Low Temp Pulled Chicken with Shio Koji
A customizable, make-ahead recipe for the best chicken you've ever had
Equipment
- Immersion Circulator (sous vide device)
- 2 Ziploc brand Freezer Bags, 1 gallon size
- Oven-safe Skillet or Roasting Pan
Ingredients
Step 1. For the Sous Vide Chicken
- 2 each Chicken Legs, about 1.5 pounds, or just thighs, skin on bone in
- 1/4 cup Shio Koji, see note
- 2 Tbs Union Foods Chili Sauce, or similar
- 2 tsp Wheat-Free Tamari, or similar
- Black Pepper
Step 2. Finishing
- 1 bag of leftover marinade, collagen, and fat from cooked chicken
- 2 tsp Butter, optional if dairy-free
- 1 tsp Mustard
- 1/4 cup Basil, or any fresh herb
Instructions
Prep and Cook Chicken in the Water Bath
- Fill a deep pot with warm water. The water should be as hot as you can comfortably dip your hands into. You'll be cooking in this pot, but first you'll use it to remove air from your food bags before sealing. The only reason I'm using two different containers in these instructions, one for sealing and one for cooking, is so you can see what's going on more clearly.
- Prepare two Ziploc brand gallon-sized freezer bags: Roll back the tops and use your hands to open them up so they stand upright on the counter. This prevents food from from getting into the zip lock grooves, which will prevent proper sealing and could screw everything up. Set aside.
- Add a single serving of meat and the marinade to each bag. For this recipe: 1 Chicken Leg, 2 Tbs Shio Koji, 1 Tbs Chili Sauce, 1 tsp Low-Sodium Tamari. Or add whatever you have on hand! You don't need much to flavor the meat.
- Gently massage each bag to cover the leg in the marinade, being careful not to puncture the bag. If you're cooking very sharp or pointy food, coat it in the marinade outside of the bag. If the bag rips or breaks in any way you'll need to start over; it needs to be water-tight.
- Using the water displacement method to remove the air, seal both bags:Slowly lower the bag into the water, completely sealed except for one corner. I keep a finger in the bag to hold the corner open. Work any air pockets out with your free hand as you lower the bag. Just before the bag is completely submerged, seal it completely closed.
- Attach your immersion circulator to the pot and set to 75°C (167°F). Add the bags to the water bath once it reaches the correct temperature.TIPS: Make sure to put a trivet or some other item below the pot to protect your surface from the heat. Cover the pot with plastic wrap to prevent evaporation. If needed, add a heavy object on top of the food to keep the bags submerged. Alternatively, add a heavy, dull object, like a butter knife, to each bag before sealing to make sure they sink.
- When the legs have cooked for one hour, remove bags from the water bath with tongs (the water is hot!). Do not open the bags. Dry the outside and chill immediately until completely cool (about four hours) before finishing the recipe. Alternatively, and my preference: hold bags in the fridge for a few days until you're ready to use them.
Finishing Instructions (once meat has completely cooled)
- Preheat oven to 450°F.
- Remove the chicken from refrigerator. Open the bags. Using your hands, manipulate the chicken through the outside of the bag to remove as much collagen stuck to the legs as possible. Reserve the bag with collagen and remaining marinade to make the pan sauce.I like to use the edge of my counter and my palm to scrape all the goodies in the bag to the corner, then cut the corner off to neatly squeeze it out into a dish, as though you are making a piping bag for frosting. You get nearly everything in the bag out without any fuss.
- Place legs in an oven safe skillet and roast 10 minutes. Finish under a broiler, an additional 2-3 minutes, until skin is crispy and well-colored. Set aside to cool slightly.The legs are already fully cooked, so you are just looking to reheat the leg to eating temperature and crisp the skin.
- While legs are resting, make a pan sauce: add the reserved marinade and collagen to a small wide skillet. Cook on medium-high, adding mustard, lemon juice, and butter (optional) while whisking. Sauce will thicken and reduce over the course of a few minutes. Season to taste as needed and remove from heat.
- Shred warm chicken, chop skin, and remove bones and gristle.
- Add warm pan sauce to a shallow serving bowl. Add shredded chicken, top top with herbs, and serve.
Notes
ADD ANY MEAT / ANY SAUCE
This recipe will work as written for chicken thighs, so don’t worry if you don’t have full legs. If you’re using a completely different kind (or cut) of meat, you may need to adjust your temp and cook time. The marinade is also endlessly customizable. A few of my favorite add-ins are: bay leaves, liquid smoke, miso, fresh thyme, chili flakes, lemon zest, and za’atar.
SHIO KOJI MAGIC
Shio koji may be one of my all-time favorite things. You can buy it online or at a grocer that is well-stocked with Japanese food items, or you can do what I do and make it from scratch. Read my other post about what it is, why it’s great, and see my recipe for making shio koji at home. It’s REALLY EASY if you have koji rice. It takes about a week to ferment, but it lasts forever and will make all your dreams come true.
Being rice-based, shio koji is low-FODMAP ingredient, but people eating a low-carb diet should be mindful how how much they use. A little goes a long way–you can easily use half the amount in this recipe and still get good results. The flavors it creates are absolutely worth it.
MAKE AHEAD
I rarely eat this on the same day that I make it. This recipe is designed for meal-preppers or wanna-be meal-preppers like myself. It’s perfect for small housholds – food is stored in individual portions, so making a meal for yourself or just a couple of people is easy. Often I’ll have several proteins cooked in this way, stashed a in the fridge, cooked perfectly and ready to go. It feels like cheating.
LOW-TEMP vs SOUS-VIDE – NERD ALERT
A small note on terminology: While the term “sous-vide” has become associated with food cooked in a temperature-controlled water bath with an immersion circulator, sous-vide just means “under vacuum.” Any food prepared using a vacuum is sous-vide, regardless of temperature (or the use of an immersion circulator). Terms became confused because many chefs will suck a vacuum on their food bags before adding them to a low-temperature water bath. Those recipes qualify as both sous-vide and low-temperature.
In this recipe, there is no vacuum applied to the food. While it’s important to remove air pockets from bag before circulating it, a vacuum is not necessary for the vast majority of low-temperature recipes. This recipe is an example of low-temperature cooking, not sous-vide. For a LOT more information, read Dave Arnold’s Sous-Vide and Low-Temp Primers Part I and Part II. Part II talks about cooking low-temperature without a vacuum, and is where I learned the water displacement method above.
