This is Chicken Cracklings (Chicharon Manok). Everybody knows about pork cracklings or chicharon baboy. But how about chicken cracklings or chicharon manok? Compared to the pork cracklings, these chicken cracklings are also quite tender and not so hard to bite into. This makes for a tasty appetizer and is best paired with an ice cold beer. These are definitely not something one should be eating often due to the high cholesterol in them, but indulging on occasions is quite alright. Vinegar is the best dipping sauce for this dish, but I specifically prefer pinakurat which is a spiced vinegar. Enjoy this recipe from all of us at Filipino Chow.
Chicken Cracklings (Chicharon Manok)
Ingredients
- 8 pieces of chicken skin, preferably from the breast and thighs
- 1 teaspoon of sea salt, freshly ground
- pinch of freshly ground black pepper
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350° F.
- Then line a large baking sheet with aluminum foil.
- While the oven is heating up, rinse the chicken skins with water then dry them by laying them on paper towels and turning them over once.
- Lay the skins down on the aluminum foil then sprinkle a little sea salt on each of the skins.
- Bake the skins for about 20-30 minutes.
- At 20 minutes, you want to check and see if they are done.
- Remove the pan from the oven and poke each of the skins with a fork.
- If any of the skins are soft to the touch, they need to cook a little while longer.
- Put the pan back in the oven then check again in another 5-10 minutes.
- When the chicken skins are golden and completely crispy, they are done.
- Using a fork, slowly loosen the chicken cracklings from the aluminum foil by gently pulling one edge of the cracklings upwards.
- Set the cracklings on paper towels to cool and absorb the excess oil.
- When they have cooled, serve them with your choice of sauce.
Use the biggest chicken skins that you can find and don't worry about crowding the pan a little bit. The chicken skins will shrink a lot as they cook.