A New Way to Pan-Sear Chicken Breasts
Ultimate Pan-Seared Skin-On Chicken Breasts
The Problem with Chicken Stir-Fries
Rescuing Barbecued Chicken Kebabs
Grilled Glazed Chicken Breasts
The Ultimate Crispy Fried Chicken
Best Roast Chicken and Vegetables
Reconstructing Stuffed Roast Chicken
I crave fried chicken as much as the next person, but I have never been partial to fried wings. To me, they’re bar snacks—fine for occasionally sharing with friends but not substantial or satisfying enough to make a meal out of—and certainly not worth the trouble to make at home.
At least, that’s how I felt until I tasted the fried wings at a Korean restaurant. The biggest selling point of this style is its thin, crackly exterior that gives way to juicy meat with an audible crunch—an especially impressive trait considering that the surface of the chicken is doused with a wet sauce. And unlike many styles of wings that are just sweet, salty, or fiery, these delivered a perfect balance of all those flavors.
That profile has made this style of fried chicken wildly popular as an accompaniment to beer and the pickled side dishes known as banchan in South Korean bars and restaurants. In fact, the fried chicken–beer combination is now a multibillion-dollar industry that has spawned the term chimaek (chi for “chicken” and maek for “maekju,” the Korean word for beer), a South Korean festival, and (in the past decade or so) worldwide restaurant chains like Bon Chon that are centered on this particular dish.
A brief rest after twice-frying allows these wings to stay exceptionally crispy, even beneath a layer of sweet-spicy sauce.
Needless to say, I was hooked and was determined to make Korean fried chicken for myself. Once I started to research the recipe, I also learned a practical explanation for using wings: In Korea, where chickens are smaller, restaurants often cut up and fry the whole bird, but because the larger breasts and thighs on American birds are harder to cook evenly, wings are the easier choice. The more I thought about it, I didn’t see why I couldn’t make a meal out of Korean fried chicken wings; their bold flavors would surely pair well with a bowl of rice and (in place of the banchan) a bright, fresh slaw.
THE CRUST OF THE MATTER
Replicating the sauce would be easy enough once I figured out the ingredients. So I first focused on nailing the wings’ delicate but substantial crunch, reviewing the coatings and frying methods I found in a handful of recipes. The coatings varied considerably—from a simple cornstarch dredge to a thick batter made with eggs, flour, and cornstarch—and I found methods for both single frying and double frying. Figuring I’d start with a minimalist approach, I tossed 3 pounds of wings (which would feed at least four people) in cornstarch before frying them once, for about 10 minutes, in a Dutch oven filled with 2 quarts of 350-degree oil.
The meat on these wings was a tad dry, but their worst flaw was the coating—or lack thereof. Most of the cornstarch fell off as soon as the wings hit the oil, so the crust was wimpy—nothing that could stand up to a sauce—and only lightly browned.
Thinking that the starch needed some moisture to help it cling to the chicken, I next tried a series of batter coatings. Not surprisingly, the shaggy mixture of flour, cornstarch, and egg fried up thick and craggy, more like the coating on American fried chicken. I also tried a combination of just cornstarch and water, but it was another bust: Adding enough liquid to make the mixture loose enough to coat the chicken also made it too runny to cling, but without enough water the mixture thickened up like liquid cement. Coating the wings with a creamy, loose slurry of flour and water yielded a nicely thin crust, though it was a bit tough and lacked the elusive shattery texture I was after. From there, I tried various ratios of cornstarch to flour and found that supplementing a flour-based batter with just 3 tablespoons of cornstarch helped the coating crisp up nicely. I understood why once I learned that flour and cornstarch play different but complementary roles in frying: The proteins in wheat flour help the batter bond to the meat and also brown deeply; cornstarch (a pure starch) doesn’t cling or brown as well as flour, but it crisps up nicely. Why? Because pure starch releases more amylose, a starch molecule that fries up supercrispy. Cornstarch also can’t form gluten, so it doesn’t turn tough.
I dunked the wings in the batter and let the excess drip back into the bowl before adding them to the hot oil. When they emerged, I thought I’d finally nailed the crust, which was gorgeously crispy and brown. But when I slathered the wings with my placeholder sauce (a mixture of the spicy-sweet Korean chile-soybean paste gochujang, sugar, garlic, ginger, sesame oil, soy sauce, and a little water) and took a bite, I paused. They’d gone from supercrispy to soggy in minutes.
ON THE DOUBLE
It was a setback that made me wonder if double frying might be worth a try, so I ran the obvious head-to-head test: one batch of wings fried continuously until done versus another fried partway, removed from the oil and allowed to rest briefly, and then fried again until cooked through. After draining them, I would toss both batches in the same amount of sauce to see which one stayed crispier.
It wasn’t even a contest: Whereas the wings that had been fried once and then sauced started to soften up almost instantly, the double-fried batch still delivered real crunch after being doused with the sauce. What’s more, the double-fried wings were juicier than any batch I’d made before. Why? Chicken skin contains a lot of moisture, so producing crispy wings (which have a higher ratio of skin to meat than any other part of the chicken) means removing as much moisture as possible from the chicken skin before the meat overcooks. When you fry just once, the meat finishes cooking before all of the moisture is driven out of the chicken skin, and the remaining moisture migrates to the crust and turns it soggy. Covering the wings with sauce makes the sogginess even worse. But when you fry twice, the interruption of the cooking and the brief cooldown period slow the cooking of the meat; as a result, you can extend the overall cooking time and expel all the moisture from the skin without overcooking the chicken.
There was my proof that double frying was worth the time—and, frankly, it wasn’t the tediously long cooking process I thought it would be. Yes, I had to do the first fry in two batches, for two reasons: The oil temperature would drop too much if I put all the chicken in at once because there would be so much moisture from the skin to cook off; plus, the wet coating would cause the wings to stick together if they were crowded in the pot. But the frying took only about 7 minutes per batch. As the parcooked wings rested on a wire rack, I brought the oil temperature up to 375 degrees. Then, following the lead of one of the more prominent Korean fried chicken recipes I’d found, I dumped all the wings back into the pot at once for the second stage. After another 7 minutes, they were deeply golden and shatteringly crispy. All told, I’d produced 3 pounds of perfectly crispy wings in roughly half an hour. Not bad.
SAVORY, SPICY, SWEET
Back to my placeholder sauce, which was close but a tad sharp from the raw minced garlic and ginger. Instead, I placed the ginger and garlic in a large bowl with a tablespoon of sesame oil and microwaved the mixture for 1 minute, just long enough to take the edge off. Then I whisked in the remaining sauce ingredients. The sweet-savory-spicy balance was pitch-perfect.
Before tossing them in the sauce, I let the wings rest for 2 minutes so the coating could cool and set. When I did add them to the sauce, they were still so crispy that they clunked encouragingly against the sides of the bowl. In fact, the crust’s apparent staying power made me curious to see how long the crunch would last, so I set some wings aside and found that they stayed truly crispy for 2 hours. Impressive—even though I knew they’d be gobbled up long before that.
Korean Fried Chicken Wings
SERVES 4 TO 6 AS A MAIN DISH
A rasp-style grater makes quick work of turning the garlic into a paste. Gochujang, a Korean chile-soybean paste, can be found in Asian markets and in some supermarkets. Tailor the heat level of your wings by adjusting its amount. If you can’t find gochujang, substitute an equal amount of Sriracha sauce and add only 2 tablespoons of water to the sauce. Use a Dutch oven that holds 6 quarts or more. For a complete meal, serve with steamed white rice and a slaw.
1 tablespoon toasted sesame oil
1 teaspoon garlic, minced to paste
1 teaspoon grated fresh ginger
1¾ cups water
3 tablespoons sugar
2–3 tablespoons gochujang
1 tablespoon soy sauce
2 quarts vegetable oil
1 cup all-purpose flour
3 tablespoons cornstarch
3 pounds chicken wings, cut at joints, wingtips discarded
1. Combine sesame oil, garlic, and ginger in large bowl and microwave until mixture is bubbly and garlic and ginger are fragrant but not browned, 40 to 60 seconds. Whisk in ¼ cup water, sugar, gochujang, and soy sauce until smooth; set aside.
2. Heat vegetable oil in large Dutch oven over medium-high heat to 350 degrees. While oil heats, whisk flour, cornstarch, and remaining 1½ cups water in second large bowl until smooth. Set wire rack in rimmed baking sheet and set aside.
3. Place half of wings in batter and stir to coat. Using tongs, remove wings from batter one at a time, allowing any excess batter to drip back into bowl, and add to hot oil. Increase heat to high and cook, stirring occasionally to prevent wings from sticking, until coating is light golden and beginning to crisp, about 7 minutes. (Oil temperature will drop sharply after adding wings.) Transfer wings to prepared rack. Return oil to 350 degrees and repeat with remaining wings. Reduce heat to medium and let second batch of wings rest for 5 minutes.
4. Heat oil to 375 degrees. Carefully return all wings to oil and cook, stirring occasionally, until deep golden brown and very crispy, about 7 minutes. Return wings to rack and let stand for 2 minutes. Transfer wings to reserved sauce and toss until coated. Return wings to rack and let stand for 2 minutes to allow coating to set. Transfer to platter and serve.
HOW TO CUT UP CHICKEN WINGS
Our recipe for Korean Fried Chicken Wings calls for cutting the wings into three parts: drumettes, midsections, and wingtips. Here’s how to do it.
1. Using your fingertip, locate joint between wingtip and midsection. Place blade of chef’s knife on joint, between bones, and using palm of your nonknife hand, press down on blade to cut through skin and tendon, as shown.
2. Find joint between midsection and drumette and repeat process to cut through skin and joint. Discard wingtip.
THE IMPORTANCE OF COOKING IN BATCHES
When preparing to fry our wings, we heat the oil to 350 degrees and then cook the wings in batches. We do this because trying to cook the wings all at once (at least for the first fry) would cause the freshly battered wings to stick together; plus, the temperature of the oil would drop too much. Although the temperature will still drop when you add half of the wings, as long as it stays above 250 degrees (where there is enough energy to evaporate water and brown the exterior), the results will be fine.
WINGING IT, KOREAN-STYLE
Korean fried chicken wings boast a big crunch and a complex sauce that make them appealing to eat, but they also employ a relatively quick and easy cooking method that makes them more appealing to prepare than many other styles of fried chicken.
DOUBLE FRYING ISN’T DOUBLE THE WORK
Double frying is crucial for the crunchy texture of our wings because it drives more moisture from the skin—but it’s not as onerous as you might think. Each batch of wings takes just 7 minutes, and the second fry can be done in one large batch.
1. Place half of wings in batter and toss to coat. Remove wings from batter one at a time, allowing excess batter to drip back into bowl, and add to hot oil.
2. Increase heat to high and cook, stirring occasionally, until coating is light golden and beginning to crisp, about 7 minutes. Transfer wings to prepared rack and repeat with second batch of wings.
3. Heat oil to 375 degrees, carefully return all wings to oil, and cook, stirring occasionally, until deep golden-brown and very crispy, about 7 minutes. Return to wire rack and let rest for 2 minutes before tossing with sauce.
KEITH DRESSER, March/April 2010
What cook desperate for a quick dinner hasn’t thrown a boneless, skinless chicken breast into a hot pan, keeping fingers crossed for edible results? The fact is, pan-searing is a surefire way to ruin this cut. Unlike a split chicken breast, which has the bone and skin to help keep the meat moist and juicy, a boneless, skinless breast is fully exposed to the intensity of the hot pan. Inevitably, it emerges moist in the middle and dry at the edges, with an exterior that’s leathery and tough. But there’s no denying the appeal of a cut that requires no butchering. What would it take to get a pan-seared boneless, skinless breast every bit as flavorful, moist, and tender as its skin-on counterpart?
SLOW COOKER
I wasn’t the only one to think that the typical sear-cover-and-cook approach needed an overhaul. The problem is that the center of a thick chicken breast takes a long time to reach 165 degrees. Meanwhile, the outer layers are busy overcooking, losing moisture, and turning stringy and tough. One unconventional recipe called for parcooking the chicken in water before searing. In theory, the idea was sound: Poaching would cook the breasts gently and evenly, and the parcooked, warm chicken should take much less time to develop a flavorful brown crust than straight-from-the-fridge meat. Less time in a hot skillet equals less moisture lost. The chicken was juicy and brown, all right—but also flavorless, since much of the chicken’s juices seeped into the cooking liquid and subsequently got poured down the drain.
Moving on, I tried ditching the water bath in lieu of the oven, still keeping the same gently-parcook-then-sear order. I placed four chicken breasts in a baking pan, cooked them in a 275-degree oven until they hit 150 degrees, and then seared them. They browned quickly and beautifully, but while the meat was moist enough on the inside, the exterior had so dehydrated that I practically needed a steak knife to saw through it.
What about salting? Like brining, salting changes the structure of meat proteins, helping them to retain more moisture as they cook. Ideally, chicken should be salted for at least 6 hours to ensure full penetration and juiciness. But boneless, skinless breasts are supposed to be quick and easy, so I wasn’t willing to commit more than 30 extra minutes to the process. I found that poking holes into the meat with a fork created channels for the salt to reach the interior of the chicken, maximizing the short salting time. This made the interior even juicier, but the exterior was still too dried out.
How could I protect the chicken’s exterior from the oven’s dry heat? I tried the exact same method, this time wrapping the baking dish tightly in foil before heating. Bingo! In this enclosed environment, any moisture released by the chicken stayed trapped under the foil, keeping the exterior from drying out without becoming so overtly wet that it couldn’t brown quickly. In fact, this cover-and-cook method proved so effective that I could combine the 30-minute salting step with the roasting step.
TAKE COVER
I now had breasts that were supremely moist and tender on the inside with a flavorful, browned exterior—a big improvement. With a little more effort, could I do better still? To protect thin cutlets from the heat of the pan and encourage faster browning, many recipes dredge them in flour. Raw breasts are malleable, so they make good contact with the pan. The parcooked breasts, on the other hand, had already firmed up slightly, so only some of the flour was able to come in contact with the hot oil in the pan, leading to spotty browning.
Simple dredging was out, and I definitely didn’t want to go the full breading route. The only other thing I could think of was a technique from Chinese cooking called velveting. Here the meat is dipped in a mixture of oil and cornstarch, which provides a thin, protective layer that keeps the protein moist and tender even when exposed to the ultrahigh heat of stir-frying. Though I’d never heard of using this method on large pieces of meat like breasts, I saw no reason it wouldn’t work here. I brushed my parcooked chicken with a mixture of 2 tablespoons melted butter (which would contribute more flavor than oil) and a heaping tablespoon of cornstarch before searing it.
