Last week, when I did our grocery shopping, I spotted something nifty:
It’s a citrus fruit thing called Buddha’s hand, and I had to get it. I just love trying out new and strange produce. Heh, just ask my mother for stories of shopping with me as a kid and begging for a star fruit or some other foreign looking botanical specimen. (Back then star fruit was really strange, and I remember the first time we started seeing kiwis on offer and marketed with special little spoons. It was the boonies, okay?) Anyway, I didn’t realise that there wasn’t going to be any fruity pulp to try, but luckily I planned to do something involving the zest as I shopped. Often I’ll make a lemon based marinade, so I figured that work with this thing, and grilling sounded tasty… maybe shrimp kebobs?
I ended up with boneless chicken thighs. I’d also planned on getting a pork loin to cure, but the store wasn’t running any specials (as they always seem to usually, darn it!) Chicken was dirt cheap though, and after some consideration I went for it. I’m not a big fan of chicken. Generally I kind of dislike it even, and I only prepare it a couple of times a year. Usually I bake thighs covered a bit of mayonnaise, dill, scallions or onion, black pepper, paprika, and garlic salt. Occasionally I’ll dredge cutlets in coconut flour for a sort of schnitzel. Other than soup I think that is pretty much it. I’m just not into chicken.
Once I finished putting away the groceries I threw the thighs into a bowl with thin slices of the Buddha’s hand, the juice of a few lemons (after seeing there was no pulp in this thing,) a bunch of garlic salt, a little black pepper, and a little bittersweet Spanish paprika. My idea was to kind of brine it, I guess, hence more salt than usual and put it in the fridge for a few hours before grilling. I didn’t even photograph this since I didn’t plan to blog anything about it.
But it turned out to taste AMAZING.
This was days ago, so describing it is difficult, but L and I were really, really, really surprised and amazed at just how delicious this chicken was. The flavour ended up penetrating through beautifully, every bite had a delicate and tangy goodness with a bit of the grill char too. Freaking awesome.
This isn’t pretty, but I did take a photo of the chicken after grilling, because I tasted a bite and was wowed. I don’t even remember what was in the foil, shishito pepper? Yeah, shishitos with olive oil and salt:
So, the point of this post is to encourage you to try cooking with Buddha’s hand. Figure out what went right with my experiment, or Google for recipes, but do try it if you ever see it in the shop.
domesticmonkey 