18 replies to this topic

[Soup]

I've been buying whole birds this winter and cutting it myself. I find it cheaper and I have the carcass left over to make some great stock (I have pot going right now). But I don't use skin in my stock (I wonder it will improve it?). Anyway what can I do with the left over chicken skin? I have a bunch saved in a zip lock bag in my freezer.

Soup

[prasantrin]

Fry it and eat it as a snack (like pork rinds). Personally, I like it sprinkled with a bit of salt and Fiipino-style garlic and chile vinegar and eaten with freshly cooked rice. But if I don't have rice, I'll dip it in ketchup.

Then you can use the fat rendered from the frying for other good stuff like making hash browns or similar.

[Chef Jonny]

If you're a bit worried about too much fat in your stock, here's a trick you can use to still add the chicken skin. In a deep pan with parchment layed out and flowing over the edges(this will create a lot of smoke and excess fat...), put a wire tray inside the pan, the skin on top and roast the skin until it's nice and crispy. You'll notice a lot of fat rendered off - it's your discression if you want to keep that or feed it to the wildlife. Then, add that to the stock - it'll create a very nice flavor to the broth.

[scubadoo97]

I was recently boning a batch of chicken thighs and took a few of the skins and scraped most of the fat out with a knife then placed them in a hot pan to further render any fat and crisp them up. No grease on the tongue and they were really good. My wife refused to even try one. Oh well.

[Nicholas Ellan]

Last time I had this problem, we wrapped prawns in chicken skin and deep-fried them. Ridiculous, but tasty.

Seconding rendering them - you end up with tasty chicken fat and tasty chicken cracklings. It's not duck, but it'll do. :)

[heidih]

Last time I had this problem, we wrapped prawns in chicken skin and deep-fried them. Ridiculous, but tasty.

Brilliant! It is on "the list"

[catdaddy]

Last time I had this problem, we wrapped prawns in chicken skin and deep-fried them. Ridiculous, but tasty.

Brilliant! It is on "the list"

Wow that sounds fabulous. I will try this.

[_john]

yakitori

[Blether]

You can also put the skins in your stock as is. You'll end up with a layer of fat that comes off most easily after you chill the whole thing. That's no more hassle than pre-rendering, so long as the one chilling fits your timetable.

I've made a wine stew from skin-on chicken breasts in the past, where I rendered the fat from the (separated) skins in a frying pan and used it in the stew (no skin in the stew, but fat to help the prone-to-dryness meat).

I second the thought of chicken fat in cooking - great for roast spuds, of course, and I've used it successfully in pastry for chicken pies / turnovers. Particularly with the price of butter & packaged lard around here, I see this last as quite a boon - to be getting pastry almost 'for free'.

[Edward J]

Used to get in a case of fryers a week and break them down--boned out brsts, drumsticks, b'less thighs, etc. I'd portion up the bones in bags and freeze them, every day the cooks would pull out a bag, use the last days (now thawed in the cooler) to make stock for daily soup.

All the skin, and visible bits of fat went for "Schmalz". I'd grind up the skin and fat with aromatic vegetables in the meat grinder, toss the mix into a pot with water and herbs and render it down. This got used for many purposes, but the main one was sauteing soup vegetables in.

[KingLear]

I keep all the extra skin and fat every time I break down a chicken. Don't forget to take the skin and fat off the backbone - that's the best part. I save it all in freezer bags.

When I have lots, I thaw the skin/fat, cut it into fairly even 1"-2" pieces, then put the pieces in a skillet over low heat. I add a thinly sliced onion and keep cooking it all down (rendering) until all that's left is liquid fat and crispy cracklin'/chicharrones/gribenes (all basically the same thing). It could take a couple of hours - just don't let the skin burn.

Strain the fat into a clean jar and place in the fridge. That's schmaltz and it will keep for ages. Use it to cook eggs, chicken, whatever - it has tremendous depth of flavor. Place the gribenes (crispy chicken skin and onions) on paper towels to absorb the surface fat, then sprinkle with salt. They keep for days in the fridge (although they won't last that long), while magically retaining their crunch.

[Foodietopo]

+1 on the yakitori. It's sometime no crispy enough for my taste, but I found a couple shops where the skin is really crispy. I've never made it at home, but it should be pretty easy to just skewer some skin and BBQ them. Each store has it's own sauce, but the base of yakitori is usually saké, sugar and soy sauce.

[_john]

+1 on the yakitori. It's sometime no crispy enough for my taste, but I found a couple shops where the skin is really crispy. I've never made it at home, but it should be pretty easy to just skewer some skin and BBQ them. Each store has it's own sauce, but the base of yakitori is usually saké, sugar and soy sauce.

There are two ways to get it crispy. Air dry the skin, skewer, then grill. Second way: deep fry then grill. I like mine with salt.

you can sandwich the skin between two sheet pans and bake it to make skin chips as well.

[Mikels]

I add the chicken skins to bags I keep in the freezer. Because of the work involved, I do the following only a few times a year and process about 10-20 pounds of skin.

I semi-thaw the clumps of chicken skins to make cutting easier, then cut them into 1/2" cubes. I boil them in water for a few hours to extract the fat and collagen. Then, I remove the bits of skin and slowly roast them in the oven until crisp (placing them on paper towels helps wick away the fat. I skim off as much of the fat as possible and further reduce the water. Then I add back the fat and cool until I have a solid fat layer. I pack the water layer, which contains gelatin, into small containers and freeze, adding it to soups and sometimes stews for an improved mouth feel.

Usually, there is some junk attached to the lower part of the frozen block of fat, so I reboil the fat to clean it up, then chill it. I drive off the excess water from the fat layer and use for cooking. Because the fat is almost flavorless, you may want to flavor it with some garlic and onion.

The crisped bits of skin are added to dishes to add crunch. To add additional flavor to them, I will fry some garlic in some of the fat and fry the skins before roasting. You can also add onions at the same time. While the skins will keep for weeks in the fridge (if they last that long) you can increase their shelf life if you pour some of the melted fat over them.

Although it seems like quite a bit of work, the active part is usually quite small.

[Nyleve Baar]

Why wouldn't you leave the skin in the stock pot? It has flavour and probably other things also. If you're going to be chilling and removing the fat from the stock anyway, it's no more trouble to have a little more to take off.

Alternative - rendering the fat and creating crisp, addictive, murderously delicious chicken cracklings. My personal kryptonite. I rarely do this, despite the usefulness of chicken fat, because I can't stop myself from eating them and, really, it's too much.

[Pam R]

I always add the skin to the stock pot, but you could use it as a wrapper. There's an old peasant dish that made a stuffing and then stuffed it into the skin from a turkey neck. If you have large pieces of skin you could make up some sort of stuffing, roll it up and pin it closed then cook.

[Toliver]

I think this was once mentioned in another discussion but you could wrap the skin around a cannelloni tube and deep fry it. Once fried and drained remove the mold/tube and pipe them full of your favorite mashed potato recipe. Serve immediately to retain crispness.

[Anna N]

I think this was once mentioned in another discussion but you could wrap the skin around a cannelloni tube and deep fry it. Once fried and drained remove the mold/tube and pipe them full of your favorite mashed potato recipe. Serve immediately to retain crispness.

Oh my - know exactly what to do with any chicken skin now - that is if I don't crisp it and eat it right away.

[helenjp]

Hmmm...apparently chicken skin makes good rat bait!