We start cooking boneless chicken breasts in the oven so they need only a brief stint in a hot pan to brown.
As soon as I put the breasts in the pan, I noticed that the slurry helped the chicken make better contact with the hot skillet, and as I flipped the pieces, I was happy to see an even, golden crust. However, tasters reported that the cornstarch was leaving a slightly pasty residue. Replacing it with flour didn’t work; the protein in flour produced a crust that was tough and bready instead of light and crisp. It turned out that achieving the right balance of protein and starch was the key. A mixture of 3 parts flour to 1 part cornstarch created a thin, browned, crisp coating that kept the breast’s exterior as moist as the interior—some tasters thought it was even better than real chicken skin itself.
Served on its own or with a simple pan sauce, this tender, crisp-coated chicken far surpassed any other pan-seared breasts I’ve ever made.
Pan-Seared Chicken Breasts
SERVES 4
For the best results, buy similarly sized chicken breasts. If the breasts have the tenderloin attached, leave it in place and follow the upper range of baking time in step 1. For optimal texture, sear the chicken immediately after removing it from the oven. Serve with Lemon and Chive Pan Sauce recipe follows), if desired.
4 (6- to 8-ounce) boneless, skinless chicken breasts, trimmed
2 teaspoons kosher salt
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon cornstarch
½ teaspoon pepper
1. Adjust oven rack to lower-middle position and heat oven to 275 degrees. Using fork, poke thickest half of breasts 5 or 6 times and sprinkle each with ½ teaspoon salt. Transfer breasts, skinned side down, to 13 by 9-inch baking dish and cover tightly with aluminum foil. Bake until breasts register 145 to 150 degrees, 30 to 40 minutes.
2. Remove chicken from oven; transfer, skinned side up, to paper towel–lined plate; and pat dry with paper towels. Heat oil in 12-inch skillet over medium-high heat until just smoking. While skillet is heating, whisk melted butter, flour, cornstarch, and pepper together in bowl. Lightly brush top of chicken with half of butter mixture. Place chicken in skillet, coated side down, and cook until browned, about 4 minutes. While chicken browns, brush with remaining butter mixture. Flip breasts, reduce heat to medium, and cook until second side is browned and breasts register 160 degrees, 3 to 4 minutes. Transfer breasts to large plate and let rest for 5 minutes before serving.
accompaniment
MAKES ABOUT ¾ CUP
1 shallot, minced
1 teaspoon all-purpose flour
1 cup chicken broth
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 tablespoon minced fresh chives
1 tablespoon unsalted butter, chilled
Salt and pepper
Add shallot to now-empty skillet and cook over medium heat until softened, about 2 minutes. Add flour and cook, stirring constantly, for 30 seconds. Slowly whisk in broth, scraping up any browned bits. Bring to vigorous simmer and cook until reduced to ¾ cup, 3 to 5 minutes. Stir in any accumulated chicken juices; return to simmer and cook for 30 seconds. Off heat, whisk in lemon juice, chives, and butter. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Pour sauce over chicken and serve immediately.
A PERFECT COATING COMBO
To end up with moist exteriors, our pan-seared boneless, skinless breasts needed light protection. But slurries made with melted butter and the usual suspects—cornstarch and flour—each had issues. Cornstarch is a pure starch prone to forming a gel that left pasty spots on the meat. The proteins in flour, on the other hand, link together to form gluten, leading to an overly tough, bready coating. Using a combination of cornstarch and flour, however, created the perfect light, crisp, evenly browned coating.
The explanation is simple: Each ingredient tempers the effect of the other. With flour in the mix, the cornstarch is sufficiently diluted by protein to prevent it from forming a paste, whereas the protein is diluted enough that it doesn’t cause the crust to become bready.
BETTER BONELESS BREASTS
1. POKE AND SALT Salting chicken seasons meat, keeping it moist. Poking thicker part of breasts ensures even seasoning.
2. COVER AND BAKE BAKING at low temperature in foil-covered dish cooks chicken evenly and keeps exterior from drying out.
3. BRUSH ON COATING Brushing butter, flour, and cornstarch onto breasts creates “skin” to protect meat during searing.
4. SEAR QUICKLY Briefly searing parcooked coated breasts keeps them moist and creates crisp exteriors.
I’m always on the lookout for ways to get great skin on chicken. By that I mean skin that’s paper-thin, deep golden brown, and so well crisped that it crackles when you take a bite. Such perfectly cooked skin, however, is actually a rarity. A good roast chicken may have patches of it, but the rotund shape of the bird means that uneven cooking is inevitable and that some of the skin will also cook up flabby and pale. And even on relatively flat chicken parts, there’s the layer of fat beneath the skin to contend with: By the time it melts away during searing, the exterior often chars and the meat itself overcooks.
When I recently came across one of the best specimens of chicken I’d ever tasted, I had to figure out how to recreate it myself. The restaurant was Maialino (a Danny Meyer venture) in New York City, and the dish was Pollo alla Diavola. The tender meat and the tangy, spicy pickled cherry pepper sauce that was served with it had their own charms, but the chicken skin was incredible—a sheath so gorgeously bronzed and shatteringly crunchy that I’d swear it was deep-fried.
Starting skin-on chicken breasts in a cold pan and weighing them down for part of the cooking time gives them shatteringly crisp skin.
STARTING SMALL(ER)
There were a number of hurdles to achieving the same chicken-skin nirvana at home, not the least of which was the cut of meat itself. At Maialino, the kitchen serves half of a chicken per person, removing all but the wing bones from the meat before searing it.
The point of all that butchery is to flatten out the bird so that its entire surface makes direct, even contact with the pan—a must for producing thoroughly rendered, deeply crisped skin. But since few home cooks can do that kind of knife work confidently and quickly, I decided to keep things simple and work with only breast meat. Removing the breast bones required just a few quick strokes of a sharp knife. Moreover, switching from half chickens to split breasts made for more reasonable portions. I would serve a pair of breasts—enough for two people—and keep things simple so that the dish would work as a weeknight meal.
Of course, the drawback to working with breast meat would be its tendency to overcook, particularly once I’d removed the bones—poor conductors of heat and, therefore, good insulators. My very basic initial cooking technique was placing the boned breasts skin side down in a hot, oiled skillet to crisp up their surface and then flipping the meat to let it color briefly on the other side. This gave me fairly crispy skin but meat that was dry and chalky. When I tried a slightly gentler approach, briefly pan-searing the chicken skin side down and then transferring the pan to the more even heat of a 450-degree oven until the breasts were cooked through, the meat was only somewhat more moist and tender. Clearly, some form of pretreatment was essential if I wanted the meat to be as succulent as the skin was crispy.
Brining was out, since it introduces additional water to the meat and inevitably leaves the skin slightly waterlogged. Salting would be the way to go. Besides seasoning the meat deeply and helping it retain moisture as it cooks, salt would assist in drying out the skin. To further encourage the skin’s dehydration (as well as the salt’s penetration), I poked holes in both the skin and meat with a sharp knife before applying the salt.
WORTH THE WEIGHT
Salting and slashing helped, but they got me only so far with the skin, which indicated that my simple searing technique needed tweaking. Thus far, the best I’d accomplished was unevenly cooked skin: patches that were gorgeously crispy and brown and adjacent patches that were inedibly pale and flabby. What’s more, the skin tended to shrink away from the edges of the breast as it cooked, which, apart from the unsightly appearance, caused the now-exposed meat to turn dry and leathery. Finally, the thin end of the breast still cooked up a bit dry by the time the thick end had fully cooked.
Evening out the thickness of the meat was easy: I simply pounded the thick end of the breast gently so that the entire piece cooked at the same rate. As for evening out the browning of the skin, I adapted a classic Italian technique that the chef at Maialino also uses: pinning the bird to the cooking surface with bricks. I mimicked that technique by weighing down the chicken breasts with a heavy Dutch oven. (Since I had no interest in transferring the weighty duo of pans to the oven, I’d switch to cooking the breasts entirely on the stovetop.) After cooking the breasts for 10 minutes over medium heat, I removed the pot and surveyed the skin, which, for the most part, was far crispier than ever before and not at all shrunken. But pockets of fat persisted under the surface at the center and along the edges. And the meat? It was way overcooked now that it was pressed hard against the hot surface.
Amid my frustration, I had noticed that when I removed the Dutch oven, a puff of steam arose from the pan—moisture from the chicken that had been trapped beneath the pot. That moisture was thwarting my skin-crisping efforts, so I wondered if the weight was necessary for the entire cooking time or if I could remove it partway through to prevent moisture buildup.
I prepared another batch, this time letting the breasts cook in the preheated oiled skillet under the pot for just 5 minutes before uncovering them. At this stage the skin was only just beginning to brown, but as it continued to cook for another 2 to 4 minutes, the skin remained anchored to the pan, crisping up nicely without contracting in the least. Removing the pot early also allowed the meat to cook a bit more gently. But it wasn’t quite gentle enough; dry meat still persisted.
The core problem—that it takes longer to render and crisp chicken skin than it does to cook the meat—had me feeling defeated until I realized a way to give the skin a head start: a “cold” pan. It’s a classic French technique for cooking duck breasts—the ultimate example of delicate meat covered with a layer of fatty skin. Putting the meat skin side down in the oiled pan before turning on the heat allows more time for the skin to render out its fat before the temperature of the meat reaches its doneness point. I hoped this approach would apply to chicken.
Initially, I thought I’d hit a roadblock: The breasts were sticking to the skillet—a nonissue when adding proteins to a hot pan, which usually prevents sticking. Fortunately, by the time the skin had rendered and fully crisped up, the breasts came away from the surface with just a gentle tug. Once the skin had achieved shattering crispiness, all it took was a few short minutes on the second side to finish cooking the meat.
TRY A LITTLE TANGINESS
The chicken was tasty enough as is, but to dress things up a bit, I set my sights on developing a few sauces.
My own rendition of Maialino’s alla diavola sauce was a reduction of pickled-pepper vinegar and chicken broth, thickened with a little flour and butter and garnished with a few chopped pickled peppers. I also came up with a pair of variations on the same acid-based theme: lemon-rosemary and maple–sherry vinegar.
Satisfying my inner chicken skin perfectionist was gratifying in and of itself. But coming up with a quick and elegant way to dress up ordinary old chicken breasts? That was even better.
Crispy-Skinned Chicken Breasts with Vinegar-Pepper Pan Sauce
Crispy-Skinned Chicken Breasts with Vinegar-Pepper Pan Sauce
SERVES 2
This recipe requires refrigerating the salted meat for at least 1 hour before cooking. Two 10- to 12-ounce chicken breasts are ideal, but three smaller ones can fit in the same pan; the skin will be slightly less crispy. A boning knife or sharp paring knife works best to remove the bones from the breasts. To maintain the crispy skin, spoon the sauce around, not over, the breasts when serving.
Chicken
2 (10- to 12-ounce) bone-in split chicken breasts
Kosher salt and pepper
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
Pan Sauce
1 shallot, minced
1 teaspoon all-purpose flour
½ cup chicken broth
¼ cup chopped pickled hot cherry peppers, plus ¼ cup brine
1 tablespoon unsalted butter, chilled
1 teaspoon minced fresh thyme
Salt and pepper
1. For the chicken: Place 1 chicken breast, skin side down, on cutting board, with ribs facing away from knife hand. Run tip of knife between breastbone and meat, working from thick end of breast toward thin end. Angling blade slightly and following rib cage, repeat cutting motion several times to remove ribs and breastbone from breast. Find short remnant of wishbone along top edge of breast and run tip of knife along both sides of bone to separate it from meat. Remove tenderloin (reserve for another use) and trim excess fat, taking care not to cut into skin. Repeat with second breast.
2. Using tip of paring knife, poke skin on each breast evenly 30 to 40 times. Turn breasts over and poke thickest half of each breast 5 or 6 times. Cover breasts with plastic wrap and pound thick ends gently with meat pounder until ½ inch thick. Evenly sprinkle each breast with ½ teaspoon kosher salt. Place breasts, skin side up, on wire rack set in rimmed baking sheet, cover loosely with plastic, and refrigerate for at least 1 hour or up to 8 hours.
3. Pat breasts dry with paper towels and sprinkle each breast with ¼ teaspoon pepper. Pour oil in 12-inch skillet and swirl to coat. Place breasts, skin side down, in oil and place skillet over medium heat. Place heavy skillet or Dutch oven on top of breasts. Cook breasts until skin is beginning to brown and meat is beginning to turn opaque along edges, 7 to 9 minutes.
4. Remove weight and continue to cook until skin is well browned and very crispy, 6 to 8 minutes. Flip breasts, reduce heat to medium-low, and cook until second side is lightly browned and meat registers 160 to 165 degrees, 2 to 3 minutes. Transfer breasts to individual plates and let rest while preparing pan sauce.
5. For the pan sauce: Pour off all but 2 teaspoons oil from skillet. Return skillet to medium heat and add shallot; cook, stirring occasionally, until shallot is softened, about 2 minutes. Add flour and cook, stirring constantly, for 30 seconds. Increase heat to medium-high, add broth and brine, and bring to simmer, scraping up any browned bits. Simmer until thickened, 2 to 3 minutes. Stir in any accumulated chicken juices; return to simmer and cook for 30 seconds. Remove skillet from heat and whisk in peppers, butter, and thyme; season with salt and pepper to taste. Spoon sauce around breasts and serve.
variations
Crispy-Skinned Chicken Breasts with Maple–Sherry Vinegar Pan Sauce
In step 5, substitute 2 tablespoons sherry vinegar for brine, 1 tablespoon maple syrup for peppers, and sage for thyme.
Crispy-Skinned Chicken Breasts with Lemon-Rosemary Pan Sauce
In step 5, increase broth to ¾ cup and substitute 2 tablespoons lemon juice for brine. Omit peppers and substitute rosemary for thyme.
The most common, and probably most appealing, stir-fry is made with chicken. Sounds easy, right? Well, it turns out that a good chicken stir-fry is more difficult to prepare than a beef or pork stir-fry because chicken, which has less fat, inevitably becomes dry and stringy when cooked over high heat. I was after a stir-fry that featured tender, juicy, bite-size pieces of chicken paired with just the right combination of vegetables in a simple yet complex-flavored sauce. And because this was a stir-fry, it had to be fairly quick.
In the past, we’ve used a marinade to impart flavor to meat destined for stir-fries. Chicken was no exception. Tossing the pieces of chicken into a simple soy-sherry mixture for 10 minutes before cooking added much-needed flavor, but it did nothing to improve the texture of the meat.
