Here’s a new thing that I’m doing: instead of giving you a specific recipe to follow, I want to talk about some basic cooking skills and techniques that have helped me level up my game as a home chef. One of the most satisfying things about doing this blog has been the creative stimulation I get from applying the techniques I’ve learned to create my own recipes, and I hope this series will empower you to do the same. I’ll still be releasing new recipes, but I’ll also be including content like this post under the banner of “Kitchen Skills” that will focus on the reasons why we employ different cooking techniques to get our desired results and how to maximize certain staple ingredients to extract the most flavor.
I guess you could consider my very first post, Cooking the Perfect Pot of Beans from Scratch, a subconscious entry in the Kitchen Skills series as I discussed the preparation of a pretty basic ingredient that can be incorporated into a number of creative dishes. So, definitely check out that post if you’re looking for more info on the basics. Otherwise, let’s get started on my first official Kitchen Skills post: Shallow-fried chicken breasts.
Skinless, boneless chicken breast, though one of the most consumed types of meat in America, is often scoffed at in certain foodie corners of the internet. An ill-prepared chicken breast can often be lacking in flavor and can easily dry out. However, with the right preparation, you can make several convenient and flavorful dishes featuring this cut of meat. I’ll be focusing on preparing chicken breasts to be shallow-fried (partially submerged in oil), but you could follow the same instructions up to the dredging to improve your grilled or roasted chicken as well.
Step 1: Salt
Sprinkle a generous amount of salt over your chicken breast 4-12 hours before cooking.
The right: Same chicken breasts 4 hours later, after the salt has dissolved into the meat
Salt has been unfairly vilified in American culture for far too long. I understand that there are many valid concerns about sodium-related health conditions like high-blood pressure and heart diseases. However, most of America’s sodium problems come from processed and restaurant foods, not homemade foods using raw agricultural products like a preservative-free chicken breast. In fact, the CDC estimates that a staggering 70% of the sodium consumed by Americans comes from processed foods. So if you’re trying to find ways to cut sodium from your diet, don’t do it by skimping on salt in your home cooked meals.
Instead, cut down on processed foods by replacing them with natural, homemade alternatives. For example, next time you’re tempted to reach for a freezer bag of breaded chicken, make this recipe instead. Sure, you may think you’re using a lot of salt, but it will almost certainly be less than what you’d find in the freezer aisle. That being said, exercise caution when selecting your unprocessed ingredients from the store. A lot of chicken varieties come with “natural” labels and are still pumped full of saline solutions and salty chicken stocks. Always check the ingredient list and nutrition label to know what you’re actually buying. A truly natural chicken breast won’t have more than 70mg of sodium per serving.
Now that you’ve gotten past my salt manifesto, let’s talk about how salt is used to improve these humble chicken breasts (and any cut of meat for that matter). First of all, our goal is not to make the chicken taste salty, but to enhance the flavors naturally occurring in the chicken. The ions in salt crystals helps us accomplish this at a chemical level by suppressing bitter flavors and strengthening sweetness, sourness, and umami.
This isn’t the only chemical magic that happens when we salt our food. Look at the before and after pictures above. On the left, I’ve just salted my meat and on the right is the same breast a few hours later. It looks like the salt has disappeared, but the crystals have dissolved and, much to my pleasure, have worked their way below the meat’s surface carrying their flavor-enhancing properties throughout the entire piece of meat. Once below the surface, salt molecules begin their attack on the meat’s protein strands, unravelling them and turning them into a mushy gel that can absorb more moisture. If we skipped this step and left the protein strands untouched, they would uncoil when exposed to the cooking heat and spill all the water molecules wrapped up in the protein strands. Think about anytime you’ve pulled meat from a grill and set it down on a plate. If moments later that meat is sitting in a pool of its own juices, that means the proteins did a poor job of retaining their moisture, resulting in a dried out piece of meat. By transforming the proteins with salt, we can ensure that we get a tender, juicy piece of chicken with each bite.
