Chicken Little

Somehow, my friends and I miraculously missed the line at Pies 'N Thighs last night. It helps to know the people who make the chicken. As it was my first time at this famed establishment, the group suggested I order the Fried Chicken Box, a three-piece fried set (what pieces you get seem dictated by chance), which comes with a buttery biscuit and choice of one side. Chance fell in my favor: I ended up with two thighs and a bone-in breast. The exterior of PNT chicken is pretty much crispy chicken heaven. New York is no groundbreaker when it comes to the stuff, but no matter. Any southern food worshipper can get a fix in Billyburg.

The sides? The sides were fine. Macaroni and cheese was a slight disappointment, with a grainy and broken cream sauce. My watermelon and cucumber salad was assaulted with a little too much mint, an assertive flavor that tends towards the vegetal in excess. Deep-fried zucchini was the perfect mix of savory and sweet, enclosed in a thin and delicate batter and dressed with honey. Biscuits, if you like that sort of thing, were a standout, too. "These are the real thing," a co-eater exclaimed. It's all about the butter. The other ladies ordered the chicken on a biscuit, one white breast with a hit of spice served in the middle of one of those buttery biscuits and topped with honey or maple syrup (it was hard to tell which). The biscuit meal is less food than the three piece and less money, too, and if it hadn't been my maiden voyage, I may have gone down that road, too.

My watermelon agua fresca proved the perfect respite from the spicy Frank's Red Hot that came drizzled atop my thighs. But what rounded out my meal completely was that final piece, a sour cherry hand pie, which is a polite way of saying that it was deep-fried. Call it a turnover, call it a slice, call it whatever you like. What it was, in its simplicity and brilliance, was a sour cherry pocket doused in hot oil and topped with powdered sugar. What better way to bid adieu to cherry season and to summer?

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Pies 'N Thighs

166 South 4th Street

Brooklyn, NY 11211

347.529.6090

The Minimalist

For dinner last night, I stole a recipe that appeared on Mark Bittman's blog, Bitten, last week. I say "stole" because I adapted it so completely that it's almost a different recipe. Almost.

I had actually stumbled upon Bittman's recipe for savory oatmeal on SeriousEats.com, a website dedicated to both restaurant and home-prepared cuisine. The recipe was simple: cook one cup of dried oats (just regular old oatmeal; steel cut oats take nearly four times as long to cook) in two cups water along with a dash of sea or kosher salt for seasoning. When the water reaches a boil, stir the oatmeal and lower the heat, stirring frequently for five minutes until the water is mostly absorbed. Add two tablespoons of soy sauce and one tablespoon of fresh chopped scallion, stirring both into the mixture. Take the oatmeal off the heat and pour into a bowl, garnishing with a final tablespoon of chopped scallions.

The recipe sounded good (and easy) enough, but why not go farther, I thought. I substituted the soy sauce for tamari and added an additional teaspoon of toasted sesame oil and teaspoon of Frank's red hot. Sriracha would have been more appropriate here, but I didn't have any on hand. I topped this dish with a soft-boiled egg (easier to prepare than poached, but similar in concept). The final result was something approximating congee, a thick porridge that was salty, spicy, and not over-the-top gooey. The egg made the oatmeal more of a meal, adding much-needed protein. And the runny yolk was perfect in the middle of all that spice and tamari.

Savory oatmeal, an idea I had never really considered too deeply, seems like the perfect quick fix for lunch or dinner. I'm thinking of experimenting with other presentations. Bittman also mentioned an oatmeal he enjoyed in Italy, topped with tapenade and olive oil. Delicious.