The obvious solution to dry chicken was brining, our favorite method of adding moisture to poultry. A test of brined boneless breasts (preferred over thighs) did in fact confirm that this method solved the problem of dry chicken. However, a half hour or more of brining time followed by 10 minutes of marinating was out of the question for a quick midweek stir-fry. It seemed redundant to soak the chicken first in one salty solution (brine) and then another (marinade), so I decided to combine the two, using the soy sauce to provide the high salt level in my brine. This turned out to be a key secret of a great chicken stir-fry. Now I was turning out highly flavored, juicy pieces of chicken—most of the time. Given the finicky nature of high-heat cooking, some batches of chicken still occasionally turned out tough because of overcooking.
THE VELVET GLOVE
I next turned to a traditional Chinese technique called velveting, which involves coating chicken pieces in a thin cornstarch and egg white or oil mixture, then parcooking in moderately heated oil. The coating holds precious moisture inside; that extra juiciness makes the chicken seem more tender. Cornstarch mixed with egg white yielded a cakey coating; tasters preferred the more subtle coating provided by cornstarch mixed with oil. This velveted chicken was supple, but it was also pale, and, again, this method seemed far too involved for a quick weeknight dinner.
A hybrid brine/marinade gives lean chicken breasts flavor and moisture in minutes, guaranteeing that the pieces cook up tender and supple.
I wondered if the same method—coating in a cornstarch mixture—would work if I eliminated the parcooking step. It did. This chicken was not only juicy and tender, but it also developed an attractive golden brown coating. Best of all, the entire process took less than 5 minutes. The only problem was that the coating, which was more of an invisible barrier than a crust, became bloated and slimy when cooked in the sauce.
Our science editor explained that the cornstarch was absorbing liquid from the sauce, causing the slippery finish. He suggested cutting the cornstarch with flour, which created a negligible coating—not too thick, not too slimy—that still managed to keep juices inside the chicken. Substituting sesame oil for peanut oil added a rich depth of flavor.
After trying everything from pounded to cubed chicken, tasters voted for simple flat ¼-inch slices, which were all the more easy to cut after freezing the breasts for 15 minutes. These wide, flat slices of chicken browned easily. I cooked them in two batches, first browning one side and then turning them over to quickly brown the second side rather than constantly stirring (or “stir”-frying) as so many other recipes suggest. Although choosing not to stir-fry seemed counterintuitive, I found that the constant motion of that method detracted from the browning of the chicken.
THE FINISH
As for the vegetables in my recipe, a combination of bok choy and red bell pepper worked well with the chicken. For the sauce, the test kitchen has found that chicken broth, rather than soy sauce, makes the best base because it is not overpowering. Oyster sauce works nicely as a flavoring ingredient. We have also tested the addition of cornstarch to help the sauce coat the meat and vegetables and have found that a small amount is necessary. Otherwise, the sauce is too thin and does not adhere properly.
The basic stir-fry method was previously developed in the test kitchen. After the protein (in this case, the chicken) is cooked and removed from the pan, the vegetables are stir-fried in batches, garlic and ginger (the classic stir-fry combination) are quickly cooked in the center of the pan, and then the protein is returned to the pan along with the sauce. This final mixture is cooked over medium heat for 30 seconds to finish.
In the end, a great chicken stir-fry doesn’t really take more time to prepare than a bad one. It does, however, require more attention to detail and knowledge of a few quick tricks.
Gingery Stir-Fried Chicken and Bok Choy
SERVES 4
To make slicing the chicken easier, freeze it for 15 minutes. Serve with white rice.
Sauce
¼ cup chicken broth
2 tablespoons dry sherry
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 tablespoon oyster sauce
2 teaspoons grated fresh ginger
1 teaspoon cornstarch
1 teaspoon sugar
½ teaspoon toasted sesame oil
¼ teaspoon red pepper flakes
Stir-Fry
2 teaspoons grated fresh ginger
1 garlic clove, minced
2 tablespoons plus 2 teaspoons vegetable oil
1 cup water
¼ cup soy sauce
¼ cup dry sherry
1 pound boneless, skinless chicken breasts, trimmed and cut crosswise into ¼-inch-thick strips
2 tablespoons toasted sesame oil
1 tablespoon cornstarch
1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
1 pound bok choy, stalks cut on bias into ¼-inch slices, greens cut into ½-inch-wide strips
1 small red bell pepper, stemmed, seeded, and cut into ¼-inch-wide strips
1. For the sauce: Whisk all ingredients together in bowl and set aside.
2. For the stir-fry: Combine ginger, garlic, and 1 teaspoon vegetable oil in small bowl and set aside. Combine water, soy sauce, and sherry in medium bowl. Add chicken and stir to break up clumps. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 20 minutes or up to 1 hour. Pour off liquid from chicken.
3. Mix sesame oil, cornstarch, and flour in medium bowl until smooth. Transfer chicken to bowl and toss with cornstarch mixture until evenly coated.
4. Heat 2 teaspoons vegetable oil in 12-inch nonstick skillet over high heat until just smoking. Add half of chicken to skillet in single layer and cook until golden brown, about 1 minute. Using tongs, flip chicken and lightly brown second side, about 30 seconds. Transfer chicken to clean bowl. Repeat with 2 teaspoons vegetable oil and remaining chicken.
5. Add remaining 1 tablespoon vegetable oil to now-empty skillet and heat until just smoking. Add bok choy stalks and bell pepper and cook, stirring, until beginning to brown, about 1 minute. Push vegetables to sides of skillet. Add ginger mixture to center and cook, mashing mixture into pan, until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Stir mixture into vegetables and continue to cook until stalks are crisp-tender, about 30 seconds longer. Stir in bok choy greens and cook until beginning to wilt, about 30 seconds.
6. Return chicken to skillet. Whisk sauce to recombine and add to skillet; reduce heat to medium and cook, stirring constantly, until sauce is thickened and chicken is cooked through, about 30 seconds. Transfer to platter and serve.
CHOOSING THE RIGHT PAN
When stir-frying, a 12-inch nonstick skillet is best: It’s large enough to accommodate food without any steaming or sticking. A flat-bottomed wok has less surface area in contact with the stovetop than the nonstick skillet. In conventional skillets, the chicken sticks, burns, or steams.
THE BEST CHOICE
Nonstick Skillet
A MEDIOCRE CHOICE
Flat-Bottomed Wok
A BAD CHOICE
Traditional Skillet
THE WORST CHOICE
Small Skillet
1. Trim bottom inch from head of bok choy. Cut leafy green portion away from either side of white stalk.
2. Cut each stalk in half lengthwise and then crosswise on bias into ¼-inch-wide pieces. Stack leafy greens and then slice crosswise into ½-inch-wide strips.
SLICING CHICKEN THIN
Slice breasts across grain into ¼-inch-wide strips. Cut center pieces in half so they are same length as end pieces. Cut tenderloins on diagonal to produce pieces similar in size to strips of breast meat.
LAN LAM, July/August 2013
I have fond memories of eating barbecued chicken when I was growing up, but not because the chicken was any good. My family’s version of this summertime staple, one of the few American dishes that my immigrant parents made, involved my father dousing chicken parts with bottled sauce and dumping the pieces over a ripping-hot fire. He would then spend the next 45 minutes shuffling them around on the grate in a vain effort to get the pieces to cook evenly. Some of the pieces always cooked up dry, while others were raw at the bone. Worse, flare-ups caused by fat dripping onto the coals carbonized the skin well before it had a chance to fully render. But it was summer, it was fun to eat outside, and if we poured enough of the (inevitably) ultrasweet sauce on the chicken, we could mask its shortcomings.
I’ve eaten enough subpar barbecued chicken to realize that my dad is not the only one who doesn’t know how to produce juicy, deeply seasoned, evenly cooked chicken parts on the grill. With decades of test kitchen barbecuing experience on my side, I set out to foolproof this American classic.
MAKING ARRANGEMENTS
There were a few basic barbecue tenets I put in place from the get-go. First, I ditched the single-level fire recommended by a surprising number of recipes and built an indirect one: I corralled all the coals on one side of the kettle, enabling me to sear the chicken over the hotter side and then pull it over to the cooler side, where the meat would cook gently and the skin could render slowly. Cooking the chicken opposite from (rather than on top of) the coals for most of the time would also cut back on flare-ups. Second, I salted the meat and let it sit for several hours before grilling it, since this pretreatment would change the meat’s protein structure so that it would hold on to more moisture as it cooked—added insurance against overcooking. Finally, I would wait to apply barbecue sauce (which usually contains sugary ingredients) until after searing; this would prevent the sauce from burning and give the skin a chance to develop color.
I proceeded to sear 6 pounds of breasts and leg quarters on the hotter part of the grill. Once both sides of the meat were brown, I dragged the pieces to the cooler part of the kettle, painted on some placeholder bottled sauce, and considered my core challenge: how to ensure that both the white and dark pieces cooked at an even pace.
Since food that sits closest to the fire cooks faster, I lined up the fattier, more heat-resistant leg quarters closest to the coals and the leaner, more delicate breasts farther away and covered the grill. About an hour later, the breast meat was just about done, the skin was nicely rendered and thin, and the sauce was concentrated and set. The problem was that several leg quarters were chewy and dry. Salting clearly wasn’t enough to protect them from the heat, even when positioned next to the coals instead of on top of them.
Brushing the sauce on in stages keeps its flavor bright and prevents it from burning on the grill.
GETTING EVEN
I needed a way to even out and lower the heat without using less charcoal (when I used 25 percent less charcoal, the heat dwindled before the meat finished cooking). Instead, I set a disposable aluminum pan opposite the coals and partially filled it with water. Both the pan and the water absorb heat, lowering the overall temperature inside the kettle and eliminating hot spots.
I cooked another batch using the water pan and finally made some headway. The ambient temperature inside the grill had dropped by about 50 degrees—a good sign. I checked the pieces midway through grilling and was pleased to see that the dark meat was cooking at a slower, steadier pace. By the end of the hour, both the white and dark pieces were hitting their target temperatures (160 and 175 degrees, respectively).
FLAVOR MAKERS
My cooking method had come a long way, but I could hardly call my results “barbecued.” For one thing, I needed a homemade alternative for the characterless bottled sauce. My tasters also reminded me that, although the chicken was nicely seasoned after salting, the flavor of the meat itself was unremarkable once you got past the skin.
But salting the chicken reminded me that I could easily apply bolder flavor in the same way—with a rub. I kept the blend basic: In addition to the kosher salt, I mixed together equal amounts of onion and garlic powders and paprika; a touch of cayenne for subtle heat; and a generous 2 tablespoons of brown sugar, which would caramelize during cooking.
For the sauce, I fell back on the test kitchen’s go-to recipe, which smartens the typical ketchup-based concoction. Molasses adds depth, while cider vinegar, Worcestershire sauce, and Dijon mustard keep sweetness in check. Grated onion, minced garlic, chili powder, cayenne, and pepper round out the flavors.
But there was a downside to applying the sauce just after searing: Namely, after cooking for an hour, it lost a measure of its bright tanginess. Instead, I applied the sauce in stages, brushing on the first coat just after searing and then applying a second midway through grilling. That minor adjustment made a surprisingly big difference. I also reserved some of the sauce for passing at the table.
This was perfectly cooked, seriously good chicken. Now all I have to do is convince my dad to let me handle the cooking at our next family barbecue.
Sweet and Tangy Barbecued Chicken
SERVES 6 TO 8
When browning the chicken over the hotter side of the grill, move it away from any flare-ups.
Chicken
2 tablespoons packed dark brown sugar
1½ tablespoons kosher salt
1½ teaspoons onion powder
1½ teaspoons garlic powder
1½ teaspoons paprika
¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper
6 pounds bone-in chicken pieces (split breasts and/or leg quarters), trimmed
Sauce
1 cup ketchup
5 tablespoons molasses
3 tablespoons cider vinegar
2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
¼ teaspoon pepper
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
⅓ cup grated onion
1 garlic clove, minced
1 teaspoon chili powder
¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 large disposable aluminum roasting pan (if using charcoal) or 2 disposable aluminum pie plates (if using gas)
1. For the chicken: Combine sugar, salt, onion powder, garlic powder, paprika, and cayenne in bowl. Arrange chicken on rimmed baking sheet and sprinkle both sides evenly with spice rub. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 6 hours or up to 24 hours.
2. For the sauce: Whisk ketchup, molasses, vinegar, Worcestershire, mustard, and pepper together in bowl. Heat oil in medium saucepan over medium heat until shimmering. Add onion and garlic; cook until onion is softened, 2 to 4 minutes. Add chili powder and cayenne and cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Whisk in ketchup mixture and bring to boil. Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer gently for 5 minutes. Set aside ⅔ cup sauce to baste chicken and reserve remaining sauce for serving. (Sauce can be refrigerated for up to 1 week.)
3A. For a charcoal grill: Open bottom vent halfway and place disposable pan filled with 3 cups water on 1 side of grill. Light large chimney starter filled with charcoal briquettes (6 quarts). When top coals are partially covered with ash, pour evenly over other half of grill (opposite disposable pan). Set cooking grate in place, cover, and open lid vent halfway. Heat grill until hot, about 5 minutes.
3B. For a gas grill: Place 2 disposable pie plates, each filled with 1½ cups water, directly on 1 burner of gas grill (opposite primary burner). Turn all burners to high, cover, and heat grill until hot, about 15 minutes. Turn primary burner to medium-high and turn off other burner(s). (Adjust primary burner as needed to maintain grill temperature of 325 to 350 degrees.)
4. Clean and oil cooking grate. Place chicken, skin side down, over hotter side of grill and cook until browned and blistered in spots, 2 to 5 minutes. Flip chicken and cook until second side is browned, 4 to 6 minutes. Move chicken to cooler side and brush both sides with ⅓ cup sauce. Arrange chicken, skin side up, with leg quarters closest to fire and breasts farthest away. Cover (positioning lid vent over chicken if using charcoal) and cook for 25 minutes.
5. Brush both sides of chicken with remaining ⅓ cup sauce and continue to cook, covered, until breasts register 160 degrees and leg quarters register 175 degrees, 25 to 35 minutes longer.
6. Transfer chicken to serving platter, tent with aluminum foil, and let rest for 10 minutes. Serve, passing reserved sauce separately.
DOES YOUR LEG QUARTER NEED A TRIM?
Some leg quarters come with the backbone still attached. Here’s an easy way to remove it.
Holding the leg quarter skin side down, grasp the backbone and bend it back to pop the thigh bone out of its socket. Place the leg on a cutting board and cut through the joint and any attached skin.