Salt molecules take time to complete their journey through a piece of meat, so it’s absolutely critical that we plan for enough time to allow them to do their magic. For a small piece of meat like a chicken breast, four hours is plenty of time, and because we don’t have to worry about giving the salt too much time, leaving a seasoned chicken breast in the fridge overnight is perfectly fine. You can apply this salting technique to any kind of meat, except seafood which is too fragile to be salted more than fifteen minutes before cooking. Just keep in mind that a larger piece of meat requires more time. So while 4 hours is great for a chicken breast, if I were cooking a pork shoulder, a twenty-four hour satling period would be ideal.
Step 2: Pound
Sandwich your chicken breast between two sheets of plastic wrap or wax paper. Using a mallet (or at least a mallet-like object), pound the thickest part of the chicken until the entire breast is an even thickness.
Take a moment to get all the sexual-innuendo giggles out of the way, and then let’s talk about the importance of pounding our meat. Pounding tenderizes our meat by breaking down muscle fibers and collagen. Every muscle, whether from a chicken or not, is made up of long, stringy muscle fibers that are bound together by collagen. If you’ve ever had dry chicken breast that seemed stringy, that texture you’re feeling is the intact muscle fibers. By pounding the chicken, we can pulverize the collagen into a mushy gel, releasing their hold on the fibers and soaking the muscle with tender, juicy collagen.
If this sounds similar to the previous step on salt, it’s because we’re essentially doing the same thing in both steps. Salt breaks down the collagen, or protein strands, through chemistry, and pounding breaks it down with sheer force. But there’s another added benefit to pounding. Re-shaping your chicken breast so that there is a uniform thickness throughout the piece of meat means that the breast will cook evenly. Look at the picture below. The meat is about the same thickness throughout the whole cut, and everything looks cooked through. If I hadn’t pounded my meat, the thicker end of the breast is going to take much longer than the thin part to fully cook. By the time it comes to a food-safe temperature, the thinner part of the breast will likely be overcooked and dry. It is so frustratingly disappointing to have taken the time to salt your chicken hours before cooking and have it still taste dry. Avoid the pain by simply pounding it out.
Step 3: Dredge
Dip and drag the chicken breasts through a bowl of flour, followed by a bowl of a liquid binder like egg wash, and then a bowl of seasoned bread crumbs, evenly coating the meat in each ingredient.
Dredging is simply coating a wet food in a dry ingredient or in this case, a wet food, coated in a dry ingredient, coated in a wet ingredient, coated in a dry ingredient. Of course, most of us will already know that this results in that tasty, crispy layer of breading that fried chicken is known for. But it also helps the chicken hold on to it’s moisture as the flour seals the juices into the meat.
When dredging, it’s helpful to set up a nice clean station where you can layout all your bowls. First, pat the chicken mostly dry and coat it in your flour. I used a pretty basic all purpose flour for a light breading, but I’ve also seen people use self-rising flour for this stage which results in a thick, puffy breading. The point is, use what you have, and if you have multiple options, experiment.
Now move on over to the egg bowl, or whatever wet ingredient you’re using for a binder. You can use anything that is wet and will stick to the flour. Egg washes work great, but for a vegan breading (that you obviously wouldn’t use with chicken since that’s not vegan) you can whisk together one tablespoon of ground flax seeds with two tablespoons of water. Some chefs recommend designating a wet hand and dry hand for this part of the preparation to reduce messiness. However, I always seem to get a sticky mess on my fingers regardless, so I’ve learned to just embrace it.
The final step of dredging is a great way to add a layer of texture to your chicken. Panko bread crumbs are extremely fine, and wonderful if you want a simple, light breading on your chicken. But if you want something more akin to KFC (and there’s nothing wrong with that), bigger breadcrumbs are what you should be after. If you’re feeling really adventurous, you could crush up some crackers or Cheez-its to use as your breadcrumbs. You can also use this step to add another layer of flavor to your chicken by seasoning your breadcrumbs in spices, dried herbs, and finely shredded hard cheeses.
