Crispy Chicken Thigh with a Steamer Unit. Yes, Steamer!

~ Baked Crispy Chicken Thigh ~

Whenever you crave for crispy chicken, do you associate it with a whole chicken prepared by a Chinese restaurant? I do until I tried baking it on my own. The “best value” crispy chicken in whole I have ever had by far was at a hotel’s Chinese restaurant when I was residing in Miri, one of the oil & gas town in East Malaysia. It is the only food me and my hubby would crave for from time to time. Since we are unable to find a replacement, I begun making my own version of Crispy Chicken, not in whole but in parts.

I understand that an authentic Chinese Style Crispy Chicken requires a lot of preparation work beforehand. The chicken cleaned is poached, dipped into vinegar and maltose before they are hung to air-dried for as long as an hour to ensure all the moist is removed from the chicken before deep-frying it for the crispy effect on the skin. With such lengthy process, it is no surprise that this is one of the priciest dishes available at a Chinese restaurant.

Most of the time, being able to prepare daily home-cooked meals in the midst of hectic lifestyle is already a luxury to the family. Therefore, all my cooking comes simple but healthy and tasty with the AMC Premium Cookware System. There is no way I can clone the restaurant style Crispy Chicken which requires such a long preparation process. However, I can make a simplified ones.

I learnt from my mum that I can just use a steamer unit stacked on a pot and bake with the Navigenio turned upside down for a homemade version of Crispy Chicken. Yes, a Steamer unit! As the baking process goes on, excess water or moist are collected in the Pot placed underneath the Steamer unit. That’s how the skin is made crispy without the lengthy preparation process. I was thrilled when I first discovered this.

The chicken skin was so crispy without being deep-fried while the chicken meat was so tender and succulent. That was zero oil added to the already fatty chicken. Can you imagine how much less fats we consume just by tweaking the cooking method enabled by the AMC Premium Cookware System? With that said, we do not even have to tolerate with the good taste of food whilst cooking healthily.

Baked Crispy Chicken Thigh Recipe (Serves 2) :

1. 2 boneless Chicken Legs, approximately 250 grams each (fats trimmed, skin on)
2. 1 teaspoon Salt
3. 1 teaspoon Black Pepper/ Chilli Pepper

AMC Healthy Cooking Method :

1. Place marinated chicken thigh skin side down in an AMC 20cm Steamer unit, stacked onto a compatible 20cm Pot unit.
2. Cover Steamer unit with Navigenio turned upside down on low heat level “-” and set Audiotherm on for 10 minutes to bake.
3. When Audiotherm beeps, remove Navigenio. Turn chicken thigh to the other side, skin side up. Cover Steamer unit with Navigenio turned upside down on high heat level “=” and set Audiotherm on for 6 minutes to make crispy skin.
4. When Audiotherm beeps, turn off both Navigenio & Audiotherm.

Tips : Most if not all deep-frying recipes may be replaced with a fatless cooking method. The AMC Navigenio can be used to bake any of such day-to-day recipes, generally between 10 to 30 minutes. That is a much less energy consumption, contributing to a friendlier environment, as compared to a conventional oven. Needless to say, savings in our precious time and efforts too!