PACKAGED PARTS HAVE A WEIGHT PROBLEM
Grabbing a package of chicken parts is usually a lot faster than standing in line at the meat counter to buy them individually. But that convenience may come at a cost. The same chicken parts aren’t required to be the same weight and their size can vary dramatically. For example, the U.S. Department of Agriculture permits leg quarters sold together to weigh between 8.5 and 24 ounces. Breasts can come from chickens that weigh between 3 and 5.5 pounds—a difference that translates to the breasts themselves. Such a disparity can be a problem when you’re trying to get food to cook at the same rate. This lack of standardization showed up in our own shopping. We bought 26 packages of split breasts and leg quarters (representing five brands) from five different supermarkets. When we weighed each piece and calculated the maximum weight variation within each package, the differences were startling: The largest pieces were twice the size of the smallest. Worse, some leg quarters came with attached backbone pieces that had to be cut off and discarded (which means throwing away money). Lesson learned: Whenever possible, buy chicken parts individually from a butcher, who can select similar-size pieces.
In theory, barbecued chicken kebabs sound pretty great: char-streaked chunks of juicy meat lacquered with sweet-sharp barbecue sauce. Using skewers sounds easy, too—a fast-and-loose sort of way to capture the charms of barbecued chicken without the time and patience needed to cook a whole bird or the focus essential to tending a host of mixed parts. Ah, but if only the kebabs lived up to that promise. The quandary is that without an insulating layer of skin, even the fattiest thigh meat can dry out and toughen when exposed to the blazing heat of the grill. And forget about ultralean skinless breast meat: It’s a lost cause. Simply slathering barbecue sauce onto skewered chicken chunks—the approach embraced by most recipes—does little to address this fundamental problem. In fact, it’s often one of the ruining factors: If applied too early or in too great a volume, the sauce drips off the meat, burns, and fixes the chicken fast to the grill.
RUBBED THE RIGHT WAY
My goal was simple: juicy, tender chicken with plenty of sticky-sweet, smoke-tinged flavor. I wanted an everyday sort of recipe, one that would work equally well with white or dark meat (skewered separately since they cook at different rates) and brushed with a no-nonsense homemade barbecue sauce. But before I got to the sauce (I would use a simple ketchup-based placeholder for now), I had to ensure that the meat was as moist and tender as possible. Brining was the natural next step.
The secret to the best smoky, richly flavored chicken kebabs is rubbing them with a spiced bacon paste.
When meat soaks in salty water, the salt helps pull the liquid into the meat, plumping the chicken and thoroughly seasoning it. The salt also denatures the meat proteins, creating gaps that trap water and guard against drying out. But brining isn’t a cure-all: When I made kebabs with chicken breasts and thighs that I brined after cutting them into pieces (1-inch chunks cooked through relatively quickly yet required enough time on the grill to pick up smoky flavor), the brine made the meat so slick and wet that any barbecue sauce I brushed on toward the end of cooking dribbled off.
Would a dry method work better? Sure enough, a heavily salted dry spice mixture (I let the rubbed chicken sit for 30 minutes before grilling) was just the ticket. As the mixture sat, the salt drew the juices to the surface of the chicken pieces, where they mixed with the seasonings and then flowed back into the chicken. The rub also crisped up on the chicken’s exterior as it cooked, forming a craggy surface that the sauce could really cling to. To avoid overpowering the chicken, I steered clear of outspoken spices, settling on both sweet and smoked paprika, the former contributing depth and the latter helping to boost the overall smokiness of the dish. A few teaspoons of sugar added to the rub aided in browning, pleasantly complicating flavor.
WHEN CHICKEN MEETS PIG
With its ruddy exterior, my chicken now looked the part, but the meat was still not quite moist enough and, despite the improvements made by the spices, lacked sufficient depth of flavor. In a hunt for a solution, I read up on Middle Eastern kebab cookery. I learned that Turkish chefs skewer slices of pure lamb fat between lamb chunks before grilling. The fat melts during cooking, continually basting the lean meat.
Using musky lamb fat in a chicken recipe seemed too weird, but what about another fatty yet more complementary meat: smoky bacon? I cut several strips into 1-inch pieces and spliced the chicken pieces with the fatty squares before putting the kebabs on the grill. Unfortunately, by the time the chicken was cooked through, the bacon—tightly wedged as it was between the chicken chunks—had failed to crisp. For my next attempt, I tried wrapping strips of bacon around the kebabs in a spiral-like helix. This time, the bacon turned crunchy, but its flavor overwhelmed the chicken’s more delicate taste.
If strips didn’t work, how about rendered bacon fat? I liberally coated the prepared kebabs with drippings from freshly cooked bacon and set them on the grill grate. Within minutes, the fat trickled into the coals and prompted flare-ups, blackening most of the chicken. What wasn’t burnt, however, was moist and tasted addictively smoky.
If raw strips were too much of a good thing and rendered fat dripped off too quickly, was there an in-between solution? This time around, I finely diced a few slices of bacon and mixed them with the chicken chunks, salt, and spices. After giving the kebabs a 30-minute rest in the refrigerator, I grilled them over a moderately hot half-grill fire. (I had piled all of the coals on one side of the grill and left the other half empty to create a cooler “safety zone” on which to momentarily set the kebabs in the event of a flare-up.) Once the chicken was browned on one side (this took about 2 minutes), I flipped it a quarter turn, giving me nearly done meat in about eight minutes. At this point, I brushed barbecue sauce onto the kebabs, leaving them on the grill for just a minute or two longer to give the sauce a chance to caramelize. (Adding the sauce any earlier is a surefire route to scorched chicken.) The bacon bits clung tenaciously to the chicken, producing the best results yet.
But I wasn’t finished. The bacon hadn’t cooked evenly: Some bits were overly crisp and others still a little limp. I had an idea that would take care of the problem: grinding the bacon into a spreadable paste. Admittedly, the concept was a bit wacky, but I’d come this far with bacon, so why not? I tossed a couple of strips of raw bacon into a food processor and ground them down to a paste, which I then mixed with the chicken chunks and dry rub. As before, I rested the coated chicken in the refrigerator for half an hour before putting it on the grill. The chicken looked beautiful when it came off the fire: deeply browned and covered in a thick, shiny glaze, with no burnt bacon bits in sight. But to my great disappointment, not to mention puzzlement, the chicken was now dry and had lost flavor. I repeated the test to make sure this batch wasn’t a fluke and got the same results.
What could be going on? The only thing I was doing differently was coating the chicken in paste rather than simply mixing it with small pieces of the smoked meat combined with the salt, sugar, and spices. Then it occurred to me: Maybe the fatty ground-up bacon was adhering so well to the chicken that it was acting as a barrier to the salt, which now couldn’t penetrate the meat. What if I first salted the meat for 30 minutes, then tossed it with the sugar, spices, and bacon paste right before I put it on the grill? This simple change was the answer: The chicken was juicy, tender, and full-flavored, with a smoky depth that complemented the barbecue sauce. Now about that sauce…To enliven my classic ketchup, mustard, and cider vinegar mixture, I stirred in some grated onion and Worcestershire sauce. A spoonful of brown sugar and a little molasses added just enough bittersweet flavor to counter the sauce’s tanginess. Simmered for a few minutes, the mixture tasted bright and balanced and boasted a thick, smooth texture that clung well to the chicken. As I watched this final batch of supremely moist, smoky, perfectly cooked kebabs disappear as fast as I could pull them off the grill, I knew that this recipe had realized its full potential.
SERVES 6
Use the large holes of a box grater to grate the onion. We prefer dark thigh meat for these kebabs, but white meat can be used. Don’t mix white and dark meat on the same skewer, since they cook at different rates. If you have thin pieces of chicken, cut them larger than 1 inch and roll or fold them into approximate 1-inch cubes. Turbinado sugar is commonly sold as Sugar in the Raw. Demerara sugar can be substituted. You will need four 12-inch metal skewers for this recipe.
Sauce
½ cup ketchup
¼ cup molasses
2 tablespoons grated onion
2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
2 tablespoons cider vinegar
1 tablespoon packed light brown sugar
Kebabs
2 pounds boneless, skinless chicken breasts or thighs, trimmed and cut into 1-inch chunks
2 teaspoons kosher salt
2 tablespoons paprika
4 teaspoons turbinado sugar
2 teaspoons smoked paprika
2 slices bacon, cut into ½-inch pieces
1. For the sauce: Bring all ingredients to simmer in small saucepan over medium heat and cook, stirring occasionally, until reduced to about 1 cup, 5 to 7 minutes. Transfer ½ cup sauce to small bowl and set aside for cooking; set aside remaining sauce for serving.
2. For the kebabs: Toss chicken and salt together in large bowl; cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes or up to 1 hour.
3. Pat chicken dry with paper towels. Combine paprika, sugar, and smoked paprika in small bowl. Process bacon in food processor until smooth paste forms, 30 to 45 seconds, scraping down sides of bowl as needed. Add bacon paste and spice mixture to chicken and mix until chicken is completely coated. Thread chicken tightly onto four 12-inch metal skewers.
4A. For a charcoal grill: Open bottom vent completely. Light large chimney starter three-quarters filled with charcoal briquettes (4½ quarts). When top coals are partially covered with ash, pour evenly over half of grill. Set cooking grate in place, cover, and open lid vent completely. Heat grill until hot, about 5 minutes.
4B. For a gas grill: Turn all burners to high, cover, and heat grill until hot, about 15 minutes. Turn all burners to medium-high.
5. Clean and oil cooking grate. Place kebabs on grill (on hotter side if using charcoal) and cook (covered if using gas), turning kebabs every 2 to 2½ minutes, until well browned and slightly charred, about 8 minutes. Brush top surface of kebabs with ¼ cup reserved sauce for cooking, flip, and cook until sauce is sizzling and browning in spots, about 1 minute. Brush second side of kebabs with remaining ¼ cup reserved sauce for cooking, flip, and continue to cook until sizzling and browning in spots, about 1 minute longer.
6. Transfer kebabs to large platter, tent with aluminum foil, and let rest for 5 to 10 minutes. Serve, passing reserved sauce for serving separately.
BACON PASTE—WEIRD BUT IT WORKS
To create a protective coating that keeps the chicken moist on the grill, we chop two slices of bacon, pulse them in a food processor until smooth, and then toss the resulting paste (along with sugar and spices) with the raw chicken chunks.
Throwing a few boneless, skinless chicken breasts on the grill and painting them with barbecue sauce always sounds like a good idea. This lean cut is available everywhere, it cooks fast, and it makes a light, simple meal. The trouble is that the results are usually flawed. Because these disrobed specimens cook in a flash over coals, it’s hard to get chicken that not only tastes grilled but also has a good glaze without overcooking it. Here’s the dilemma: If you wait to apply the glaze until the meat is browned well, it’s usually dry and leathery by the time you’ve lacquered on a few layers. (And you need a few layers to build anything more than a superficial skim of sauce.) But if you apply the glaze too soon, you don’t give the chicken a chance to brown, a flavor boost that this bland cut badly needs. Plus, the sugary glaze is prone to burning before the chicken cooks through.
But the ease of throwing boneless, skinless breasts on the grill is too enticing to pass up. I decided to fiddle with the approach until I got it right: tender, juicy chicken with the smoky taste of the grill, glistening with a thick coating of glaze. While I was at it, I wanted to create glazes specifically designed to accentuate, not overwhelm, this lean cut’s delicate flavors.
BETTER BROWNING IN A HURRY
My first step was to brine the meat. I knew that a 30-minute saltwater soak would help keep the chicken juicy and well seasoned and could be accomplished while the grill was heating. I also opted for a two-level fire, which means that I piled two-thirds of the coals on one side of the kettle and just one-third on the other side. This would allow me to sear the breasts over the coals and then move them to the cooler side to avoid burning when I applied the glaze.
My real challenge was to figure out how to speed up browning, also known as the Maillard reaction, and the consequent formation of all those new flavor compounds that help meat taste rich and complex. If the chicken browned faster, it would leave me more time to build a thick glaze that would add even more flavor. My first thought was to enlist the aid of starch in absorbing some of the moisture on the exterior of the meat that normally would need to burn off before much browning could occur. First I tried dredging the breasts in flour, but this made them bready. Next I tried cornstarch, but this approach turned the breasts gummy. A technique we have employed when pan-searing chicken breasts—creating an artificial “skin” using a paste of cornstarch, flour, and melted butter—gave us better results. The starches (which break down into sugars) and the butter proteins helped achieve a browned surface more quickly, and the porous surface readily held a glaze. Unfortunately, the chicken still tasted more breaded than grilled.
Switching gears, I tried rubbing the surface of the chicken with baking soda. Baking soda increases the pH of the chicken, making it more alkaline, which in turn speeds up the Maillard reaction. Alas, while this did speed up browning, even small amounts left behind a mild soapy aftertaste.
I was unsure of what to do next. But then I remembered a really unlikely sounding test that one of my colleagues tried when attempting to expedite the browning of pork chops: dredging the meat in nonfat dry milk powder. While this strange coating did brown the meat more quickly, it made the chops taste too sweet. But might it be better suited for browning chicken? It was worth a try. After lightly dusting the breasts with milk powder (½ teaspoon per breast) and lightly spraying them with vegetable oil spray to help ensure that the powder stuck, I threw them on the grill. I was thrilled when the chicken was lightly browned and had nice grill marks in less than 2 minutes, or about half of the time of my most successful previous tests. Why was milk powder so effective? It turns out that dry milk contains about 36 percent protein. But it also contains about 50 percent lactose, a so-called reducing sugar. And the Maillard reaction takes place only after large proteins break down into amino acids and react with certain types of sugars—reducing sugars like glucose, fructose, and lactose. In sum, milk powder contained just the two components that I needed to speed things up.
Milk powder encourages browning and creates a tacky surface for the flavorful glaze to cling to.
But that wasn’t the only reason milk powder was so successful in quickly triggering browning. Like starch, it’s a dry substance that absorbs the excess moisture on the meat. This is helpful because moisture keeps the temperature too low for significant browning to take place until the wetness evaporates. There was yet one more benefit to using the milk powder: It created a thin, tacky surface that was perfect for holding on to the glaze. And now, with expedited browning in place, I had time to thoroughly lacquer my chicken with glaze by applying four solid coats before it finished cooking.
GREAT GLAZE
Next it was time to focus on perfecting the glaze itself. I started with flavor. Since I knew that I wanted to limit the amount of sweetness so as not to overpower the mild flavor of the chicken, I began by testing a host of ingredients that would be thick enough to serve as a clingy base but weren’t sugary. It was a diverse group, but I settled on mustard and hoisin sauce. Then, in order to add balance and complexity, I introduced acidity in the form of vinegar, as well as a healthy dose of spices and aromatics, such as ground fennel seeds, fresh ginger, and spicy Sriracha sauce.
My next step was to add a sweet (but not too sweet) element, which would provide further balance, promote browning, and give even more of a sticky cling to the glaze. Sweeteners like maple syrup, brown sugar, and fruit jams made the glazes saccharine. Corn syrup, which is about half as sweet as the other sweeteners, worked far better, giving the glaze just a goodly amount of stickiness while keeping the sweetness level under control. Two tablespoons was just the right amount.
