Frankie Avalon’s Chicken Thighs with Peas, Sweet Vermouth, and Sherry

Back in college my roommate and I spent an entire afternoon just going through the names of celebrities and debating their “fuckability factor” if you will, We actually made a “dudes we’d do” chart (please remember this was pre-2000. There were no smart phones or streaming. We were bored).

There were your standard folks in the queue (Tom Cruise: no George Clooney: yes) and then we somehow got to Frankie Avalon.

Yes. Frankie Avalon.

Would you do Frankie Avalon? 

You can guess what I am going to say–because I would only remember this if this were the answer–we were in 100% in agreement that Frankie Avalon was a “yes.”

Why? I don’t know. Good hair? Maybe because he was in Grease? (that videocassette was on heavy rotation in our door room–we didn’t even have cable yet–hence the boredom).

While I mull that over, here is a condensed version of a recipe from Frankie that is slated to appear in Jenny Hammerton and Peter Fuller’s upcoming  Vincent Price Co-Star Cookbook. They were kind enough for me to take it for a test spin.

Frankie Avalon’s Chicken Thighs with Peas, Sweet Vermouth, and Sherry

• 8 skin-on, bone-in chicken thighs
• 1 1/4 teaspoons kosher salt/salt flakes
• 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, plus more as needed
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 1/2 cup / 120ml dry sherry
• 1/2 cup / 120ml sweet vermouth
• 2 tablespoons cornstarch
• 1 cup / 150g thawed frozen peas

Season the chicken all over with the salt and pepper.   Brown the chicken in oil. Transfer the chicken to the baking dish.

Pour off all but 2 tablespoons of the fat from the pan.  Add the onion. Stir in the garlic. Add the sherry and vermouth and bring to a boil, scraping up the browned bits in the pan with a wooden spoon.  Pour the mixture over the chicken.

Bake until the chicken shows no sign of pink. 

• Very much like chicken marsala but without mushrooms
• I love a chicken marsala
• If you switched the peas for mushrooms you could get very close to a marsala without dredging the chicken cutlets in flour.
• The meat cooked very nicely. Juicy. But I would strain more oil from the frying step–it ended up being a little greasy at the end.
• The sauce was a little thick/globby, but that was totally my bad—I over measured the cornstarch.
• This would be better with pasta than rice. Definitely pasta.
• It needs salt.