A Second Helping of Rubber Chicken

Dear Tricia, Chicken: no matter what I do, it is dry.   I've marinated it, quick fried little tenders, and they only time its not dry is when i do "chicken in a pot" stuffed with lemons and oranges and surrounded by veggies and drowned in white wine.  


Well kudos to you and your pot o' chicken.  Lemons and oranges?  That's so fancy sounding!  


I covered chicken waaaaay back when I first started blogging (here and here if you want to go back a couple of years), so its about time I talk tips on chicken again.  

The absolute easiest way to cook chicken without turning it into a mouthful of boot is wrapped in foil, in the oven.  Whether you prefer chicken breasts, thighs, tenders, whatever- season it, wrap it in foil, and cook it at 375 degrees until its done.  If you cook chicken tenders or something smaller in size like that, just line a pan with foil, put the chicken on it, and cover it with foil.  You don't have to individually wrap them or something.  That would be a HUGE waste of time and foil.  The great thing about cooking chicken this way is that you don't have to do much, just throw it in the oven and let it go.  This is when I make a cocktail, but that's just me.  Tenders are usually done in 10 minutes at the most.  Chicken breasts, depending on how large they are take closer to 25-30 minutes.  You can also experiment with new ways to season chicken without putting in a bunch of thought or energy.  Even if you just throw a clove of garlic and some sprigs of fresh herbs (hello, that's like ZERO effort) in with the foil, the chicken is still going to get some great flavor because its steaming inside the foil.  Steaming is what makes flavors infuse into the chicken.  Infuse- use that one to impress your girlfriend next time you cook dinner for her.  


If you want to step it up and put a little more effort into your dinner, you can start with a hot pan, add some oil, and just sear the chicken on both sides to get it brown.  Then finish it off in the oven like I talked about in the effort-less paragraph, but have your oven temperature at 400 degrees.  This helps keep the chicken juicier than just cooking it entirely in the pan, which tends to give you a chewy outside and some rawness in the middle.  This also gives you a lot more color on the chicken because the proteins brown in the pan.  That's called the Maillard reaction- when proteins brown. The name comes from a guy named Maillard.  It's not french for anything (actually its French for "buff" whatever the hell that means), he just wanted to name something after himself.  


Ok, here's a little secret if none of these tips are working for you: FREAKING EVERYONE overcooks their chicken.   That's one of the reasons why I get emails about chicken being dry or rubbery.  It's really that simple- don't cook it as long.   I wonder if people are so afraid of the slim-to-none chance of getting salmonella, or some other strange illness that Fox News is trying to make you live in fear of, but either way, there is a difference between cooked chicken and chicken that's been cooked until its awful.  Get a thermometer if you're not sure.  165 degrees is the magic number.  If you're cooking by color, pink chicken might even be safe, depending on what you've marinated the chicken in and how much hemoglobin happens to be in the tissue.   


What to do when your chicken is already over cooked?  Easy- make tacos.  I wrote a blog on making authentic pulled tacos that taste like Mexico and not North Dakota.   All you have to do is pull the chicken apart into little pieces and follow the directions on the sauce, you just skip the part about cooking the chicken, since you've already cooked the daylights out of it.   Mmm Mmm pollo.

My Chicken is Old and Boring

Dear Tricia, I'm bored with chicken.  I always grill or roast it and I need something new that's hopefully not too difficult for me to ruin dinner.

Chicken can be boring- I totally get it.  I have a couple of ideas to save you from your mundane poultry lifestyle, and luckily the first one I've already covered in my NYC Tacos, Texas Style post from a while ago.  These are great because you can make a big batch and just heat it up as you need it, and it's really delicious when you're drunk. All you need to do is stock your spice cabinet with a few things that will serve you well in your taco making future.

My second glorious idea is actually really simple but it can pass as kind of gourmet if you're trying to impress someone.  (Or just yourself, that's cool too.)  You take a chicken breast (skin on or skin off, its up to you) and sit it on a cutting board in front of you with a sharp paring knife. 

 That's this little one:

 Not this one:

So if you're right handed, you put your left hand on top of the chicken breast and hold the knife in your right hand.  Holding the knife parallel to the counter (or cutting board, or whatever you're cutting on top of) take the knife and cut a pocket along the side of the chicken.  Cut as far over to the other side of the chicken without cutting that side open.   What you're trying to do is make a safe little house to stuff some awesome fillings into without them leaking out of the sides.