But all was not perfect: The glazes still had a tendency to become too loose when applied to the hot chicken after it browned. Whisking in a teaspoon of cornstarch helped.
At this point I was feeling pretty good. But many tasters wanted an even thicker glaze. This time I looked to adjust my cooking technique. My fix? I switched up the point at which I applied the glaze. Instead of brushing it on right before flipping the chicken, I began to apply the glaze immediately after it was flipped. This meant that less glaze stuck to the grill—and the glaze applied to the top of the chicken had time to dry out and cling. The result? Chicken breasts robed in a thick, lacquered glaze. My dinner was ready.
Grilled Glazed Boneless, Skinless Chicken Breasts
SERVES 4
¼ cup salt
¼ cup sugar
4 (6- to 8-ounce) boneless, skinless chicken breasts, trimmed
2 teaspoons nonfat dry milk powder
¼ teaspoon pepper
Vegetable oil spray
1 recipe glaze (recipes follow)
1. Dissolve salt and sugar in 1½ quarts cold water. Submerge chicken in brine, cover, and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes or up to 1 hour. Remove chicken from brine and pat dry with paper towels. Combine milk powder and pepper in bowl.
2A. For a charcoal grill: Open bottom vent completely. Light large chimney starter mounded with charcoal briquettes (7 quarts). When top coals are partially covered with ash, pour two-thirds evenly over half of grill, then pour remaining coals over other half of grill. Set cooking grate in place, cover, and open lid vent completely. Heat grill until hot, about 5 minutes.
2B. For a gas grill: Turn all burners to high, cover, and heat grill until hot, about 15 minutes. Leave primary burner on high and turn other burner(s) to medium-high.
3. Clean and oil cooking grate. Sprinkle half of milk powder mixture over 1 side of chicken. Lightly spray coated side of chicken with oil spray until milk powder is moistened. Flip chicken and sprinkle remaining milk powder mixture over second side. Lightly spray with oil spray.
4. Place chicken, skinned side down, over hotter part of grill and cook until browned on first side, 2 to 2½ minutes. Flip chicken, brush with 2 tablespoons glaze, and cook until browned on second side, 2 to 2½ minutes. Flip chicken, move to cooler side of grill, brush with 2 tablespoons glaze, and cook for 2 minutes. Repeat flipping and brushing 2 more times, cooking for 2 minutes on each side. Flip chicken, brush with remaining glaze, and cook until chicken registers 160 degrees, 1 to 3 minutes. Transfer chicken to plate and let rest for 5 minutes before serving.
glazes
MAKES ABOUT ⅔ CUP
2 tablespoons cider vinegar
1 teaspoon cornstarch
3 tablespoons Dijon mustard
3 tablespoons honey
2 tablespoons light corn syrup
1 garlic clove, minced
¼ teaspoon ground fennel seeds
Whisk vinegar and cornstarch in small saucepan until cornstarch has dissolved. Whisk in mustard, honey, corn syrup, garlic, and fennel seeds. Bring mixture to boil over high heat. Cook, stirring constantly, until thickened, about 1 minute. Transfer glaze to bowl.
MAKES ABOUT ⅔ CUP
For a spicier glaze, use the larger amount of Sriracha sauce.
2 tablespoons rice vinegar
1 teaspoon cornstarch
⅓ cup hoisin sauce
2 tablespoons light corn syrup
1–2 tablespoons Sriracha sauce
1 teaspoon grated fresh ginger
¼ teaspoon five-spice powder
Whisk vinegar and cornstarch in small saucepan until cornstarch has dissolved. Whisk in hoisin, corn syrup, Sriracha, ginger, and five-spice powder. Bring mixture to boil over high heat. Cook, stirring constantly, until thickened, about 1 minute. Transfer glaze to bowl.
THE POWER OF MILK POWDER
To make sure that our chicken breasts could be both browned and glazed in the time it took the chicken to cook, we had to accelerate browning. A surprising ingredient—milk powder—was the solution. Milk powder contains both protein and so-called reducing sugar (in this case, lactose), the keys to the Maillard reaction, the chemical process that causes browning. Faster browning gave us more time to layer on the glaze.
BROWNING BOOSTER
I’ve been watching my father grill for almost 40 years now. He’s at least fifth generation Deep South—not the kind of man who would fire up his grill for some wimpy pizza, mahi-mahi, or basket of vegetables. For as long as I can remember, he’s been grilling the same four things—steak, spareribs, barbecued pork butt, and finally, his signature dish, lemon chicken.
My father is a pretty confident griller, but that lemon chicken turned him into a nervous Nelly. Every time he made it he was obsessed with the same goal: to make sure that it absorbed as much lemon flavor as possible. After he’d arranged the chicken parts neatly over the hot coals, he would brush each one with a mixture of lemon, oil, and garlic salt. He basted meticulously throughout the entire grilling process, carefully moving the chicken around and over to make sure each piece cooked evenly.
Dad almost dreaded taking that first bite for fear the lemon had not penetrated. Though we sometimes had to stretch the truth, Mom and I always assured him that it had. When the chicken was at its best, we marveled: “The lemon flavor’s gone right into the bone!”
Because Dad felt his odds on whether the lemon would take or not were about fifty-fifty, he’d have me taste-test the chicken before he took it off the grill. About halfway through cooking, he’d start breaking off and feeding me the wings. Even though I always told him they tasted lemony enough, he could read the truth in my eyes. (You can never trust a hungry 10-year-old who’s been sitting still with her father for over an hour.) The grill lid would fly open, and he’d begin his basting again, hoping his fire would stay alive long enough to get a few more drops of lemon sauce onto the chicken.
Dipping the chicken in the leftover lemon basting sauce was always one of my favorite ways of ensuring good lemon flavor (salmonella was just a twinkle in the chicken’s eye back then), but to Dad it meant failure. When he saw me sneak the leftover sauce to the table and slip a piece of my breast meat into the bowl, he’d start mentally kicking himself.
He tried a number of experiments over the years, but it wasn’t until long after I’d left home that he called, his voice veering high with excitement. “I’ve finally discovered the secret to lemon chicken!” he exclaimed. It turned out that one day while frying fish, his oil cooled off and was absorbed by the fish. At this point, it suddenly occurred to him that over lower heat his cooked chicken might better absorb his lemon sauce. What was bad for the fish in oil, might be good for the chicken in lemon sauce.
This time, rather than baste the chicken from start to finish, he threw the salt-and-peppered chicken parts on the grill and cooked them until they were virtually done. At this point, he took the fire down really low and started brushing them. This, he said, consistently gave him the intense lemon flavor he was after. After 40 years, he had finally come up with a foolproof method.
HE WAS RIGHT
I gave Dad’s technique a try and realized he was onto something. I liked the fresh, perky lemon flavor of the chicken sauced at the end, but I couldn’t really be sure that it was better than his many lemon chicken experiments over the years. Which lemon chicken was best? Was it the one where the lemon mixture was applied before, during, or after cooking? So I grilled three chickens—one that was marinated in lemon juice, garlic, and oil for two hours, a second that was basted with the same mixture throughout grilling, and a third that was grilled by my father’s method, rolling the cooked chicken around in the lemon mixture, returning it to the grill, and basting it for a few minutes longer. With each chicken, I used a two-level fire, with most of the coals under half of the cooking grate and fewer coals under the remaining half. This allowed me to sear the chicken well over the coals but also to regulate its cooking, moving it to the cooler area if it was cooking too quickly or if flare-ups occurred.
If you weren’t comparing them with my father’s newly discovered secret, you’d say the marinated and basted chickens were just fine. The chicken flavored at the end, however, stole the show. Not only did it have a fresher flavor, its juices had mingled with the lemon, garlic, and oil to make a wonderful sauce. The basted chicken, on the other hand, had lost much of its lemon juice to the fire, requiring more lemon mixture to complete the job, and even with more sauce, it turned out drier than the other two.
My dad’s technique became my favorite, especially after I made a few personal adjustments. First, I almost always brine poultry before cooking it, and brined lemon chicken was always preferred to unbrined in side-by-side tasting. Since brining made garlic salt out of the question, I tried using minced garlic, but because the chicken was on the grill for such a relatively short time after the marinade was applied, it tasted raw. I eventually found that mincing the garlic to almost a paste and warming it in a small saucepan until it began to sizzle improved the garlic flavor immensely.
Although my father would never consider doctoring up his chicken, I thought herbs such as thyme, cilantro, rosemary, and oregano and spices such as cumin, coriander, and fennel might be nice additions. Herbs were easy. They could be stirred directly into the lemon mixture. But spices were questionable. Would they, like the garlic, taste raw with so little cooking time and over so low a heat?
Once again, I made three batches of chicken—one that was rubbed with crushed coriander seeds before cooking; a second that was brushed at the end with a marinade containing crushed coriander seeds; and a third that was brushed with a marinade containing toasted, then crushed coriander seeds. My tasters and I much preferred the last, where toasted seeds were crushed, stirred into the marinade, and applied at the end. The spices that cooked on the chicken the entire time were less flavorful and tended to char. And besides, toasted seeds, like toasted nuts, just taste better.
Since the lemon flavor was so much cleaner and brighter when the sauce was applied at the end of cooking, I thought other acids might work equally well. Lime, certainly, was good, but low-acid vinegar sauces, such as rice wine and balsamic vinegars, were less impressive primarily, I think, because there wasn’t a fresh flavor to preserve.
Whether lemon chicken that’s been brushed at the end of cooking is better because the lemon flavor actually permeates the meat, or because the flavors are brighter and fresher, or because there’s an intensely flavored dipping sauce from the intermingled lemon, garlic, olive oil, and chicken juices, I don’t know. What I do know is that after 40 years of guesswork, my father definitely got it right.
SERVES 6 TO 8
The 1½-hour brining time is recommended but not essential; skip it if you’re in a hurry or using a kosher chicken. It’s fine to use chicken parts, such as drumsticks and thighs, separated or not, or breasts and wings, separated at the joint connecting wing to breast. Grilling whole chickens is also an option, but only if you remove the backbones and butterfly each chicken before brining. If flare-ups occur, temporarily move the pieces to the cooler side of the grill. If you have it on hand, 1 tablespoon of minced fresh rosemary makes a nice addition to the lemon sauce.
Salt and pepper
2 (3½- to 4-pound) whole chickens, each cut into 10 pieces (4 breast pieces, 2 drumsticks, 2 thighs, 2 wings), giblets discarded
6 garlic cloves
¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 cup lemon juice (6 lemons)
1 tablespoon minced fresh thyme or 1½ teaspoons dried
1. Dissolve ½ cup salt in 2 quarts cold water in large container. Submerge chicken in brine, cover, and refrigerate for 1½ hours. Remove chicken from brine and pat dry with paper towels. Season chicken with pepper.
2A. For a charcoal grill: Open bottom vent completely. Light large chimney starter filled with charcoal briquettes (6 quarts). When top coals are partially covered with ash, pour two-thirds evenly over half of grill, then pour remaining coals over other half of grill. Set cooking grate in place, cover, and open lid vent completely. Heat grill until hot, about 5 minutes.
2B. For a gas grill: Turn all burners to high, cover, and heat grill until hot, about 15 minutes. Leave all burners on high.
3. While grill heats, mince garlic and sprinkle lightly with salt. Drag flat side of chef’s knife over garlic-salt mixture to form paste. Heat oil and garlic mixture in small saucepan over low heat until garlic sizzles, 1 to 2 minutes. Stir in lemon juice. Transfer half of lemon mixture to small bowl and set aside. Transfer remaining half of lemon mixture to 13 by 9-inch baking dish.
4. Clean and oil cooking grate. Place chicken on grill (hotter side if using charcoal), skin side down. Cook (covered if using gas) until well browned on both sides, 15 to 20 minutes, flipping halfway through cooking. Stir thyme into lemon mixture in baking dish, then place chicken pieces in baking dish and turn to coat.
5. Return chicken pieces to cooler side of grill (if using charcoal), skin side up, or turn burners to medium-low (if using gas). Continue to cook (covered if using gas) until breasts register 160 degrees and thighs/drumsticks register 175 degrees, about 5 minutes longer, brushing twice with reserved lemon mixture.
6. Transfer chicken to serving platter, tent with aluminum foil, and let rest for 5 to 10 minutes before serving.
variation
Grilled Lime Chicken with Jalapeño and Coriander
An equal amount of toasted and crushed cumin seeds may be substituted for the coriander seeds.
Add 2 teaspoons minced jalapeño chiles and 2 teaspoons toasted and crushed coriander seeds with garlic mixture. Substitute lime juice (8 limes) for lemon juice and 2 tablespoons minced fresh cilantro for thyme.
MINCING GARLIC TO A PASTE
1. Mince garlic and then sprinkle it lightly with salt.
2. Drag flat side of chef’s knife over garlic-salt mixture to form paste.
Fried chicken is patently American, but what makes it so great? First, the crust. Crisp and crackling with flavor, the crust must cleave to the chicken itself, not flake off in chips, and it should be a deep, uniform mahogany with no evidence of greasiness. As for the chicken, it should be tender, seasoned, and flavorful.
But frying chicken at home is a daunting task—a messy tableau of buttermilk dip and breading, hot fat, and splatters. The results are often not worth the mess: greasy, peeling chicken skin and dry, unseasoned meat.
BOOSTING THE BRINE
For our recipe, we decided against poorly butchered packaged chicken in favor of a whole bird cut at home into manageable pieces. Our first decision was what type of pretreatment to give the chicken. In our first stove-side excursion, we fried up several batches of chicken, half of which had been brined for 2 hours while the other half had not. The tasting results were unequivocal: Unbrined chicken earned marks far below those of its well-seasoned, juicy, brined competition.
We also knew, however, that soaking chicken pieces in some kind of liquid before breading is traditional. We examined a number of soaking solutions and found that the bright, acidic flavor and clinging viscosity of buttermilk produced the best flavor accents and the richest browning during cooking. Appreciating the tang of a buttermilk soak but unwilling to forgo the succulence of brined chicken, we decided to add the saline blast of a brine to the buttermilk, doubling the rewards and minimizing the number of steps. We boosted the buttermilk brine’s flavor by adding crushed garlic, crumbled bay leaves, and sweet paprika. This remarkable “twofer” won high marks indeed—well above those garnered by a soak or brine alone. We also spiked the brine with ¼ cup of sugar—not enough to sweeten it but enough to bring other flavors out of hiding.
