Earlier today, while waiting on my porch for some delivery guys to turn up, I checked in on what was happening in Deadspin’s work chat—my job requires me to surveil the staffs of the various Gizmodo Media Group sites to make sure they’re diligently working for the betterment of our corporate overlords—and immediately regretted it. A staff discussion of ancient Roman techniques for cooking asparagus somehow took a turn for the even worse when Tom Ley presented an article from Shape about how to cook in your dishwasher.
I immediately decided I had to try it, as a project of sorts. I acquired chicken, cleaned out both my dishwasher and a jar of pickles that had been sitting in my refrigerator for a while, and hastily consulted the Shape recipe. (“Place a thin, skinless chicken breast in a half-quart mason jar with a cup of white wine, then add water until the chicken is covered by an inch.”) Having none of the required ingredients save water, I put three boneless, skinless chicken thighs in the pickle jar, dressed them with olive oil, kosher salt, pepper, and smoked paprika, then covered them with malbec, which seemed more than close enough for dishwasher chicken. Then I put the lid on and shook vigorously, with a result you can see here.
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Cursory Googling suggested that the proper method for cooking food in a jar in your dishwasher is to put it on the top rack and then run the dishwasher. I did so, took a couple of phone calls, walked my dog, came back, and was pleased to find the dishwashing cycle done. I was eager for some tasty thighs to put on some nice potato rolls. This is what I found after draining the liquid from the pickle jar, plated about as well as I could be bothered to plate it:
The chicken wasn’t even lukewarm to the touch, and when cut into with a knife, the result was what you see in the image at the top of this post. Had I dumped the whole mess into a pan, set it to low heat, covered it, and left it alone while taking phone calls and walking my dog, I’d have had a plate of delicious chicken sandwiches for the minimal effort required to put the thighs on potato rolls and add some kimchi or whatever; as is, I had a sad mess that ended up in the trash.
Probably common sense would tell you as much, but I will too: Don’t cook chicken in the fucking dishwasher.