Roasted Chicken & Croutons with Fish-Sauce Butter-Sheet Pan Magic
I couldn’t help but tweak Eric Kim’s Roasted Chicken with Fish-Sauce Butter title. I added Croutons to the title because… lets be real, the croutons are the star of this dish. It reminds me of Roti Roti, a food truck fixture in the Bay Area. A simple winning formula of chickens roasting on a spit, dripping all that deliciousness onto a bed of potatoes below it. Well, that’s this dish but with bread and your own oven.
First, roast chicken thighs on a sheet pan (the operative words for an easy meal) in a 450-degree oven. This gives you crispy skin chicken and a pool of deliciousness aka SCHMALTZ on the pan. Then toss flakes (yes flakes, more on that later) of bread onto the pan and smoosh it around so it soaks up the chicken fat. Shove it back into the oven, and fifteen minutes later those bread flakes have morphed into golden, crunchy, umami bombs.
It’s Soooo Good
I divide the dish evenly between me and the hubsters, he gets the chicken, I get the croutons, yep, 50-50 all the way.
Let’s talk flakes. You can use any bread you like, sourdough, milk bread, or my favorite, ciabatta. The key is to tear the bread so you get shards or flakes. Cubes don’t cut it for this dish, not enough surface area. Try to tear or split the bread to form flakes for ultimate crispness.
The rest is easy-peasy. Place chicken on a sheet pan, and season with salt and pepper. Go easy with the salt as the fish sauce has salt. Drizzle olive oil on the chicken and flip each piece around to coat each piece. Roast for approximately 25 minutes. I prefer bigger pieces of chicken so the skin crisps without drying out the chicken. Pull the chicken out, there should be a nice puddle of schmaltz in the pan. Add the croutons to the pan and toss the bread in the chicken fat. Slide the pan back into the oven to crisp the croutons and finish the chicken. If the chicken is cooked through before the croutons, pull them out and continue to bake the croutons.
Meanwhile…
While the chicken and croutons are roasting, make the Fish-Sauce Butter. The sauce is genius, easy to make, and delish with just four ingredients, fish sauce (I use 3 Crab Vietnamese Fish Sauce), lemon juice, brown sugar, and BUTTER. Reduce the first 3 ingredients to a syrupy consistency. When the surface of the sauce is covered with bubbles, turn the heat off and add the chunk of COLD butter to the pan and swirl to create an emulsion.
Leave the chicken and croutons in the pan, drizzle some of the sauce on the chicken and croutons, garnish with cilantro and green onions, and bring the pan to the table. So easy. Serve the remaining sauce on the side. If you want to be fancy, transfer chicken and croutons to a serving platter.
Accompaniments? Rice, double carb, is always yummy, or I like serving it with mashed cauliflower. Another winner from Eric Kim. Sheet pan magic happening here.
Roasted Chicken and Croutons with Fish-Sauce Butter
Ingredients
- 4 bone-in skin-on chicken thighs (about 2 pounds)
- Kosher salt such as Diamond Crystal and black pepper
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- ¾ pound bread crusts removed, bread torn into bite-size pieces about 4 cups;
- 1 tablespoon dark brown sugar
- 1 tablespoon fish sauce
- 1 tablespoon lemon juice
- 3 tablespoons COLD unsalted butter kept in one piece
- Cilantro leaves with tender stems for serving
- scallions or chives, chopped garnish for serving
Instructions
- Heat oven to 450 degrees. Pat the chicken dry with paper towels and season lightly with salt and pepper. (The fish-sauce butter is plenty salty, so don’t overdo the salt here.)
- Arrange the chicken skin-side up on a sheet pan and drizzle the oil over the chicken skin, coating it evenly.
- Roast until the chicken is light gold and the sheet pan is a pool of hot, rendered chicken fat, SCHMALTZ, about 20-25 minutes.
- Take the sheet pan out of the oven, scatter the bread around the chicken. Using tongs toss gently to coat in the chicken fat.
- Place the pan back in the oven and roast until the chicken is golden, crispy and sizzling (you’ll hear it), about 15 minutes.
- While the chicken roasts, combine the brown sugar, fish sauce and lemon juice in a small saucepan and bring to a simmer over medium heat. Cook, occasionally swirling the pan or stirring the sauce with a wooden spoon, until it bubbling vigorously and the mixture has reduced by about half, 2 to 3 minutes.
- Turn off the heat and add the butter, constantly swirling the pan or stirring with a wooden spoon, until all of the butter has melted and incorporated into the fish sauce mixture. It should be a heavy syrup consistency.
- To serve, scatter the cilantro and scallions or chives over the chicken and croutons. Spoon some of the fish-sauce butter over each chicken thigh, reserving some to add to each plate for dipping the chicken and croutons while eating, so yummy.
Notes
After making this dish...go get his cookbook, Korean American, another winner.