DOUBLE DIPPING
To find out what kind of coating was best, we tested straight flour against a panoply of options: matzo crumbs, ground saltines, cornflakes, ground Melba toasts, cornmeal, and panko. In the end, plain flour—requiring in this instance no seasoning whatsoever since the chicken had been brined—won out thanks to the integrity and lightness of the crust it produced.
Many fried chicken recipes use a single breading process in which the chicken is dipped first into beaten egg and then into flour or crumbs. A double, or bound, breading requires dipping the chicken first into flour, then egg, and finally flour or crumbs. We were surprised to discover that single breading is actually messier than double breading; the latter’s dry first flouring maintains tidiness and establishes control before the egg dip. The double breading offered a superior base coat without being overly thick or tough.
AIR PLAY
Another practice that has made its way into many fried chicken recipes is air-drying breaded chicken before frying, which supposedly crisps up the skin. We tested the effects of air-drying the chicken before and after breading and compared the results with chicken that had undergone no air drying. The air-dried-first chicken proved best, with a lighter, crispier, and flakier texture.
While this version initially seemed ideal, we noticed that its delicate crispness succumbed to sandiness and porosity over the course of a few hours. The memory of a particularly light but resilient crust of a chicken-fried steak recipe persuaded us to add baking soda and baking powder to an egg wash bolstered with buttermilk. Stirred into the wash, ½ teaspoon of soda and 1 teaspoon of powder produced just enough carbon dioxide to lighten the breading to perfection—and also keep it crisp as it cooled.
FRY TIME
We ruled out deep frying in favor of pan frying, which is much more manageable for home cooks. With this method, only half the chicken is submerged in the fat at any point and must be flipped. The oil stays hotter and, theoretically, produces less of a mess. After judging several different oils for smoke point, flavor, and crust crispness, we preferred peanut oil.
A buttermilk brine and a rest in the fridge before breading work wonders to create a perfect crackling crust.
While a cast-iron skillet seemed the obvious choice for pan frying, splatters were dramatically reduced when we used a Dutch oven. In fact, a Dutch oven maintained temperature significantly better than anything else we tried. Covering the Dutch oven during the first half of frying did one better: It reduced splatters to a fine spray, maintained oil temperature impeccably, and fried the chicken through in about 15 minutes total, versus the 20 minutes per side recommended in many recipes. This time-efficient frying method made up for the fact that the chicken needed to be fried in two batches. As much as we would have liked to find a way to fit 10 pieces into a 12-inch Dutch oven all at once, success eluded us. But it was really no big deal. It simply meant that by the time the second batch was fried up, the first batch was cool enough to eat.
The Ultimate Crispy Fried Chicken
SERVES 4 TO 6
Note that the chicken needs to brine for at least 2 hours and then air-dry for at least 2 hours before frying. Avoid using kosher chicken in this recipe or it will be too salty. Use a Dutch oven that holds 6 quarts or more. Maintaining an even oil temperature is key here.
8 cups buttermilk
3 garlic heads, cloves separated, peeled, and smashed
½ cup plus 2 tablespoons salt
¼ cup sugar
2 tablespoons paprika
3 bay leaves, crumbled
1 (3½-pound) whole chicken, cut into 8 pieces (4 breast pieces, 2 drumsticks, 2 thighs), wings and giblets discarded
3–4 cups peanut oil or vegetable shortening
4 cups all-purpose flour
1 large egg
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
1. Whisk 7 cups buttermilk, garlic, salt, sugar, paprika, and bay leaves together in large container. Add chicken and turn to coat. Cover and refrigerate for at least 2 hours or up to 3 hours.
2. Set wire rack in rimmed baking sheet. Rinse chicken, place on prepared wire rack, and refrigerate, uncovered, for 2 hours. (Chicken can be covered with plastic wrap and refrigerated for up to 6 hours.)
3. Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 200 degrees. Line large plate with triple layer of paper towels. Set second wire rack in second rimmed baking sheet. Add oil to large Dutch oven until it measures about ¾ inch deep and heat over medium-high heat to 375 degrees.
4. Meanwhile, spread flour in shallow dish. Lightly beat egg, baking powder, and baking soda together in medium bowl, then whisk in remaining 1 cup buttermilk (mixture will bubble and foam). Working with 1 piece at a time, dredge chicken in flour, shaking off excess, then dip in buttermilk mixture, letting excess drip off. Dredge chicken in flour again, shaking off excess, and return to wire rack.
5. When oil is hot, carefully transfer half of chicken to pot, skin side down. Cover and fry, adjusting burner, if necessary, to maintain oil temperature of 325 degrees, until deep golden brown, 7 to 11 minutes. (After 4 minutes, check chicken for even browning and rearrange if some pieces are browning faster than others.) Flip chicken and continue to cook until breasts register 160 degrees and drumsticks/thighs register 175 degrees, 6 to 8 minutes longer. (Smaller pieces may cook faster than larger pieces. Remove pieces from pot as they reach correct temperature.) Let chicken drain briefly on prepared plate, then transfer to second prepared wire rack and place in oven to keep warm.
6. Return oil to 375 degrees and repeat with remaining chicken. Serve.
CUTTING UP A WHOLE CHICKEN FOR FRYING
1. With sharp chef’s knife, cut through skin around leg where it attaches to breast.
2. Pop leg joint out of its socket. Use chef’s knife to cut through flesh and skin to detach leg from body.
3. Cut through joint where line of fat separates thigh and drumstick. Repeat steps 1 through 3 with other leg.
4. Bend wing out from breast and cut through joint. Cut through cartilage to remove wing. Cut through joint to split. Repeat with other wing.
5. Using poultry shears, cut along ribs to completely separate back from breast. Discard backbone.
6. Place knife on breastbone, then apply pressure to cut through and separate breast into halves. Cut each breast in half crosswise.
LAN LAM, March/April 2017
A juicy, crisp-skinned roast chicken is always welcome in my house, but achieving it on a weeknight can seem like wishful thinking. A few years back, we made this goal more manageable with our Weeknight Roast Chicken, which cut a good 50 minutes off the usual 2½-hour preparation time. That recipe eliminates brining (and salting, which must be done overnight) and calls for starting the bird in a preheated skillet in a very hot oven and then turning off the heat midway through cooking. The hot skillet jump-starts the cooking of the thighs, while finishing the bird in a cooling oven ensures that the breast stays moist and tender. Though a roast chicken that clocks in at 1 hour and 40 minutes from start to finish is impressive, I wondered if I could speed things up even more.
RACKING UP SOLUTIONS
Out of the gate I knew that, as in our previous recipe, I would skip salting and brining to save as much time as possible. Next, I made a big decision: I wouldn’t roast my chicken. Instead, I would broil it. An oven takes 20 minutes to preheat, while a broiler requires just 5 minutes. Beyond that, roasting relies on the air in the oven to transfer heat to the chicken, and air is a poor conductor. A broiler heats the chicken directly via waves of radiant heat, which transfer heat much more efficiently.
We harness the intense heat of the broiler to produce juicy meat and crisp skin.
Flattening the bird by butterflying it was the essential first step. If I didn’t do this, the skin on the breast, which would be situated close to the heat, would burn before the thighs, located farther away, would cook through. With a good pair of kitchen shears, the task took just a few minutes. After applying a thin coat of oil, I generously seasoned both sides with salt and pepper. But before I could start broiling, I needed to settle on a rack position. While one might reflexively use the top rack for broiling, it’s not always the best option. Think of the broiler element in an electric oven as a collection of hot lights affixed to the top of the oven. The farther the food is from the “lights,” the more diffuse and uniform the illuminated area, while placing food closer to the element will create concentrated spots of “light.” To cook the chicken evenly and efficiently, I needed to set the oven rack far enough from the element to minimize the number of hot spots but not so far away that the chicken cooked too slowly.
I broiled a few birds, placing the rack about 6 inches from the element and moving it progressively farther away. As I expected, the farther away I placed the rack, the more even the cooking and browning became—but too far and the chicken cooked through before I got enough browning on the skin. Twelve to 13 inches from the broiler was the sweet spot. I preheated the broiler, placed my butterflied chicken on a baking sheet, and slid the sheet into the oven, rotating it once halfway through the cooking time.
The results were promising but not perfect. I’d shaved off about 30 minutes (it took me 1 hour and 20 minutes start to finish), and after the prep, it was totally hands-off except for the quick rotation. But though I’d stopped cooking at our usual target doneness temperature of 160 degrees, the breast was dry and overcooked, while the leg quarters were undercooked. Plus, there were problems with the skin. Despite the fact that I’d flattened the bird and rotated it during cooking, the skin had blistered and blackened in spots, particularly on the legs, which had contracted due to the intense heat and drawn up away from the sheet, closer to the heat source. The fat also hadn’t rendered away completely, leaving the skin rubbery in places. I wanted to fix these problems, and I wanted to shave off even more time.
THE HEAT IS ON (AND OFF)
To help the fat deposits under the skin render better, I used a paring knife to pierce the skin in multiple spots, which would allow the fat to escape. As for getting the dark and white meat to reach the right doneness temperatures at the same time, I needed to slow down the rate at which the white meat cooked while speeding up the dark meat. My solution was two-pronged. First, I swapped out the baking sheet for a skillet and preheated the skillet on the stovetop before adding the chicken. Second, I didn’t preheat the broiler but rather put the chicken in a cold oven and then turned on the broiler. This allowed the legs to begin cooking as soon as the chicken went into the hot pan, while the breast side, held slightly away from the pan by the ribs, would cook from above at a slower rate. To further ensure that the legs wouldn’t scorch, I tied them together with kitchen twine to keep them from drawing up toward the heat source.
As yet another safeguard against overcooking, I decided to remove the chicken from the oven a little sooner. A chicken roasted until the breast meat reaches an internal temperature of 160 degrees carries over about 5 to 7 degrees, but because of the broiler’s more intense, direct heat, the meat was carrying over more—an extra 10 to 15 degrees. This left the lean breast meat dried out and chalky. Removing the chicken from the oven when the breast reached 155 degrees allowed it to carry over to just the right temperature and helped keep it moist. The thighs reached about 180 degrees, above our usual target of 175 degrees, but with their extra fat for protection, they could handle it. As a bonus, pulling the chicken out earlier shaved off a couple more minutes.
POKING HOLES
Now my chicken was much more tender and juicy. But the skin wasn’t what I had imagined—it was still too dark in spots. Upon closer inspection I saw that the portions of skin that I had pierced had stayed flush against the meat and were perfectly browned. But the remaining unpierced areas were blistered and blackened. Here’s why: Water exuded by the meat was turning into steam. In areas where that steam couldn’t escape, it inflated the skin away from the flesh. The closer the skin was to the broiler element, the more it charred. The fix was simple. When I pierced the skin at ¾-inch intervals all over, sure enough, the chicken emerged from the broiler with deeply and evenly browned, well-rendered skin.
After transferring the bird to a carving board, I contemplated the drippings left in the skillet. They were nicely seasoned and had an intense chicken flavor. Could I turn them into a pan sauce with minimal work? I stirred in a smashed garlic clove and some thyme sprigs and let them infuse while the chicken rested; then I skimmed the fat from the surface with a spoon. The impact was impressive; I had a simple but surprisingly full-flavored sauce to serve alongside the chicken.
When I glanced up at the clock, I saw that I had cut the cooking time down to 45 minutes and the total time to 1 hour and 5 minutes. Here was a golden-brown, juicy, tender, hands-off broiled chicken and sauce fit for any night of the week.
One-Hour Broiled Chicken and Pan Sauce
SERVES 4
If your broiler has multiple settings, choose the highest one. This recipe requires a broiler-safe skillet. In step 3, if the skin is dark golden brown but the breast has not yet reached 155 degrees, cover the chicken with aluminum foil and continue to broil. Monitor the temperature of the chicken carefully during the final 10 minutes of cooking, because it can quickly overcook. Do not attempt this recipe with a drawer broiler.
1 (4-pound) whole chicken, giblets discarded
1½ teaspoons vegetable oil
Kosher salt and pepper
4 sprigs fresh thyme
1 garlic clove, peeled and crushed
Lemon wedges
1. Adjust oven rack 12 to 13 inches from broiler element (do not preheat broiler). Place chicken breast side down on cutting board. Using kitchen shears, cut through bones on either side of backbone. Trim off any excess fat and skin and discard backbone. Flip chicken over and press on breastbone to flatten. Using tip of paring knife, poke holes through skin over entire surface of chicken, spacing them approximately ¾ inch apart.
2. Rub ½ teaspoon oil over skin and sprinkle with 1 teaspoon salt and ½ teaspoon pepper. Flip chicken over, sprinkle bone side with ½ teaspoon salt, and season with pepper. Tie legs together with kitchen twine and tuck wings under breasts.
3. Heat remaining 1 teaspoon oil in broiler-safe 12-inch skillet over high heat until just smoking. Place chicken in skillet, skin side up, and transfer to oven, positioning skillet as close to center of oven as handle allows (turn handle so it points toward one of oven’s front corners). Turn on broiler and broil chicken for 25 minutes. Rotate skillet by moving handle to opposite front corner of oven and continue to broil until skin is dark golden brown and thickest part of breast registers 155 degrees, 20 to 30 minutes longer.
4. Transfer chicken to carving board and let rest, uncovered, for 15 minutes. While chicken rests, stir thyme sprigs and garlic into juices in pan and let stand for 10 minutes.
5. Using spoon, skim fat from surface of pan juices. Carve chicken and transfer any accumulated juices to pan. Strain sauce through fine-mesh strainer and season with salt and pepper to taste. Serve chicken, passing pan sauce and lemon wedges separately.
PREVENT BLACKENED SKIN
In our early tests, the chicken’s skin bubbled up from the meat, which put it closer to the broiler and caused it to burn. Our solution? Pierce the skin at ¾-inch intervals all over the bird, which provides enough vents for steam to escape.
FOR PERFECT BROILED CHICKEN, KEEP IT OUT OF THE SPOTLIGHT
For even cooking and browning, the butterflied chicken must be placed at the right distance from the broiler element. Though electric and gas broilers are designed differently, both work the same way: The radiant heat is more focused and intense near the element and becomes more diffuse the farther away it gets.
SPOTTY COVERAGE
When the oven rack is placed too close to the broiler element, the heat radiating from the “spotlights” is concentrated, resulting in burnt skin and uneven cooking.
UNIFORM COVERAGE
When the oven rack is placed farther from the broiler element, the heat radiating from the “spotlights” is diffused, which results in browned skin and even cooking.
Most glazed roast chicken recipes offer some variation on these instructions: Roast a chicken as you would normally, painting on a sweet glaze 15 to 30 minutes before the bird is done. It sounds simple, but following these recipes actually turns up a host of troubles, as the problems inherent in roasting chicken (dry breast meat, flabby skin, big deposits of fat under the skin) are compounded by the problems of a glaze (won’t stick to the meat, burns in patches, introduces moisture to already flabby skin).
