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BEHIND THE SCENES

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SHOPPING FOR CHICKEN—WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW

Every good chicken dish starts with high-quality, fresh chicken. But there are an overwhelming number of choices at the supermarket—so how do you recognize superior poultry? Here are a few tips the test kitchen has learned over time. If you’re buying boneless, skinless chicken breasts, you should be aware that breasts of different sizes are often packaged together, and it’s usually impossible to tell what you’ve bought until you’ve opened the package. If possible, buy chicken breasts individually. If that isn’t an option, pound the thicker ends of the larger pieces of chicken to match those of the smaller pieces. Some breasts will still be larger than others, but pounding will help make their thickness the same and ensure even cooking. As for chicken parts—say for making a dish such as fried chicken or stew—we prefer to butcher our own birds rather than buy packaged parts. Not only is this a less expensive option, but the parts will be consistently sized. (We also use this approach with stew meat—there’s no guarantee that packaged stew meat is going to be cut into even-sized pieces or be from the same cut or even the same cow!) And what about ground chicken? Prepackaged ground chicken is made from either dark or white meat or a mix of the two. Higher-end markets often grind their chicken to order, so the choice is yours. In most of our testing, we found ground white meat chicken to be exceedingly dry and almost void of flavor. The dark meat was more flavorful and juicy due to its higher fat content. Click here for our recommended brands of chicken.