Chicken skin croquant
Salting the chicken skin draws out the moisture that inhibits crispness. Isomalt is a sugar alcohol made from beets and is less sweet than granulated sugar. Tapioca Maltodextrin acts as a starch, binding the sugar with the fat and improves the texture of the croquant.
chicken skin
kosher salt
isomalt
tapioca maltodextrin
Spread a layer of salt in a shallow non-reactive dish. Lay the chicken skin over the salt in a single layer and cover with another layer of salt. Set aside in the refrigerator for 8 hours. Rinse the salt from the skin and dry well with paper towels. Lay skin out on a metal sheet pan and bake in a 350F oven until golden and crisp. Drain on paper towels, pressing to remove excess fat and allow to cool. When cooled, grind in a spice grinder.
Weigh the ground chicken skin and weigh out an equal amount of Isomalt. Place the Isomalt in a saucepan and melt over medium high heat until fluid. Pour out onto a silpat and allow to harden. Break Isomalt into small pieces and grind in a spice grinder.
Combine the ground chicken skin with the Isomalt and weigh it. Add 30% by weight of Tapioca Maltodextrin. Combine well. Sprinkle a thin layer on a silpat for a freeform shape that can be broken into shards. For more defined shapes, sprinkle evenly over a stencil. Bake at 300F just until melted and fused. Allow to cool, then peel from silpat.
Playing with Fire and Water 
Just discovered your blog, fantastic stuff
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This rocks, now this is what I as a kid pictured the Chicken In A Biscuit crackers should be like!
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What’s the final texture like? Crumbly like the hard part of a biscuit or more like a cracker? Or none of the above?
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Nathan-
Without gluten for structure it’s not quite a cracker or biscuit. The texture is simultaneously crisp, brittle, chewy and crumbly. I especially like how the mild sweetness contrasts with the savory saltiness without dominating the flavor. Btw-I made this with bacon today…killer!
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Right on.
Have you tried dehydrating it at the end?
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No…I thought about dehydrating the skin before/after cooking, but found that it wasn’t necessary. Dehydrating the finished product may be a good way to preserve the crispyness and delay the stickyness of sugar+humidity. I’ll give it a go.
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Do you do your bacon croquant the same way, just subbing bacon for chicken skin?
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Larry- Yes to that. Depending on how fatty your bacon is, you may need to tweak the amount of TM.
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What kind of tapioca maltodextrin did you use?
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Bobby- N-Zorbit
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Tried it once….and it did not work right. It came out very sweet and off tasting? It was made with turkey skin and I overcooked the skin a little. Is it suppose to be sweet? Just got a case of chicken skin in and am determined to make it right!
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