Chicken with Secret Dipping Sauce

For quite some time, this dipping sauce was talked about on the Slice side of Serious Eats, but the recipe was kept (somewhat) secret. Finally, Diana Horst, known as dhorst on Serious Eats, posted the recipe. Of course I had to make it. Several quarts were handed out as gifts, and I was making a dent in the remaining sauce ... but then I thought, "why not cook with this stuff?"

The more I thought about it, the more sense it made. The sauce had peppers, garlic, tomatoes ... why not use it as a cooking sauce?

So I brainstormed a bit. What should I cook in it? A pork shoulder roast sounded good, and beef brisket sounded good. But it's just little ol' me here, and I'd be eating those for a month. I decided that chicken would be work, and since I wanted to cook it in the slow cooker, thighs were a good choice.

I decided to make sort of a stew, with potatoes and green beans along with the chicken. The only error I made was that the beans I bought were a little too mature and tough, so they took a bit more time to cook than I expected. But that's okay. In the end, the beans were tender and very tasty.

SDS Chicken

4 chicken thighs

4 red potatoes, peeled and quartered

1 pound green beans, trimmed

1 pint Secret Dipping Sauce (recipe follows)
Avocado (for garnish)

Place all ingredients in your slow cooker. Set the cooker to low and cook until the chicken and potatoes are cooked through and the green beans are tender - mine took about 5 hours, but slow cookers vary.

The oil from the sauce will separate and rise to the top while cooking. Don't worry about that.

Remove the meat and vegetables when they're done, drain off the excess oil, and serve the sauce with the chicken. You can also cook this a day in advance. When you refrigerate it, the oil will become more solid and it will be easy to remove. Then reheat it and serve.

I thought avocado was the perfect garnish for this dish. A bowl of Secret Dipping Sauce passed at the table would be nice for those who want the extra heat.

Secret Dipping Sauce

By Diana Horst (dhorst)
Makes about 5 quarts of sauce

6 1/2 cups olive oil (just your basic cheap kind--I used Wegmans)
1 cup sliced garlic
1/3 to 1/2 cup pickled Thai chiles (depending on how hot you want it)
4 oz. Asian chili oil
2/3 cup honey
96 oz. crushed tomatoes ( of course I used Sclafani!)
1 1/2 tablespoons kosher salt

Cook the garlic on medium low in the olive oil until golden ( I used a stock pot). Strain garlic from oil and reserve both. Puree Thai chiles with chili oil in blender--set aside.

In stock pot with olive oil, add tomatoes, honey, salt and pureed Thai chiles in chili oil. Puree mixture with stick blender or puree in batches in blender. Whisk in garlic by hand. Store in mason jars in the fridge. 

Keeps for quite some time--at least 2 months.

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