Once you've cut a pocket into the chicken, season both sides with salt and pepper.  Now let's talk fillings options.  You want to pick things that aren't messy.  If you're going to use cheese, that's great, just make sure that you stuff the cheese towards the side that's closed, not the side you cut into.  This way the cheese doesn't leak out and make a mess.  We're going for non-messy here, Messy McMesserstein.  Here's some ideas, but you can get as crazy as you want.  You know me- I'm all about encouraging you to screw around in the kitchen.  Have some fun you rock star.

Bacon (cooked), pecans and blue cheese
Pepperoni and mozzarella
Roasted red peppers and pesto
Sausage (If you're using raw sausage, make sure it's cooked all the way through before you serve the chicken.  We'll get to that in a sec.)
Olives and artichoke hearts
Spanish Rice and pumpkin seeds
Gummy bears
Just seeing if you're paying attention
Mushrooms and onions

Once you've got your selected stuffing, (and you don't need a whole lot, just a few tablespoons per chicken breast) just put it inside the chicken.  Get as much as you can in there without it just falling out and making a mess.  And remember, if you're using cheese, stuff it in first so it's up against the closed side. 

Then get your oven heated to 400 degrees.  Have a pan ready and get it hot over medium high heat.  That means if the numbers on the knob go from 1-10, it should be at a 7.  When the pan is hot, pour about 2 tablespoons of olive oil in the pan and let that heat up for a good 10-15 seconds.  Then put your chicken breasts in the pan.  Did you hear the chicken start to sizzle?  Good, that means your pan was hot enough.  Were your chickens silent?  Then your pan wasn't hot, and that's not going to ruin dinner, but it won't give your chicken a really pretty brown color.  Next time don't be afraid to crank up the heat, ok?  Don't pussyfoot around here.

Cook the chicken on one side until it's halfway done.  How can you tell?  Well look a the side of the chicken where you cut into.  The part that's still kind of translucent and pink is the raw part.  The white part is cooked.  When it's half white and half pink, it's half done.  Then you flip the chicken over on its other side.  Give it about 2-3 more minutes here.  Then put it on a cookie sheet or sheet pan and put it in the oven.  Even better if you can have the cookie sheet already hot, inside the oven to accelerate the process. The whole process on top of the stove should take you 8 minutes tops, unless you're cooking some monster huge chicken breasts.  What are they feeding those chickens?!

You're going to let the chicken finish cooking in the oven because I've found this makes the chicken more tender and juicy, plus it lets you have a minute to make a cocktail.  Bonus.  The chicken should be done within 10 minutes.  Again, just make sure there aren't any pink parts.  And if you've stuffed the chicken with raw sausage, the chicken is done with the sausage is completely cooked.  Be really careful with that.  No one likes a raw sausage surprise.

After the chicken is done, pull it out of the oven and let it rest for a few minutes before you serve it.  This keeps all of the juices inside the chicken, and not leaking all over your plate.   That's tip three for keeping things non messy. 

Are you ready to try this one at home?  Go have fun and send me your photos and comments.  Easy as pie, right? Easy as chicken pot pie.

More on Avoiding the Rubber Chicken

When I first started this blog, I wrote about reheating chicken breasts without making them rubbery. I wanted to expand on that for a minute and let you know about this awesome product that I found.
First, I should explain that I like to cook a bunch of chicken breasts at the beginning of the week and keep them in the fridge so that my husband and I can take them to our respective jobs and eat them for lunch. (I use the word "respective" loosely, as my current job totally blows.) Reheating that chicken in an oven is obviously impossible at work, so its either eat the chicken cold, or microwave it. Either way makes the chicken harder to eat, so I've started marinating the shite out of all the chicken before I cook it. Remember what a marinade does? It starts breaking down the fibers of the meat before you cook it so that you get a more tender product. Its like sending Mr. T in to give your meat a good, eight hour talking-to before you put it on the grill. But I don't always feel like mixing up a marinade from scratch (I've got to save my energy for more important things like cocktail hour and writing this blog... the two sometimes happen simultaneously), and that's where this awesome product comes in.