Yet I know that great glazed chicken is possible. Barbecued rotisserie chicken turns slowly as it cooks, making it a cinch to apply sauce to every nook and cranny while also ensuring even cooking. Likewise, Chinese chefs glaze whole ducks that roast while suspended from hooks, turning out perfectly lacquered, crisp-skinned birds. With these techniques as my inspiration, I set out to develop a method for evenly glazed roast chicken with crisp skin and moist, tender meat.
CHICKEN ON A RACK
I chose a large roaster chicken (6 to 7 pounds), enough to feed four to six people, and started with an approach we developed for Crisp Roast Chicken. I separated the skin from the meat and pricked holes in the fat deposits (to allow rendering fat to escape, resulting in crisper skin), then rubbed it with salt and baking soda (to dehydrate the skin and help it to crisp) and let the chicken rest. I then roasted the chicken breast-side down on a V-rack at 450 degrees for 30 minutes, flipped it over, and roasted it another 30 minutes. Then, with the chicken nearly done, I brushed it with a simple glaze of maple syrup, marmalade, vinegar, and Dijon mustard, and finished it with a blast of 500-degree heat.
While the meat was moist and evenly cooked, the glaze was disappointing. The top of the bird was a lacquered mahogany, while the bottom was merely golden brown—a good color for roast chicken, but not the deep, even tone I expected with a glaze. And although the precautions I’d taken helped the fat render from beneath the skin, 15 minutes of steaming under a moist glaze left the skin woefully soggy.
CHICKEN ON A CAN
With one side of the chicken facing down during the entire glazing process, I could never hope to glaze the whole bird evenly. Short of installing meat hooks or a rotisserie in my oven, what could I do? A vertical roaster, which cooks chicken standing up, was possible, but did I really want yet another gadget in the kitchen? Then I remembered a simpler alternative, found right in my fridge: a beer can. We’ve had great success placing a beer can in the chicken cavity and standing it upright on the grill, which allows heat to circulate freely so that the bird cooks evenly from all sides. Why not bring this popular technique from the barbecue circuit into my oven?
I prepared the chicken and applied a rub as before. After allowing the chicken to rest for an hour, I grabbed a 16-ounce can of beer (the large bird didn’t fit on anything smaller), took a few sips to prevent spills, and straddled the chicken on top. I then placed it in a roasting pan (the helper handles on the pan make it the best choice for transporting the bird), and slid it into the oven. The technique seemed like a winner—no awkward flipping, glazing every nook and cranny was easy, and fat dripped freely out of the bird. But cutting into the chicken revealed that the breast, now exposed to the high oven heat for the entire cooking time, was dry and tough. Scaling back the oven temperature to a gentler 325 degrees resolved this issue, but even without steaming under a glaze, the skin was far from crisp.
A GLAZE OF GLORY
To develop a crisp skin, the chicken needs to finish roasting at a very high heat (around 500 degrees) for about 30 minutes. But in the time it takes the oven to heat from 325 to 500 degrees, the delicate breast meat overcooks. With regular roast chicken, we’ve solved this problem by letting it rest at room temperature for about 20 minutes while the oven heats up for its final blast. Would that work with a vertically roasted chicken? Though the rested-before-blasted chicken came out much crisper than before and the breast meat was perfectly cooked, the glaze was still robbing my chicken of optimum skin quality.
For glazed roast chicken that has it all, don’t apply the glaze until the end of cooking.
This was the problem: Most recipes call for a watery glaze that slowly reduces and thickens as the bird cooks—a hindrance when you’re trying to crisp the skin. What if I reduced the glaze on the stovetop before I applied it? That way, I could wait to brush on the glaze only at the very end, when it wouldn’t ruin the texture of the skin. I made another glaze, this time thickening it with cornstarch. I reduced it to a syrupy consistency and applied it before the final 5 minutes of roasting. This chicken emerged from the oven with a burnished sheen of deep brown, and its rendered skin crackled as I cut into it, revealing moist, tender meat. For good measure, I brushed more glaze on the chicken and made extra to pass tableside. Now when I hanker for perfect glazed chicken, I’ll forget about the rotisserie—all I need is a beer can to get the job done right.
Glazed Roast Chicken
SERVES 4 TO 6
For best results, use a 16-ounce can of beer. A larger can will work, but do not use a 12-ounce can, as it will not support the chicken’s weight. A vertical poultry roaster can be used in place of the beer can, but we recommend using only a model that can be placed in a roasting pan. Taste your marmalade before using it; if it is overly sweet, reduce the amount of maple syrup by 2 tablespoons.
Chicken
1 (6- to 7-pound) whole chicken, giblets discarded
2½ teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 (16-ounce) can beer
Glaze
1 teaspoon cornstarch
½ cup maple syrup
½ cup orange marmalade
¼ cup cider vinegar
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
1 teaspoon pepper
1. For the chicken: Place chicken, breast side down, on cutting board. Using tip of sharp knife, make four 1-inch incisions along back of chicken. Using your fingers, gently loosen skin covering breast and thighs. Using metal skewer, poke 15 to 20 holes in fat deposits on top of breast and thighs. Tuck wings behind back.
2. Combine salt, pepper, and baking powder in bowl. Pat chicken dry with paper towels. Sprinkle salt mixture evenly all over chicken. Rub mixture in with your hands, coating entire surface evenly. Transfer chicken, breast side up, to wire rack set in rimmed baking sheet and refrigerate, uncovered, for at least 30 minutes or up to 1 hour. Meanwhile, adjust oven rack to lowest position and heat oven to 325 degrees.
3. Open beer can and pour out (or drink) about half of liquid. Place can in middle of roasting pan and spray lightly with vegetable oil spray. Slide chicken over can so drumsticks reach down to bottom of can, chicken stands upright, and breast is perpendicular to bottom of pan. Roast chicken until skin starts to turn golden and breast registers 140 degrees, 1¼ to 1½ hours. Carefully remove pan from oven and increase oven temperature to 500 degrees.
4. For the glaze: While chicken cooks, stir cornstarch and 1 tablespoon water in bowl until no lumps remain. Bring maple syrup, marmalade, vinegar, butter, mustard, and pepper to simmer in medium saucepan over medium-low heat and cook, stirring occasionally, until reduced to ¾ cup, 6 to 8 minutes. Slowly whisk in cornstarch mixture; return to simmer and cook for 1 minute. Remove saucepan from heat.
5. When oven temperature reaches 500 degrees, pour 1½ cups water into roasting pan and return pan to oven. Roast until chicken skin is evenly browned and crispy, breast registers 160 degrees, and thighs register 175 degrees, 24 to 30 minutes. (Check chicken halfway through roasting; if top is becoming too dark, place 7-inch square piece of aluminum foil over neck and wingtips of chicken and continue to roast. If pan begins to smoke and sizzle, add additional ½ cup water to pan.)
6. Brush chicken with ¼ cup glaze and continue to roast until browned and sticky, about 5 minutes longer. (If glaze starts to stiffen, return to low heat to soften.) Carefully remove pan from oven; transfer chicken, still on can, to carving board; and brush with ¼ cup glaze. Let chicken rest for 20 minutes.
7. While chicken rests, strain juices from pan through fine-mesh strainer into fat separator; let liquid settle for 5 minutes. Whisk ½ cup defatted juices into remaining ¼ cup glaze in saucepan and set over low heat. Using 2 large wads of paper towels, carefully transfer chicken from can to carving board. Carve chicken, adding any accumulated juices to sauce. Serve, passing sauce separately.
PRIMING CHICKEN FOR CRISPER SKIN
1. CUT CHANNELS in the skin along the chicken’s back to create openings for fat to escape.
2. LOOSEN THE SKIN from the thighs and breast to allow rendering fat to trickle out.
3. POKE HOLES in the skin of the breast and thighs to create additional channels for fat and juices to escape.
4. APPLY A RUB of salt and baking powder; air-dry in the refrigerator before roasting for crisper skin.
The idea of roasting a whole chicken with an abundance of root vegetables—think potatoes, carrots, parsnips—has a lot of appeal. Not only do you get a twofer of entrée and side dish from a single pan, but the result promises to turn everyday ingredients into something greater: a delicious, bronzed centerpiece and a side of vegetables that are beautifully caramelized and infused with deep, savory chicken flavor.
That said, I’ve always found it challenging to roast both components in the same pan without compromising the results. Surrounding the chicken with vegetables slows down the cooking of the thighs, the part of the bird you actually want to cook more quickly (it’s the delicate breast meat that needs to cook slowly). This arrangement also prevents the skin on the lower portion of the bird from browning. Meanwhile, the crowded vegetables steam in their juices rather than brown, and because a whole chicken sheds quite a bit of fat, the vegetables also wind up greasy.
The secret to a perfect marriage of roast chicken and root vegetables is to keep them apart until the last second.
While there are ways around these issues, I wondered if it would be easier to achieve presentation-worthy chicken and perfectly roasted vegetables by cooking the two components separately. I’d just have to find another way to infuse the vegetables with rich chicken flavor.
SKILLET SOLUTION
It was essential to use the drippings from the chicken to flavor the vegetables, so I needed to find a way to produce evenly cooked dark and white meat and nicely browned skin and a good amount of drippings. I settled on a 12-inch skillet. Its low sides let air circulate around the skin for even browning, and its narrow diameter ensured that the drippings would pool and brown rather than burn as they would in a wide roasting pan. I also decided to preheat the skillet so that the thighs, which were in contact with the pan, would get a jump start, helping them finish cooking at the same time as the white meat.
When the chicken had finished roasting, I set it aside on a carving board to rest and admired the thick, dark golden deposit of flavorful proteins, or fond, on the bottom of the skillet—just the stuff the vegetables were waiting for. I poured a little bit of water into the skillet to loosen the fond and give me more liquid to work with, then poured the liquid into a fat separator to create two types of flavor bases—fat and concentrated juices. I tossed the potatoes with a few tablespoons of the fat, which would help them brown and crisp, and then placed them on a baking sheet in a hot oven.
Once they were tender and nicely browned, I tossed them with the concentrated juices and returned them to the oven for a few minutes. The result? In a word, spectacular. The potatoes were coated with a deeply savory glaze that tasted of pure chicken.
But it took about 40 minutes to cook the vegetables; I wanted a faster method. First, however, there were a few minor improvements to the chicken to attend to. One: The meat was a bit dry—it required some pretreatment. Because I was after a streamlined recipe, I opted to brine rather than salt, since salting can take significantly longer. I also added sugar to my brine, which would boost the meat’s flavor and help the coated vegetables caramelize. Two: The skin was nicely browned but unevenly crisp because some pockets of fat didn’t fully render. Pricking the fat deposits before cooking solved this problem, and also helped the brine season the meat more quickly. I also rubbed the skin with olive oil before cooking to keep it from turning leathery and to enhance browning.
UNCOVERING THE BEST APPROACH
My new plan was to cook the vegetables most of the way through in the oven on a rack below the chicken and then finish them while the chicken rested. The problem was that the vegetables’ exteriors dried out before their interiors had turned tender, leaving them shriveled and tough. Parboiling them before finishing them in the oven had potential but seemed fussy—and I knew of a better way. In the past we’ve roasted root vegetables by arranging the pieces in a single layer on a baking sheet and then covering the sheet with foil to trap moisture so that they can steam and cook through evenly. We then remove the foil to let moisture evaporate and return the vegetables to a very hot oven to brown.
After a few tests, I had my method: Cook the vegetables on a baking sheet, covered, beneath the chicken for 30 minutes. Then remove the foil and let them sit while the chicken finished up (another 20 minutes, give or take). In this time, the excess moisture evaporated from residual heat. Once the chicken was finished, I set it aside, deglazed the pan and separated the fat as before, and tossed the potatoes with a few tablespoons of the fat before returning them to the oven to brown. Once they were nicely browned, I poured the chicken-y liquid from the pan over the potatoes and cooked them until the liquid had reduced to a glazy coating. I found that they browned most evenly and quickly with the oven turned up to 500 degrees. With a perfectly cooked, beautifully browned chicken and plenty of richly flavorful root vegetables, this was a recipe that finally delivered on the promise of this old-fashioned classic.
Best Roast Chicken with Root Vegetables
SERVES 4 TO 6
Cooking the chicken in a preheated skillet will ensure that the breast and thigh meat finish cooking at the same time. This recipe requires brining the chicken for 1 hour before cooking. If using a kosher chicken, do not brine in step 1, but season with ½ teaspoon salt in step 3.
1 (3½- to 4-pound) whole chicken, giblets discarded
Salt and pepper
½ cup sugar
1½ pounds Yukon Gold potatoes, peeled and cut into 2-inch pieces
12 ounces carrots, peeled, halved crosswise, thick halves halved lengthwise
12 ounces parsnips, peeled, halved crosswise, thick halves halved lengthwise
4 teaspoons extra-virgin olive oil
¼ cup water
1 teaspoon minced fresh thyme
1 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley
1. With chicken breast side down, use tip of sharp knife to make four 1-inch incisions along back. Using your fingers, gently loosen skin covering breast and thighs. Use metal skewer to poke 15 to 20 holes in fat deposits on top of breast halves and thighs. Dissolve ½ cup salt and sugar in 2 quarts cold water in large container. Submerge chicken in brine, cover, and refrigerate for 1 hour.
2. Adjust oven racks to upper-middle and lower-middle positions and heat oven to 450 degrees. Place 12-inch ovensafe skillet on upper rack and heat for 15 minutes. Spray rimmed baking sheet with vegetable oil spray. Arrange potatoes, carrots, and parsnips with cut surfaces down in single layer on baking sheet and cover sheet tightly with aluminum foil.
3. Remove chicken from brine and pat dry with paper towels. Combine 1 tablespoon oil and ½ teaspoon pepper in small bowl. Rub entire surface of chicken with oil-pepper mixture. Tie legs together with twine and tuck wingtips behind back.
4. Carefully remove skillet from oven (handle will be hot). Add remaining 1 teaspoon oil to skillet and swirl to coat. Place chicken, breast side up, in skillet. Return skillet to upper rack and place sheet of vegetables on lower rack. Cook for 30 minutes.
5. Remove vegetables from oven, remove foil, and set aside. Rotate skillet and continue to cook chicken until breast registers 160 degrees and thighs register 175 degrees, 15 to 25 minutes longer.
6. Transfer chicken to carving board and let rest, uncovered, for 20 minutes. Increase oven temperature to 500 degrees. Add water to skillet. Using whisk, stir until brown bits have dissolved. Strain sauce through fine-mesh strainer into fat separator, pressing on solids to remove any remaining liquid. Let liquid settle for 5 minutes. Pour off liquid from fat separator and reserve. Reserve 3 tablespoons fat, discarding remaining fat.
