Rhubarb Roasted Chicken and Potatoes With Crispy Kale Chips

Photo: Lisa Fountain

Ingredients

4 chicken bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs (about 1 lb)

12 small red potatoes (not pictured — sorry!)

several sprigs of fresh rosemary

1 bunch kale

1 pound fresh rhubarb

1/4 cup honey

1/4 cup sugar

EVOO

sea salt

cracked black pepper

Preparation

First, I set the oven to a healthy 400 degrees.

Then, I dig into my potatoes. These are actually leftover from another meal; I had a perfect amount of these little guys left for one more party.

Then I cut their little outfits into middrifts and low-waisters. Read: I skinned their middles out.

Next, I wash, pat dry, salt, pepper, and chugalug EVOO over my lovely thighs. My lovely chicken thighs, that is.

I stud my thighs with little spud balls and shove some rosemary sprigs in all the gaps and crannies. Then I glugachug another douse of EVOO over the whole dish for good measure, before setting it into my hot oven for 30 minutes to roast.

While my chicken and potatoes roast, I dress my trimmed rhubarb with my honey and sugar, then I set this mess aside to soak bask and absorb in its cross-cultural deliciousness.

Then, I cut the stems and hard spines off my kale, before washing and spinning it thoroughly and drying it even more thoroughly with paper towels. Kale is so sturdy, you can squeeze it in between sheets of papers to absorb all the water sticking to the leaves. Make sure it’s good and dry, and make sure you break out only the finest of your EVOOs to douse it with. I thank the Doctor again for his gracious donation to Lolita’s kitchen.

I dress my kale carefully with my EVOO, not just tossing the leaves in oil, but using my fingers to rub each curly surface completely until the entire surface, on both sides, is glossy. I spread these leaves out single layer on two cookie sheets.

After 30 minutes, my chicken has begun to brown, my potatoes are almost tender to the forkpierce, and the EVOO and chickenfatO are sizzling on the porcelain surface. It’s time to add the sweet to this succulence.

Using tongs, I pick up and move my chicken thighs and potaotes out of the way only in order to layer my honeysweetened rhubarb underneath them. I set this platter — rhubarb topped with chicken studded with spuds and rosemary and sizzling in fats — back into the oven, alongside my sheet pans of oiled kale, for final 15 minutes.

My simply spiced salt and pepper chicken has crisp skin and its own amazing flavor. My spuds are silky tender in the center, with crisp blistered skin on the edges. The rhubarb has softened and sweetened, but is also tart and structured, toothsome and tender. The kale is so surprisingly crispy and ethereal; at the last moment, I sprinkled it with sea salt, and it crackles like paper, thin like the finest spun sugar, charred on the ruffles like the lace edges of a fine doily caught too close to the flame. This is a meal of incredible complexity, all accomplished with only several ingredients and a most moderate amount of effort. For my students flying the coop in the next few weeks, among my wishes for your fame, your riches, your accomplishments, and your true deep happinesses and joys, I hope you learn how to cook a