooking space is ready for tomorrow I can sit down and plan. I always feel that, if the kitchen is not ready, then I am not allowed to think about the next meal.
Towards the end of the Great Gatsby, when the whole glorious world has come to an end, the narrator talks of someone turning up at Gatsby's house who was "probably some final guest who had been away at the ends of the earth and didn't know that the party was over." Washing up waiting to happen, seems to me like the people who don't know when its time to go home, they need to be washed and placed back where they belong and then I can relax, with the Beautiful wife and maybe a cat or two.