Jolt Country

Once I am convicted and sentenced to death, it will be my last meal. Until then, I hope to have it as much as I can. My wife can even stand it occasionally, so when she says "how about t---" I'm already jumping for joy.

This meal has three ingredients, is cheap, and easy.

I wish it was not my favorite meal. I wish my favorite meal was vegetarian. I wish my favorite meal was exotic and strange and rare. I wish my meal required years of training in advanced cooking techniques. I wish my favorite meal (and hell, myself) had more sex appeal.

But it isn't, it isn't, it doesn't, and it doesn't. So here's what we're left with:

BEN'S FAMOUS TERIYAKI CHICKEN & RICE
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1 pack of these:



1 bottle of this:



Some of this:



1 bowl or bag for marinating.
1 grill or broiler.



DIRECTIONS:
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Poke a bunch of holes in the thighs with a fork (optional), put in a bowl or bag, pour in teriyaki sauce to cover, and let marinate for at least two hours.

Heat up grill on MAX.

Make some rice.

Drain marinade and grill thighs on MAX for about 3-4 minutes a side, to get some nice black grill marks on there.

Lower grill heat to med-low, and/or place thighs in an indirect heating position for another 7-8 minutes a side until chicken is done and has started to turn darker, as the sugar from the teriyaki caramelizes.

Serve chicken with two scoops of the rice. Add your favorite hot sauce if you'd like.

That's it.

44 years of eating, that's the best I can do.

I have a bit more to say on this tomorrow, as well as updating the images, but I still think it's my favorite thing.

I look forward to this very much.

I made some the other day with chopped up breast meat on a sticks in the oven. Turned out outstanding. The 2 hour marinating time really is key.

Okay, so, as stated, this is still my favorite thing, and goes back to what I was saying about cooking being bullshit. This has three ingredients -- two, if you only count the chicken, and one of them is a bottle of store-bought sauce. No chopping, no ZESTING OF LEMONS, no fancy technique. And it's the best.

To review, the ingredients are:

1.


2.


3. Rice.

I would change virtually nothing about the original recipe, except for these two things:

1. Marinate longer if possible. What I do is just buy the stuff in the morning, throw it in a bag, throw the bag in the fridge, and by dinnertime, it's perfect.
2. Leave it under indirect heat for longer than I said. I'd say 20 minutes minimum, but with thighs it's almost impossible to overcook them, so I've done closer to 30 minutes as well. Just gets darker and darker and better and better.

If it's not grilling season, I do it in reverse order in the oven. Bake at 350 for 20 minutes, then broil for a couple minutes per side to get the char. But grillin's the way to go if you got it.

Hell yeah. That's the same sauce I use. I noticed recently they have a yakitori sauce. I've always made my own but not having to have both saki and murin on hand is a plus if the yakitori sauce is as good as the teriyaki.

Traditional yakitori is almost just as easy once you've got the sauce. After marinating, you just alternate pieces of chicken with green onion on skewers. Even nothing but chicken SKIN on a stick done in this fashion tastes amazing.

Shit yeah. And that's the same sauce we've got here, too. We've all gone our different ways and lived different lives, but it's comforting to know we can all agree on wholesome chicken thighs and a ten-ounce bottle of everyday teriyaki sauce.

We've been opting for the chicken thigh package with the extended cab option, so there's thighs available for days and days. Eventually the rice fell away and now we just rough chop the thighs and char 'em up in the pan. Why, you can sear up a few batches and have plenty to munch on throughout the week. Chicken Bites, we called them. Somehow that morphed into Chicken Biddies. A fine anytime snack. They even make great dog-getters.