1888 Premium Olive Press is this killer dirty martini mixer that is the very first of its kind. (Google it and order some pronto! Or, if you live in Texas, you can find it at your liquor store.) Seriously, no one else has ever thought of this, and that's just crazy: its made by pressing whole olives in a giant gazillion-pound press, taking the olive juice and bottling it. This happens to make a dangerously good dirty martini because your cocktail ends up tasting like olives, not ocean water. It also makes a bad ass marinade. I have been pouring 1888 over chicken breasts, salting them, and letting them sit overnight before I roast them in the oven. This way, not only is the chicken super tender when it comes out of the oven, but it stays super tender when I eat it cold or reheat it in the microwave. It only flavors the chicken lightly, which I like, because a lot of marinades are BBQ or smokey flavored, and I'm not always in the mood for that.

As advanced as the culinary arts have become, its funny that there are still only two ways to tenderize meat. You either marinate it, or beat the crap out of it. For real, those are your two options. Even on an angry day, I'm much happier to pour a bottle of olive juice on my chicken than start a fight with it. (And then I can enjoy a martini at the same time. Score!)

On Goat Cheese...

Dear Tricia, Goat cheese might be my favorite out of all the cheeses...behind brie of course. Do you have any suggestions on ways to use it besides crumbling it on a salad?

Hell yes I do! I f-ing love goat cheese. And you're right... brie is superior, but that's another blog for another time. Lets talk goats.
For pasta: if you ever make a white cream sauce for pasta, or use one out of a packet (Hey, I don't judge), you can whisk in a handful of goat cheese into the sauce until it melts to give your sauce some extra oomph. So good. If you've never made a cream sauce from scratch, I found a simple one for "alfredo sauce" (its not really alfredo sauce but its still good) that cheats and uses cream cheese.

1/2 cup butter
1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese
1 teaspoons garlic powder
2 cups milk
6 ounces crumbled goat cheese
1/8 teaspoon ground black pepper

Directions:
Melt butter in a medium, non-stick saucepan over medium heat. Add cream cheese and garlic powder, stirring with wire whisk until smooth. Add milk, a little at a time, whisking to smooth out lumps. Stir in goat cheese and pepper. Remove from heat when sauce reaches desired consistency. Sauce will thicken rapidly, thin with milk if cooked too long. Toss with hot pasta to serve.

You can also cook chicken breasts with goat cheese stuffed in the middle of them. All you have to do is take a seasoned, raw, boneless chicken breast (with or without skin. That depends on your own preference.), lay it flat, and cut a little pocket into the side of it. Try to keep one side open and one side closed. Take your goat cheese and stuff it into the middle of the chicken. Cook your chicken in a skillet on both sides for about 3 minutes and then finish it off in a 400 degree oven until its fully cooked- about 5-8 minutes. When you cut into the chicken, there will be ooey gooey melty goat cheese and its completely awesome.

For dessert: take your favorite cheesecake recipe and substitute half of the cream cheese for goat cheese. I know, this might seem weird but, trust me, its better than the first time you heard the New Kids on the Block sing "Please Don't Go Girl" in 1988. (Oh, that Joey McIntyre. His voice gets me every time.) When its finished and cool, drizzle it with honey and serve with some fruit. So freaking good.

For cocktail party hors d'oevres: take a package of goat cheese and mix it with a teaspoon of cinnamon and 1 tablespoon of honey. With the palms of your hands, roll the mixture in little balls and then roll them in chopped pecans. Chill and serve. Oooh la la.

Inversely, you can make savory version of those delectable little goat cheese balls (I hope you can come up with a more appetizing name, though. Let me know.) using black pepper, minced fresh chives, and any other yummy herbs. These are really versatile and you can use whatever you think sounds good at the time. Be careful with roasted red peppers though... if you mix everything up too much it turns pink. Which could actually be fitting if you're having a valentines day party (blech) or a baby shower for a baby girl (double blech.)

If you're reading this post and you hate goat cheese, I understand. It took me some time to like it too, but I have some advice for newbies: don't buy any goat cheese that says "aged" on the label. Look for words like "un-ripened," "fresh," and "young." These are the goat cheeses that taste more mellow and are easier to eat if you're new at it. But have some balls and give it a go sometime... It won't kill you. And when you love it, you can come back here and I'll say I told you so.

Avoiding the Rubber Chicken

Dear Tricia, I like to buy the already grilled chicken breasts out of my deli and just heat it up at home. Problem is, when I microwave it, the chicken comes out rubbery and overcooked. What's the best way to re-heat it without overcooking it?

