Thigh Expectations

By traditional teaching of psychoanalysis, the human body is everywhere an erogenous zone. No part of the body, no detail of the body, is inherently less worthy an object of erotic focus than any other. Such at least taught Sigmund Freud, but that was before the days of Telemundo, Univision, and Telefutura. 

Granted, a woman's knee caps are as much her body as a woman's bosom. But on Spanish-language television at least, the camera rarely lingers on the former while it focuses relentlessly on the latter. In the parallel universe of the telenovela the bra was never invented. As for the men, the chest also merits special attention. Sometimes a tie obstructs the view, but mostly shirts are unbuttoned a third of the way, exposing bronzed throats and pectoral muscles waxed smoother than the calves of a Brazilian swimsuit model.

On a woman I admire cleavage. On a man I admire a strong neck and shoulders. But when it comes to a chicken, it’s all about the thigh.

Don’t get me wrong. Whole chickens are definitely pretty. I like to touch them at the market. Sometimes I fantasize about roasting them. And I wouldn’t hesitate to cut one into eight pieces and bake it in a tagine. I am even liable to wonder how they would look splatch-cocked and dressed in some lemon and rosemary and a lot of salt. Chicken wings also I adore. With some good beer and a bit of encouragement I can eat fifteen easily in a sitting. But it’s the thigh that sets my heart racing. That sets my mouth watering. That turns my head. That keeps me up at night.

Compared to a chicken breast, a chicken thigh has flavor. It has color. It has a properly balanced ratio of surface area to dark-meaty interior. It has streaks of cartilage at the ends that roast to a blissfully crunchy chewy texture, a total delight to bite through. And the whole package, unlike the bastard drumstick, is distributed evenly around its good looking bone, a bone that looks like a bone should look.

Here’s a dish I prepare when I want to please myself in a crowd. The recipe is right out of Ina Garten’s Barefoot Contessa Cookbook. Chop a whole head of peeled garlic and a big chunk of peeled ginger in the food processor, add to a cup or so each of honey and soy sauce, heat until combined, cool, then use to marinate chicken for sixteen to twenty-four hours.

I roast my thighs at 350 for about 35 minutes, draining the excess fat several times, and finish them at 475 for a few minutes, turning them once or twice to darken them up evenly.

The meat is moist, the skin crisp and a touch smoky. These are irresistible at room temperature but lose none of their appeal after a day or two or three in the refrigerator. The bone pops out with a quick twist and the thigh splits open to just the right size for a sandwich. Shredded or diced this chicken never meets a chopped salad it doesn’t like.

Now if I could just figure out a way to get the writers of my current Telemundo obsession to plot a scene of Gabriel Porras eating a chicken thigh…