Chicken Skin Salad?

Grocery finds: chicken thighs at Rainbow (on sale for $1.49/lb)

(additional ingredients: carrots, celery, lettuce, red onion, chicken stock, etc.)

Oh dear lord.  Let me kick off this post by saying that for me, personally, this dish didn't really do it for me.  It wasn't BAD per se, just not the typical delicious awesomeness that I end up producing.  But that is kinda the point of this blog: to try new things, and be creative.  And you know what?  I definitely think this concept has potential, so I'm sure I'll be revisiting it again in the near future.

So here's the deal--I've been reading a lot of articles and recipes online lately (salads, sandwiches, etc.) that advocate for incorporating crispy chicken skin into a dish, and I thought--hey!  What a great idea.  My friend's mom used to refer to chicken skin as 'Jewish bacon' (which I thought was hilarious), and I don't know about you--but I love me a nice piece of chicken with crispy, crackly, delicious skin (whether it's fried, breaded, broiled, etc.--it is usually the best part!)

Here is a tumblr on chicken skin that I found particularly interesting, and would encourage ya'll to check out if this whole concept intrigues (and/or horrifies) you!

What I did:  I had this HUGE pack of chicken thighs, it was a hot day, and I decided to dump them all into the crock for a few hours.  I peeled off all the chicken skin first, and saved it (note: I felt really creepy carefully setting aside a ziploc bag of chicken skin in my refrigerator); since crock-pot chicken skin gets mushy, renders extra fat, and ends up looking pale and sad, it doesn't really need to be in the crock with the rest of the vittles.  I added some carrots, onions, potatoes, and chicken stock.  Seasoned it up a bit, and left it alone for 6 hours while I mopped the floors, emailed my mother, and watched the Season Two DVD extras of LOST.  And if that is not the saddest, most pathetic line in the history of...the world, then I don't know what is.  What a loser!

Black Beauty in all her glory, full of thighs

At any rate, we ate the crock-pot meal a couple nights ago.  Can I just say, as an aside--I really love crock-pots in the summer.  Here in Minnesota, the summer humidity is a superbitch, so cooking in a little crock plugged into the countertop is a way better option than heating up an entire oven.

Yesterday, I thought I'd take some of the leftover chicken and make a salad.  Additionally, I thought I'd dredge and fry up some of that reserved chicken skin real crispy, season it, and add it to the salad.  My thought process was: salad croutons suck, but the texture is nice, so why not add crispy chicken skin in lieu of croutons?

Not the 'healthiest' crouton...

So I did, and I threw together a salad of lettuce, chicken, red onion, carrots, cucumber, and green olive. I made a light lemon garlic vinaigrette, cut the chicken skin into strips, and tossed it all together.  Here is my chicken skin salad:

As you can see, it turned into quite the beautiful little salad!  So pretty!  So robust, and full of color!  So full of potential!  But the taste?  So...blah.

The Verdict

That's right, kiddies, the chicken skin salad just didn't have a lot of flavor.  The crunch was great, but everything else kind of fell flat.  Don't get me wrong....like I said before, it wasn't BAD, just not...great.  The bar is high here, I guess, at this point.  I mean, it was a salad.  With chicken skin in it.  And I wanted it to be transcendent, and soooo delicious, and...it was a salad.  With chicken skin in it.  Oh well.

Taste: 5

Appearance: 7

Creativity: 7

Improvements for next time: I have a theory that the crispy chicken skin would be much better served as a stacking component on a chicken salad sandwich (bread, chicken salad, crispy chicken skin, lettuce, bread...or something of that ilk).  I've also read online that chicken skin is really good with stone fruits, so maybe I'll have to grab a peach or something at the grocery store and give it a whirl.  Stay tuned!