Ah, the microwave... so convenient, but you end up with crappy results. (Kind of like eating Taco Bell with a hangover. Get it? ..... Crappy? Ok, I'll stop.) So, you're right: what you're doing is just overcooking the chicken which, in turn, gives you that nasty rubbery texture that certainly won't impress the ladies. Easy to fix my convenience-loving friend. However, you're going to have to turn on your oven. I know, I know. Ovens aren't as convenient as microwaves. But it'll give you a more pleasant reheated chicken experience, and frankly, isn't that what you asked for?

You need to do two things:
1. Wrap the chicken breast in foil.
2. Preheat your oven to 425 degrees (all the way! Don't cheat and put the chicken in when its only at 350 degrees. Then you're just being lazy and you'll end up waiting longer.)

Once your oven is preheated, put the foil-wrapped chicken directly on the rack. Close the door and give it about 12 minutes for one chicken breast. If you've wrapped a couple of chicken breasts (they work better in pairs, don't they? ;) ) in foil, then give them 15 minutes to reheat. Once your time is up, use a towel or a hot pad (don't be a dumbass and use your bare hands because that foil is really freaking hot: 425 degrees of hot in case you can't do the math) to remove it, unwrap the foil, and voila: juicy reheated chicken free of a rubbery texture.
Here's the magical science of what's happening: when you microwave things, the microwave actually cooks the inside of the product first before it cooks the outside. (I know! Crazy, right!) So by the time your precooked chicken is reheated, the inside has been overcooking the whole time. When you use the oven, it cooks it at a slower, but more even rate so that the chicken heats up as a whole, without overcooking one part of it first. When you wrap it up in foil, the foil conducts heat faster and keeps the juices inside. Remember those science experiments in the 4th grade about conductors of heat? Unlike algebra, those are real life skills that you can actually use, especially a kitchen. That's why you cook potatoes in foil, and now why you're going to start reheating chicken in it.

You want me to shove that beer can where?

Dear Tricia, Why would you shove a beer can into a chicken and cook it? What does that do?

Beer can chicken: One of the best ideas ever. Why? Because the first step in the recipe is "Open beer. Drink half." I don't care if you're trying to shove that beer can up an alarm clock... its already sounds like a winner.
The whole point of cooking a chicken with a half can of beer inside of it is the beer helps tenderize and flavor the chicken. The liquid basically steams the inside and makes it more tender and juicy. And the yeast, hops, malt, and barley completely change flavors when they're cooked, adding an incredible taste to the chicken.
Here's some tips when you've decided you're ready to grill up some beer can chicken.

1. After you've gotten rid of that pesky half a beer, use a can opener to take the top off the beer can. That gives the beer more room to escape and steam up the inside of the chicken.
2. Make sure you're putting the chicken upright on the beer can and that it will stand alone, just like in the picture. You don't want it to fall over and let the beer spill everywhere inside of it. Beer+ open flame isn't always the best combination, no matter how many half beers you've had.
3. Add some extra seasoning to the beer. If you have a favorite grill rub or want it to be spicy, add those seasonings to the beer before you put it inside the bird. I promise you'll be able to taste it.

There are actually some products specially devoted to making beer can chicken. I found one at www.beercanchicken.com that is meant safely holding the chicken upright and it holds the beer inside of it. Go check it out! Those people are really serious about their birds.
If its your first time making beer can chicken, I'd suggest having a "shove it up your chicken" party to celebrate. You know, hang some streamers, get a cooler full of half beers, blast some Michael McDonald... and when you do, send me pictures and I'll be happy to put them on the website.

What's the matter Colonel Sanders... chicken?!!

Dear Tricia, Why is it that the common directions for cooking chicken in a skillet don't work? I always get the outside too cooked and the inside stays raw.

