So if you know anything about me, you’ll know that I like food and also appreciate a good wrestling match. With that in mind, I decided to tackle pro-wrestler Taylor Rotunda’s CAST IRON CHICKEN THIGHS.

Just to clarify, Taylor does not have chicken thighs, he cooks them.

Here’s the recipe:

Now, I’m prepared as usual, and I don’t have a cast iron anything in the kitchen. You can call me a heathen, a part-timer, or whatever – but what I do have is an air fryer.

So here we go!

Lay out the chicken thighs, pat them dry. Pat em again. Keep patting them. You want them as dry as possible, and the chicken thighs like it.

Season them with garlic powder, salt, black pepper, cayenne pepper, and chipotle. I used chipotle paste from Morrisons, in case you can’t find it anywhere! Put some oil in a pan, heat it up, chuck ’em in. Carefully. No splashes.

When the outside is cooked, add some butter and garlic – I used garlic puree that we had sitting in the fridge. Waste not, want not, innit?

Now, what Mr Rotunda recommends is taking your cast iron skillet and sticking it in the oven. What I did was completely different.

Cover the bottom of an air fryer with foil so the juices don’t escape, lay the chicken in there, pour in the butter/garlic/juices. Stick the tray in the air fryer…and wait. Make sure it’s on, obv.

Give it 5-10 minutes, remove it from the air fryer with tongs, and pour the garlic butter over it all. Eat!

I am aware the photos show some pink bits…this is not good. If you get them out and they’re still pink in the middle, give them another few minutes. I returned mine to the air fryer and took them out again, but started eating rather than taking photos. Oh well.

I don’t normally enjoy chicken thighs all that much, but this combo of flavours makes them fantastic – and perhaps the dabbing at the start to remove moisture is the key. Thank you Taylor, I can now eat chicken thighs and enjoy them!

TL;DR: Wrestler has spicy thighs. I approve.