Nick’s Fiery Mahogany Baked Chicken with Stand-up Scalloped Potatoes with Bacon and 3 Cheeses

Made some of my favorite comfort food tonight. It's great for company because a lot of it is prep which can be prepped either the day before or some hours before guests come, and the great thing is that both dishes can be cooked in the same oven (albeit for different times). So you can basically sit around and drink wine with the guests while occasionally checking on the dishes.

On the chicken: you can up the ante with more chilies (I would normally use habaneros) but most people don't want a food challenge.

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Nick’s Fiery Mahogany Baked Chicken

Ingredients

8 chicken legs, 4 chicken thighs, featherless, skin-on, bone in

1/2 cup ketchup

1/2 cup soy sauce

1/4 cup teriyaki sauce

1/2 cup Japanese sake

1/2 cup Mirin (Japanese sweet rice wine)

5 large cloves garlic, finely chopped

1/2 cup finely-chopped onion

1 Tbsp. Zesty Italian salad dressing

Two finely-chopped very hot chilies

1/2 Tsp. each chili, cayenne, garlic, onion powders

1/2 Tsp. garlic salt

Splash rice-wine vinegar

Method

Mix all marinade ingredients together well in large bowl. Add chicken pieces, coat well. Marinate, refrigerated, 1-24 hours. Preheat oven to 350º. Remove chicken from bowl and place in greased baking pan. Bake for about 50 minutes, turning occasionally and basting frequently with marinade. Cover and let rest 10 minutes. (If there is marinade left over, reduce it on medium in a small pan to avoid contaminating anything with raw chicken juices. It's great spooned over the served chicken.) Serve with basmati rice or Stand-up Scalloped Potatoes with Bacon and 5 Cheeses.

Before adding the final cheeses and topping

Nick's Stand-up Scalloped Potatoes with Bacon and 5 Cheeses

Ingredients

4 medium to large purple-skinned potatoes, peeled (if they are in exceptionally unscarred shape, omit peeling and just scrub and remove eyes or bruises)

1 cup each grated gruyère, old cheddar, aged gouda and mix-grated parmesan and romano (for topping)

1 medium onion, finely sliced

4 slices applewood-smoked bacon, thickly sliced and baked in a 500º toaster oven for about five minutes. Cut into two-inch lengths.

4 large cloves garlic, finely diced

Cracked pepper

1/2 cup chopped Italian parsley

Heavy cream

Bread crumbs

Method

Mandoline potatoes to approximately 1/8-inch thick slices. Soak in a bowl of ice water with 1/4 cup sugar for 20 minutes. Rinse, drain, and dry with paper towels.

Coat all sides of a rectangular baking dish with melted butter. Then carefully stand each slice of potato on its side (this is hard) and insert some onion slices between each slice until you have reached the other side of the dish and all are on their side. If you run out of onions, slice more. Continue standing slices up until the dish is filled. Insert bacon slices randomly until all the bacon is gone.

Mix all the cheeses except the parmesan/romano mix in a large bowl with the garlic, parsley and liberal amounts of cracked pepper. Combine thoroughly. Mix the parmesan and romano with some breadcrumbs and more cracked pepper.

Preheat oven to a solid 350º (use an oven thermometer like the one pictured).

Now sprinkle approximately half the gruyère mixture onto the potatoes, taking care to get it between the slices. Drizzle heavy cream up and down each row until well covered; perhaps 2/3 of a cup.

Place in oven, uncovered, for about thirty minutes. Remove, add the rest of the gruyère mixture evenly, then sprinkle with the parmesan/roman/bread crumb mixture. Bake, uncovered, an additional 30 minutes or so, taking care not to scorch.

Remove from oven and cover tightly with aluminum foil or baking pan lid if you have one. Bake another 30 minutes or so. Serve.

This Maverick thermometer in highly recommended. It measures the actual temperature of the inside of your oven, not your food, with a wire that leads to a sensor placed in the oven. Invaluable, since most ovens lie.