Step 4: Fry
Heat a layer of fat, about half an inch deep, in a shallow pan. When the oil is preheated, add your chicken breasts and fry on each side for a few minutes until the breading is golden brown. Let rest for ten minutes and serve.
The final step is to shallow fry your chicken in fat. This could be an oil, melted butter, ghee, or rendered fat from a previous meal. Different types of fat will add subtle differences to the flavor, but the most important factor is that you have enough for a layer approximately a half inch deep, or enough to nearly submerge half of the chicken breast.
The most difficult thing about frying, is knowing when the oil is preheated. I get frustrated by recipes that tell you to put your food in when the oil is shimmering. What does that mean? The oil always looks somewhat glossy. An easier way for me to tell that the oil or fat is ready for cooking is to just throw in a small clump of bread crumbs. If the crumbs immediately start to sizzle when they hit the oil, then it’s ready. If not, wait a little longer and try again. If you try putting your chicken in before the oil is completely preheated, the crust will take too long to brown. By the time it’s that much-sought-after golden brown color, the chicken will have already overcooked.
Have you ever noticed how many recipes call for something to be cooked until golden brown? That’s thanks to a little something called the maillard reaction. This is a chemical reaction that occurs when a source of heat transforms amino acids and sugars. When this chemical reaction occurs, so does a flavor transformation. Think about a loaf of artisanal bread that has a dark brown crust. The crust is probably the most flavorful part. Or imagine biting into a raw piece of squash, then take the same squash and grill it until it develops dark brown grill marks. The squash probably tastes a lot sweeter now. That’s because the naturally-occuring sugars inside the squash have changed on the molecular level, enhancing their sweetness. This amazing transformation happens to all of our foods when we brown them, so make sure you allow those flavors to develop by thoroughly browning your chicken.
There are a lot of variables when frying food over a stove. Far too many for me to confidently tell you a precise amount of time to cook the chicken on each side. Instead, look for visual clues to tell you when it’s time to flip the chicken. Examine the side of the meat. Are the breadcrumbs browning? Is the meat getting whiter? If you poke the chicken with tongs, does it feel firm? If so, flip it! Just try not to disturb the meat too much. Checking the bottom of the breast for brownness before it’s ready will stall the maillard reaction. Once the crust has browned all over, pull the chicken out of the pan and set it on a rack so any excess oil can drip off and the chicken can cool.
This final piece of advice could save you from wasting all of your efforts to ensure that your chicken comes out juicy and tender: let your chicken rest. When meat cooks, the juices are pushed to the center by proteins that are reacting to heat. If you were to simply cut into your chicken breast immediately after pulling it out of the pan, those juices would spill out. Instead, let your chicken rest for about ten minutes (you don’t need too much time since you’ve pounded the chicken into a thin piece) so that the juice has a chance to redistribute throughout the meat. This goes for cooking any type of meat. Think about a burger you’ve bitten into and the juice poured out. That first bite was probably delicious, but every bite after that was dry and disappointing. That’s because the burger wasn’t rested. Don’t make that mistake. Be patient, and give your meat the appropriate rest and relaxation before digging in.
Now that you understand the science behind this recipe, you can continuously apply these lessons to a multitude of foods. Salting is an important step in any meat preparation, and pounding works great to tenderize a cheap steak. Chicken is not the only thing that can be dredged, so use the instructions here to dredge any number of meats or veggies that you’re going to fry.
I hope you’ll try out this recipe, customize, and make it your own. I find these chicken breasts are really easy to make and convenient to incorporate in a number of dishes like fried chicken sandwich, a salad, or chicken parmigiana. Be creative, and if you discover a fantastic way to utilize these chicken breasts, let me know in the comments or take a picture and tag @everydaygourmetblog on Instagram. Thanks for reading and bon appetite!