The Inexplicable Mystery of the Chicken Breast

One of life's great mysteries is why human beings, but especially Americans, eat so much chicken breast -even though all the other parts of the bird taste better. However, I am eternally grateful because it allows me to buy chicken leg quarters for 79 cents a pound while some suckers are paying four or five bucks a pound for a piece of meat they are going to overcook until it has the pleasant consistency of sawdust. I suppose breast meat is marginally healthier. Per 3.5oz serving, a skinless breast has a whopping 10 fewer calories than a skinless drumstick. Though why you would eat or cook any part of the chicken without the skin is another of life's mysteries.

However, I must grudgingly admit that taste is a personal matter, and if you like chicken breast, bully for you. I will not try to dissuade you as wrong as you are. In fact, I will do everything in my power to improve your chicken breast experience so that my gravy train of cheap chicken leg quarters keeps running. So if you still insist on eating dry, bland bird, here are some tips to mitigate the damage to your tastebuds (and my soul).

The number one failure of chicken breasts is that they are lean so that they lack flavor and tend to dry out when they are cooked. There are a number of methods we can use to remedy this situation.

I highly recommend cooking chicken breast with a wet heat. Boil, simmer, or braise it. Gently. Chicken breast is fine in soups and stews. However, if you are cooking the chicken in a salty broth it is still possible to dry out the chicken. If you are making soup, and your chicken seems dry, then you just need patience. Once the soup is done, take it off the heat, let it cool a bit, and the chicken will gradually plump back up with the broth.

If you insist on using dry heat (roasting, baking, or grilling), you must marinade or brine your bird. In either case, the trick is to use enough salt so that moisture is first drawn out and then back into the bird with the salt and other flavorings. You want to use a scary amount of salt. Remember that a vast majority of the salt will be discarded when you throw the marinade or brine away. Only a small percentage is going to make it into the bird.

Finally, one of the most valuable tools in any kitchen is a probe thermometer. It is the only way to gauge the temperature of a hunk of meat in the oven without disrupting the cooking process. Instant read thermometers may seem like a great idea, but it doesn't help when you're constantly opening your oven and letting all the heat out to take a reading every five minutes. You'll soon be asking yourself why it's taking twice as long to cook as that recipe on the internet said it would. So just invest in the probe, stick it in, and forget about it until it starts beeping at (a few degrees before) the proper temperature. For a thin piece of meat like a chicken breast, I would stick it in horizontally so that it's parallel to the bottom of the pan with the tip as near to the middle of the breast as possible. When coming in at a more vertical angle, it's too easy to overshoot and end up with the thermometer closer to the pan and throwing the reading way off.

With these helpful tips, I hope you learn to enjoy your chicken breast even more. I'll be eating my chicken thigh with its healthy unsaturated fat over here.