We had a surfeit of chicken thighs lately because they’ve been on sale, and I was running out of ideas on how to cook them, when I stumbled onto this recipe. (Thank you again, Elise.) It turned out so good that even Jess, who normally dislikes dark meat, approved.

Here is the recipe that I ended up using after slight tweaks:

Chicken Paprikash

Ingredients
8 pieces chicken thighs
2 tbsp butter, softened
2 garlic cloves, crushed
2 small onions, thinly sliced into half rings
1 tbsp sweet Hungarian paprika
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup water

Method

1. Preheat oven to 450˚ F. Mash softened butter and garlic together. Stuff mixture under the skin of thighs and spread as evenly as possible.
2. Mix together onions, paprika, salt, and water. Spread on bottom layer of a baking pan. Place chicken thighs on top.
3. Bake for 10 minutes. Then lower heat to 350˚ F and bake for a half hour until done.
4. Serve with sauce.

(This picture is for you, Jing.)

On a whim tonight, I decided to make fishsticks. This is the kind of thing that would appall my mom if she were here. In my mom’s world, fishsticks fall squarely in the center of the American junkfood category, right next to anything with cheese in, over, or around it (my mom is very much a classic Chinese parent in this way). In an attempt to restore some dignity to this food, I made a version tonight with leftover hollandaise sauce + and panko breadrumbs, oven-fried in olive oil.

If you don’t have hollandaise sauce, you should use mayo + some water or malt vinegar to dilute it. In fact, the original recipe called for this, but I decided to be frugal and use something that needed to be used up. =) I feel such a deep sense of accomplishment whenever I empty another container out of the fridge!

Here is the original recipe:

Crunchy Panko Fishsticks

Ingredients
1 lb firm white fish, cut into strips
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1 to 2 tbsp malt vinegar or lemon juice
1 cup panko
some salt and pepper, if you like

Method

1. Preheat oven to 425˚ F.
2. Mix together the mayo, vinegar or lemon juice, and salt and pepper to taste. If eating some plain mayo disgusts you, you need to enjoy life more. =)
3. Dunk fish one piece at a time in this mixture, then roll around in the panko and press firmly to get the pieces to stick.
4. Grease a cookie sheet with some olive oil or butter, place the fishsticks on it, and bake for about 15 min (longer if your fish is thick). I did not turn halfway because I don’t like it when the crust falls off, and it turned out fine, just slightly more browned on one side than the other.
5. Eat with some homemade cocktail sauce!