Preheating the oven is, for probably the most half, a rip-off. Except you’re baking a recipe that features some form of leavening agent, you’re losing the power being expended by your oven as it really works to achieve its goal temperature. In some instances, gently heating your meals together with the oven even affords a number of advantages. A type of instances is bacon; one other one is rooster, particularly rooster thighs.
Very similar to bacon, rooster thighs include a great deal of fats. In contrast to bacon, additionally they include a number of connective tissue, principally collagen. Each fats and collagen do greatest with a chronic, sluggish cook dinner, which provides that thick layer of fats beneath the pores and skin time to render out, leading to crispier pores and skin. It additionally offers the collagen time to soften into gelatin, leading to a juicier, richer tasting chook.
It’s additionally sooner, since you don’t have to attend for the oven to “attain temperature.” All you need to do is marinate, brine, or season your thighs nevertheless you often would, then place them in a chilly, greased pan or skillet. Place that skillet in a chilly oven, and set the temperature to 375℉. The slowly growing warmth will gently cook dinner the rooster, render out the fats, and soften all that fantastic collagen.
After half an hour, temp the rooster with a thermometer. You desire a temperature of 170℉, so maintain cooking till you attain it. (It may take anyplace from 15-Half-hour extra, however I draw back from giving a precise cooking time right here, as a result of ovens—and the way they preheat—are so wildly inconsistent.) If the pores and skin isn’t as crispy as you please by the point it reaches that temp, go forward and pop it beneath the broiler for a couple of minutes. Serve instantly (and save any leftover rooster pores and skin for cracklins).