[Photographs: Vicky Wasik]
Adapted from Kenji’s grilled skirt steak fajitas recipe—with its rich and flavorful lime, soy sauce, and cumin-spiced marinade—this version reworks the recipe using chicken thighs instead of steak and alters the technique so that all you need is an oven and a single sheet pan. Because it’s all cooked on a large half-sheet pan, it’s perfect for feeding a larger group, plus the prep and cleanup are kept to a minimum.
While you could use boneless, skinless chicken breasts in this recipe (we’ve tested it; it works), our preferred option here is chicken thighs. The dark meat is less prone to drying out with high heat, which gives you more time to properly brown the chicken under the broiler, without having to worry too much about overcooking.
The recipe also gives the option of using a preheated baking steel or stone to brown the chicken from the bottom at the same time (a sheet pan, even when preheated, is too thin to brown the chicken on its own, and therefore needs the help from the mass of a baking steel or stone). It’s fine if you don’t have one, though, you can just flip the chicken to broil the second side until browned instead. (Don’t be alarmed if your sheet pan buckles when on the hot steel or stone; in our experience, a good aluminum rimmed baking sheet always returns to its normal form on its own.)
As with all sheet-pan recipes, it’s important to know your oven well and to adjust accordingly. Some broilers are underpowered, in which case you may be better off using only a preheated baking steel or baking stone with the oven at its highest heat setting. Others may be unusually strong, in which case you may need to lower the oven rack just a bit (if you use a baking stone with an oven rack at its highest position, it’s possible you won’t have the clearance to insert your sheet pan below the broiler element; in that case, lower the oven rack as needed).
Published at Mon, 20 Jan 2020 10:30:19 +0000
