Developing a feel for cooking chicken - tips?

Meat thermometer. Seriously.

All of your meats will taste better when cooked to the right temperature.

If you cook it until it is hot enough, and not much longer.. it doesn't dry out. Generally doesn't get tough, isn't bloody...

I tend to cook mine until it's literally falling apart. The crockpot is excellent & works as good as baking for me cuz I don't have to mess with it constantly. Usually when I bake I don't use too much liquid, I marinade for 1hr to a day then I load it up sometimes with onions & peppers into a dish bake between 350-400, covered with alum foil for idk, maybe 45 min tops. The key is to make sure the center/ thickest section, if cooking breast, is white & not pink--then u know it's done & maintain a lil moisture by either basting it frequently or covering w/ foil (can skip this if using crockpot) unless u like ur meat tough & dry. I've never ever had a prob over or under cooking except in the past when I've tried to deep fry it....Oh, Oh did I say fry??? :blushing:

My tips:

- Start with boneless, skinless. Either breast or thigh.

- Let it sit out for a while (at least 30 minutes) to get some of the chill off before cooking. If you try to cook it cold, it will release a ton of liquid while cooking, which will cause it to steam and get tough and chewy. Ew.

- Rinse it in cool water and dry it thoroughly. It really needs to be DRY.

- If it's thigh, trim the fat and weird-looking bits off. If it's breast, either pound it thin or butterfly it so it's thin (approx. 1/2 inch).

- Heat a non-stick skillet over medium-high to high heat. Add ample fat -- I usually use olive oil, which seems to me to handle high heat just fine -- to cover the bottom of the pan. Butter will burn. Spray stuff will not give you a good crust and will not seal in those juices you want. It's not that much added fat by the time you're done. Heck, you've already removed the skin and excess fat from the chicken!

- Salt and pepper the chicken before it hits the pan. Only add as many pieces to the pan as will fit without touching one another. Too much in the pan at once will cool the pan, will allow the chicken to release a bunch of fluid and cause the steaming issue noted above. Ew, again. Remember: DON'T put the chicken in the pan until the pan is HOT. This is really key.

- Let it cook -- DON'T MESS WITH IT -- until the edges begin to turn white (or whatever you consider the color of cooked chicken to be. Not pink.) When you see that, you know that the side that's on the pan is done. Time to flip. Use tongs (NO fork!) to turn it. Admire how lovely the browning is. Smell the goodness. When it's nice and brown on the other side (it's okay to peek on side two), it's finished.

No worries about salmonella. No dried grossness. No real need to do anything more to the chicken than just ferry it to your mouth and enjoy! But it's now ready for saucing, dicing for salad, slicing for a sandwich -- whatever!

Hope you enjoy

What are some of the subtle signs things are going well with a chicken? Any tips?

I always look for subtle signs like accelerated heart rate, rapid breathing, that certain spark in the eyes.... Oh wait, chickEN? Sorry. :embarassed:

What are some of the subtle signs things are going well with a chicken? Any tips?

I always look for subtle signs like accelerated heart rate, rapid breathing, that certain spark in the eyes.... Oh wait, chickEN? Sorry. :embarassed:

If you're frying chicken. Well I only eat chicken wings, but you want to cook it 7 minutes on each side on medium heat. If you're deep frying them, cook it until the frying sounds slow down. That is when you know its done!

All meat seems to go through stages while cooking. Assuming a hypothetical hunk of meat is the same temperature throughout: somewhere around 140-150 degrees it will start to change texture and become more like what we know as "cooked" meat. Between 155 and 165 the proteins tighten so much that it begins to become rubbery. From 165-boiling it will get more and more rubbery. But if you hold it hot for a long time, the collagen begins to soften and it becomes stringy but more tender to the tooth as the collagen around each muscle bundle turns liquid. The best meats for this method are those with lots of gelatin aka "gristle." I've noticed chicken breast seems to have less collagen than other meats. For me, when it's cooked hot and long it just gets stringy and falls apart, but each string is almost chalky.

I stumbled upon a boneless-skinless chicken breast cooking method that stops that from happening. Low temperature poaching. I put a pan with liquid (I use things like coconut milk, broth, salted herb'd water, etc.) on the stove and turn it on medium-low, then add chicken breasts. It takes a long time to cook like that, especially from frozen (can take an hour or two) but so long as it's steaming a bit on top with some bubbles coming up from the bottom (small and not too often) I noticed that it does not overcook and get tough and stringy, but also does not undercook and stay slimy. It's very, very tender, but still "cooked." I wish I had a meat thermometer so it wasn't guesswork (and I HIGHLY recommend one). I googled sous-vide (low temp water bath cooking method I SO want to try when I get a reliable thermometer and can hack a crockpot or cooler) and found this: http://www.seriouseats.com/2010/04/sous-vide-basics-low-temperature-chicken.html - apparently you can cook at low temperature safely just so long as it's for a long time. There is an interesting graphic that shows the temperature at which bacteria are killed and how long it takes.

The only thing I can add is don't over cook it. I like to take mine off the heat just before I think it's just right and the residual heat finishes it. It stays nice and jucy that way.