I briefly addressed this situation a couple of months ago when I was talking about grilling, but I know not everyone has time to read all my blogs. (It's ok... you probably have an excuse for everything.) It's easy to get the outside too cooked before the middle is done because you have the heat up too high. If you cook the chicken on each side for four minutes or so on high, the outside is just going to get a really dark, tough skin, and as you wait for the heat to cook the center its just going to dry out the rest of the chicken. Its gross. No one's going to want to eat that. And then they'll never come over for dinner again and you won't have any friends.
Here's a trick to prevent your potential loss of friends: Preheat your oven at 400 degrees. That way it'll be ready when you need it in a few minutes. Heat your pan over medium high heat. After you oil the pan, cook each side of the (seasoned!)chicken for about 3 minutes. When you look at the side of the chicken breast, you should notice that there is still a line of pink in the middle; it'll be about half cooked, and half raw. Then, for the magic friend-keeping trick: put the pan in the oven and finish cooking it in there. How long, you ask? Well, that depends on how big your chicken breast is. Come on, let's be honest: everyone has their preference in (chicken) breast size. Some people can eat a giant piece of chicken, and some people eat the recommended portion of about a deck of cards. The smaller one is obviously going to cook faster, so don't depend on a time to tell you when your chicken is done. As a ball park estimate, the chicken should not take any longer than 8-10 minutes to finish cooking. To check it, you can just cut a small slit in the thickest part of the chicken breast with a knife and see if the center is still raw. Press on the chicken too and remember how it feels. As you continue this method, you'll be able to tell when its done just by pressing on it and not cutting into it.
Another great trick is to pull the chicken out of the oven just before it's finished, when there is a trace of pink left. Meat does this magical thing where it keeps cooking another 5-10 degrees even after you take it off the heat. So if you pull it out of the oven right before it's done, it'll finish cooking on the counter and by the time you eat it, its perfectly cooked. It's called "carryover cooking." Use that term next time you're trying to impress your foodie friends. If they look like they don't know what you're talking about, you can immediately strip them of their foodie title and mercilessly make fun of them.
This method not only cooks your chicken through, but it makes the chicken so much juicier. But, please please please remember to use a pan that has a METAL HANDLE, NOT A PLASTIC ONE. If you melt the plastic handle in the oven, don't come crying to me about it. I warned you.

I can't make it stick. *updated!*

Dear Tricia, I am decent in the kitchen...however, I have yet to learn how to bread something and get it to stick to the meat...got any clues on that?

Ah… dredging. That’s what the act of sticking stuff to meat is called, at least. It’s no longer the sound of your feet as you make your way into your crappy cubicle job every day.
There are 3 easy steps and 3 easy ingredients to perfect dredging. You will need 3 dishes for your newly-discovered holy trinity of breading methods: eggs, flour, and bread crumbs. (Or panko, or cornmeal, or whatever it is that you have chosen to bread your dinner with.)
Set up a little assembly line of dredging on your countertop. Let’s pretend you’re making cornmeal fried chicken, just like your old Aunt Gussie use to make. (I’ll save the story of when she got drunk and flushed her dentures down the toilet that one Christmas for another time.)

From left to right, you will have:
1) Thawed chicken
2) A dish of seasoned flour (use salt and pepper and whatever sparks your fancy. Get creative. Clean out the spice cabinet. Just make sure it’s a dry ingredient. No Sriracha or Budweiser.)
3) A dish of a couple of beaten eggs with a little water mixed in to thin it out. You’ll need to beat it really good, like the domestic abuse guys in the backseat of the squadron car on COPS say to. Make sure it’s a blended mixture, without any gross egg white boogers.
4) A dish of cornmeal. Season it with your fancy pants seasonings that Aunt Gussie’s recipes call for. Or just use salt and pepper if that’s all you have. But you MUST season season season!
So now your assembly line is rarin’ to go and you simply coat the chicken in 1) the flour, and then 2) the egg, and then 3)the cornmeal. At this point, the cornmeal is so attracted to that gorgeous floured, egged chicken thigh that it’s not going anywhere.

Here’s another helpful hint if you’re not overwhelmed by all of the new vocabulary and domestic abuse references: use your left hand for handling the egg-y chicken, and your right hand for handling the floured or cornmeal’d chicken. This way you have one hand for wet stuff and one for dry stuff and won’t bread your fingers and make a giant mess and waste time having to wash your hands every 30 seconds. Because we all know that at this point, you’re way behind on your dinner party, and everyone’s already hungry and drunk in your living room.

*Update*
My mother read this blog and wondered why use "the holy trinity" on fried green tomatoes. At first I thought she was questioning the holy trinity reference because she works in a church and I was being a blasphemous daughter, but she's right. With fried green tomatoes, you don't always need to dredge in all 3. Some recipes call for flour, egg, and cornmeal, and some just call for cornmeal. That's the great thing about cooking: there is no right and wrong: it's all about what works for you. Stick with what you like. (No pun intended.)