beef and pork, chicken meat tightens as you cook it, and by
the time it’s reached 165°F, it’s irretrievably, irrevocably
dry. With chicken legs, this is not so much of a problem.
Because of their large amounts of fat and connective tissue,
you can cook a chicken leg all the way to 180°F or even
190°F and still get some semblance of succulence. Chicken
breasts, though, with their large, roundish shape and total
lack of fat, can’t handle temperatures much above 145°F
(for a discussion on chicken safety, see here).
So, what’s the best way to cook a chicken? If we learned
anything from pan-searing steaks and pork chops, it would
seem to be to flip the chicken repeatedly as it cooks. Well, I
tried it and quickly learned that, a chicken is not a cow, and
there are key differences between the structure of a chicken
breast and that of a steak that make flip-cooking unfeasible
—namely, the skin. Luckily for us, the skin provides some
amazing benefits that allow us to cook chicken much more
easily than we can cook beef and pork. Now, now, I know
some odd folks don’t like eating chicken skin (surely its
most delicious feature!), but I’m here to tell you that
regardless of whether you end up eating it or pushing it to
the side of your plate, it should stay on the chicken while
you cook it.
Here’s the thing: without skin, what happens when you
try to pan-sear a chicken breast? The meat at the exterior
dries out, turning stringy and leathery, and not at all
pleasant. Try using the multiple-flip method with a boneless,
skinless chicken breast, and you’ll end up leaving half the
chicken on the bottom of the pan as you flip it. There are
few things in life I hate more than skinless, boneless chicken
nandana
(Nandana)
#1