Chicken Thigh Skin Problem

[Richard Laiche]

Hello all,
Did a chicken thigh practice run yesterday and while I was able to achieve a good tasting thigh with bite through skin, I did have an issue with quite a few pieces. And that was with the skin tearing during the cooking process. I scraped the skin almost til it was see-through and a few pieces did have some small holes. I did affix the skin pretty tightly with toothpicks so I am wondering if the skin shrank during the cooking process and this caused a larger tear. If there is a tiny hole in the skin, is there a way to prevent this type of tear? If I keep the skin loose, will the hole close up? Any ideas?

 

[M Morrill]

Hello all,
Did a chicken thigh practice run yesterday and while I was able to achieve a good tasting thigh with bite through skin, I did have an issue with quite a few pieces. And that was with the skin tearing during the cooking process. I scraped the skin almost til it was see-through and a few pieces did have some small holes. I did affix the skin pretty tightly with toothpicks so I am wondering if the skin shrank during the cooking process and this caused a larger tear. If there is a tiny hole in the skin, is there a way to prevent this type of tear? If I keep the skin loose, will the hole close up? Any ideas?

Try it without toothpicks next time. That will help. You can also scrape all your skins first then trim the chicken. Pick your best pieces of trimmed chicken and wrap them with the best pieces of skin. You only need 6. Typically at a comp I start with 18 pieces of chicken and from that cull the best 12. that gives me 18 skins for 12 pieces.

Tiny holes will be ok but big tears wont work unless its all you have. You can hide small holes when you sauce sometimes. It also helps to position the tears by the edges as they are easier to hide in the box.

Mostly it's just practice that is going to help you. After about the 20th time you prep comp chicken you start to notice that you are no longer getting holes. Or at least you know when its time to give up on that piece of skin.

 

[Nick Matthews]

In my limited experience once there is a hole its only going to get worse. I don't secure the skin when I wrap them up and it seems like there is always one or 2 (I usually try to cook 12 at a time) that will have a small rip in the skin. I consider those my samples to try out and the rest would be for turn ins. When I rip one while cleaning I will either try to cut off the ripped part, if it is big enough to still cover the thigh or just trash the skin and keep the thigh in case I come across one I don't like.