7. Drizzle vegetables with reserved fat. Sprinkle vegetables with thyme, 1 teaspoon salt, and ½ teaspoon pepper and toss to coat. Place sheet on upper rack and roast for 5 minutes. Remove sheet from oven. Using thin, sharp metal spatula, turn vegetables. Continue to roast until browned at edges, 8 to 10 minutes longer.
8. Pour reserved liquid over vegetables. Continue to roast until liquid is thick and syrupy and vegetables are tender, 3 to 5 minutes. Toss vegetables to coat, then transfer to serving platter and sprinkle with parsley. Carve chicken and transfer to platter with vegetables. Serve.
FLAVORING THE VEGETABLES
Half the allure of a roast chicken and vegetable dinner is having vegetables that are infused with rich, savory chicken flavor. So if it isn’t ideal to cook the vegetables in the same pan with the chicken, how do you get chicken-y vegetables? Here’s what we do.
SEPARATE Create two flavor bases by separating the chicken fat from the juices.
TOSS WITH FAT Coat the parcooked vegetables with some of the fat to help them brown.
TOSS WITH JUICES Add the juices near the end of cooking so they reduce to a savory glaze.
MIXING UP THE MEDLEY
We recommend sticking with 1½ pounds of potatoes for half the vegetable mixture, but to switch things up, you can substitute 1½ pounds of the following vegetables for the carrots and parsnips.
|
Turnips |
Peel and cut into 1-inch pieces. |
|
Beets/Celery Root |
Peel and cut into ½-inch pieces. |
|
Shallots |
Peel and halve lengthwise, leaving root end attached. Place on sheet cut side down. |
|
Leeks |
Using white and light green parts only, halve pieces lengthwise, leaving root end attached. Place on sheet cut side down. |
IF YOU DON’T HAVE A FAT SEPARATOR…
PAPER CUP/FREEZER
1. Pour pan drippings into paper cup. Freeze until fat has begun to solidify on top, about 10 minutes.
2. Over small bowl, poke hole in bottom of cup with skewer. Let drippings run out through hole.
COOKING SPOON
Let liquid settle for about 10 minutes. Use wide, shallow spoon to skim fat from surface.
BULB BASTER
Let liquid settle for about 10 minutes. Plunge baster into liquid beneath fat and draw into baster, then deposit in another container.
SANDRA WU, March/April 2005
Stuffed roast chicken should be the culinary equivalent of a power couple. Each partner brings a lot to the table, and this marriage represents the ultimate symbiotic relationship—at least in theory. The stuffing elevates the roast chicken beyond common everyday fare, while the chicken lends flavor and moisture to what would otherwise be dry bread crumbs. And, unlike roast turkey, its bigger and more complicated cousin, stuffed roast chicken should be simple. But stuffed roast chicken often doesn’t deliver. What you get instead is either a perfectly cooked bird filled with lukewarm stuffing (hello, salmonella!) or safe-to-eat stuffing packed in parched poultry. I also wanted more than a few tablespoons of stuffing per person, a problem given the small cavity of a roasting chicken, even one weighing in at more than 5 pounds. No wonder most home cooks ask for a trial separation when it comes to this everyday recipe.
We’ve roasted literally thousands of chickens in the test kitchen and made more than our fair share of stuffing. It will come as no surprise, then, that I immediately decided to brine the bird before stuffing and roasting it. This was the only way to ensure moist, flavorful white meat. Next I was on to the stuffing, and my initial tests revolved around the traditional stuff-and-truss method used in turkey preparation. This technique was an abject failure. When I packed the chicken loosely with stuffing, I ended up with a miserly 1½ cups. I then packed the chicken until it nearly burst (about 3 cups), first heating the stuffing to 145 degrees in a microwave to give it a head start. But the stuffing still did not reach the safe temperature of 165 degrees by the time the meat was done. Apparently, fully cooked stuffing meant overcooked breast meat.
SWITCHING GEARS
A few years back, the test kitchen developed a method for high-roast chicken that started with a butterflied bird. (The backbone is removed and the bird is flattened and then roasted at 500 degrees.) I figured it was worth a try. I began with a flattened, brined bird and placed it on top of a broiler pan with 3 cups of stuffing directly beneath the chicken and another 5 cups in the bottom of the pan. After an hour, the skin on the chicken was crisp and evenly browned and the meat mostly moist. Finally, I had enough stuffing (at a safe 165 degrees) to feed a crowd, but now it suffered from a dual identity. The stuffing underneath the cavity was cohesive, while its counterpart in the bottom of the pan was dry and crunchy. When I tried placing all of the stuffing in the bottom of the pan (not directly beneath the chicken), it became greasy. In addition, the chicken (technically speaking) was not stuffed.
For my next test, I replaced the broiler pan with a traditional roasting pan and piled a mound of stuffing into it before placing a splayed butterflied chicken on top. After about an hour at 500 degrees, the chicken was slightly dry and the stuffing had many burnt bits. At 425 degrees, the chicken skin browned less evenly, but the stuffing was moist and cohesive. Tasters agreed that 450 degrees yielded the best results, although the stuffing was still charred in some areas and was greasy from the rendered fat.
To solve these two problems, I began a series of tests that eventually culminated in a strange version of culinary origami. First, I placed the stuffing inside an 8-inch square baking dish upon which the butterflied chicken perched; the whole thing then went into a roasting pan. Because the splayed chicken extended partially over the top of the baking dish, I hoped most of the fat from the skin would drip into the roasting pan rather than into the stuffing, but this was not the case. Next, I turned to aluminum foil, creating a packet around the stuffing that I poked with holes so the chicken juices could irrigate the dry contents. Sure, this stuffing was moist, but it lacked color and texture because it was shielded from the oven’s dry heat. Finally, I made an aluminum foil bowl, mounded the stuffing into it, and placed the chicken on top, snugly encasing the stuffing. After about an hour of roasting, with a single pan rotation in between, the stuffing was browned and chewy on the bottom as well as moist and flavorful throughout from the juices. The fat from the skin was deposited directly into the roasting pan, never even touching the stuffing. Even though the roasting pan was hot, I could easily grab the foil bowl with my bare hands and dump the stuffing in one fell swoop into a serving bowl. Good technique and cleanup, all in one!
Kitchen shears and aluminum foil are all you need to achieve perfect chicken and stuffing.
THE RIGHT STUFF
It was time to get serious about stuffing. An informal poll in the test kitchen revealed that most people wanted a jazzed-up version of a traditional bread stuffing. I obliged by replacing the typical onion with thinly sliced leek, adding the requisite celery, and throwing in some chopped mushrooms for additional texture and substance. A dose of minced garlic, fresh sage and parsley, and chicken broth finished my recipe.
With a roasting technique and stuffing recipes now in place, I had finally managed to turn stuffed roast chicken into a successful marriage.
“Stuffed” Roast Butterflied Chicken
Serves 4 to 6
While the chicken brines, prepare the stuffing and set it aside until you’re ready to cook the chicken. Use a traditional (not nonstick) roasting pan to prepare this recipe; the dark finish of a nonstick pan may cause the stuffing to overbrown.
Salt and pepper
1 (5- to 6-pound) whole chicken, giblets discarded
1 teaspoon olive oil
1 recipe Mushroom-Leek Bread Stuffing with Herbs (recipe follows)
1. Dissolve ½ cup salt in 2 quarts cold water in large container. Submerge chicken in brine, cover, and refrigerate for 1 hour.
2. Adjust oven rack to lower-middle position and heat oven to 450 degrees. Remove chicken from brine and pat dry, inside and out, with paper towels. With chicken breast side down, using kitchen shears, cut through bones on either side of backbone; discard backbone. Flip chicken over and press on breastbone to flatten. Rub skin with oil and season with pepper.
3. Stack two 12-inch squares of aluminum foil on top of each other. Fold edges to construct 8 by 6-inch bowl. Spray inside of bowl with vegetable oil spray and place bowl in roasting pan. Gently mound and pack stuffing into foil bowl and position chicken skin side up over stuffing (chicken should extend past edges of bowl so that most of fat renders into roasting pan, not into foil bowl; adjust edges of foil as necessary to fit shape of chicken cavity). Roast until chicken is just beginning to brown, about 30 minutes. Rotate pan and continue to roast until skin is crispy and deep golden brown and breast registers 160 degrees, thighs register 175 degrees, and stuffing registers 165 degrees, 25 to 35 minutes longer. Transfer chicken to carving board and let rest, uncovered, for 10 minutes.
4. While chicken rests, transfer stuffing from foil bowl to serving bowl and fluff with spoon. Carve chicken and serve with stuffing.
stuffing
Mushroom-Leek Bread Stuffing with Herbs
The dried bread cubes for this stuffing can be made in advance and stored in an airtight container or zipper-lock bag for up to one week.
6 slices hearty white sandwich bread, cut into ¼-inch cubes
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
8 ounces white mushrooms, trimmed and chopped
1 small leek, white and light green parts only, halved lengthwise, sliced ⅛ inch thick, and washed thoroughly
1 small celery rib, chopped fine
1 large garlic clove, minced
¼ cup minced fresh parsley
½ teaspoon minced fresh sage or ¼ teaspoon dried
½ teaspoon minced fresh thyme or ¼ teaspoon dried
½ cup plus 2 tablespoons chicken broth
1 large egg
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon pepper
1. Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 250 degrees. Spread bread in single layer on rimmed baking sheet. Bake until thoroughly dried but not browned, about 30 minutes, stirring once halfway through baking.
2. Meanwhile, melt butter in 12-inch skillet over medium-high heat. Add mushrooms, leek, and celery and cook, stirring occasionally, until beginning to soften, about 4 minutes. Add garlic and continue to cook, stirring frequently, until vegetables begin to brown, 2 to 3 minutes. Stir in parsley, sage, and thyme and cook until fragrant, about 1 minute. Remove skillet from heat; set aside.
3. Whisk broth, egg, salt, and pepper in large bowl until combined. Add bread and mushroom mixture and toss gently until evenly moistened and combined. Set aside until ready to use.
BUTTERFLYING AND STUFFING THE CHICKEN
1. Cut through bones on either side of backbone; discard backbone.
2. Flip chicken over and use heel of hand to flatten breastbone.
3. Stack two 12-inch squares of foil on top of each other. Fold edges to construct 8 by 6-inch bowl. Coat bowl with foil and pack stuffing into bowl.
4. Position chicken over stuffing. Adjust edges of foil bowl to fit shape of chicken cavity.
Chicken and dumplings is as classic as American food gets: Cooks in this country have been making the dish since the colonists arrived at Jamestown in the early 17th century. Over time, the dish has taken on distinct regional differences: Northerners typically like their broth thick and their dumplings fluffy, while down South the broth is usually more soup-like, with flat, square dumplings. Regional variances aside, a general rule applies to the chicken: The more mature the bird, the better the flavor. Generations ago, an egg hen or rooster several years old would be simmered for 4 or even 6 hours until falling off the bone, producing a rich broth. The simple addition of dumplings turned the broth into a flavorful, thrifty meal.
Chickens sold in supermarkets today are usually no more than seven weeks old. By comparing these young fowl in traditional recipes calling for hours of stewing with modern ones that simmer the birds for under an hour, I proved conventional wisdom right: No matter how long you cook them, whole young chickens yield unimpressive broth. To coax old-fashioned, full flavor from supermarket birds—and create dumplings that would please both Northern and Southern palates—it was time for some modern adjustments.
STOCK ANSWERS
Great chicken broth needs two things: flavor and body. Without a mature chicken for my broth, my first task was figuring out if a particular part of a younger bird would produce a flavorful broth. To this end, I made a series of broths with thighs, drumsticks, and breasts, both skin-on and skin-off, simmering a pound of each in a quart of water for 45 minutes. With or without skin, the stock made with just white meat was thin and flavorless, the meat dry and bland. Drumsticks produced richer broth with meat that was less dried out, but the skin-on thighs were a clear winner, with the most deeply flavored broth of the lot and meat that stayed tender.
To further boost flavor, I implemented a few tricks the test kitchen has used with success. First trick: Replace water with canned broth. Though canned broth can taste thin and metallic on its own, when cooked with real chicken parts, it turns decidedly richer, and its tinny flavor is no longer detectable. Second trick: Brown the meat before adding the liquid. As the skin crisps, the Maillard reaction kicks in, creating hundreds of new, complex flavors. Finally, trick three: Finesse the flavor by browning aromatic vegetables in the browned bits from the seared chicken and adding alcohol. Browning chopped carrots, celery, and onions until caramelized introduces sweetness, while ¼ cup of dry sherry—preferred by tasters over white wine and vermouth—adds acidity and depth.
Enhancing store-bought broth by simmering chicken thighs and wings gives our soup deep flavor, fast.
I had the flavor of the broth where I wanted it, but I still had to resolve the North-South debate about body. Northerners turn to flour as a thickener, while Southerners tend to leave well enough alone. I prepared two versions: The first batch I left plain, the other I thickened with ½ cup of flour (the amount typical in many Yankee versions of the dish) just before deglazing with the sherry. Tasters rejected the sludgy consistency of this broth outright as “heavy” and akin to “chicken pot pie filling.” Knocking the flour down to ¼ cup produced broth with just the right amount of body (my colleagues deemed the straight broth too thin), but all agreed it muted the chicken flavor. Cutting the flour to 2 tablespoons still masked chicken essence. Switching to cornstarch had the same effect.
Looking for an alternative, I recalled that extended boiling (at least a couple of hours) converts the connective tissue in a chicken carcass to gelatin and thickens the broth. I didn’t want my broth cooking for hours, but then I realized I’d left something out of my initial broth testing: wings. Because of their multiple joints, wings contain far more connective tissue than legs or breasts. If I added plenty of wings (a package of six seemed right) with the thighs, could I extract enough gelatin to thicken the broth? This turned out to be just what I needed to create a full-bodied liquid with potent chicken flavor that was rich without being in any way heavy. Time to move on to the dumplings.
DUMPLING DIVIDE
In the South, dumplings are made of dough rolled out to about ¼ inch thick and cut into squares that are then added to the pot. It’s a tedious and messy process that yields dense, doughy dumplings. The Yankee approach is far simpler, resulting in fluffier dumplings made just like drop biscuits. Here you simply mix flour and leavener in one bowl and fat and a liquid in another, combine the two mixtures rapidly, and scoop out biscuit-size balls that you drop into the broth.
Given the differences in technique, I wasn’t disappointed when (except for two holdouts from Kentucky and Alabama) my colleagues preferred the lighter Yankee dumplings. The problem was, they weren’t actually all that light.
Since the Yankee dumplings are so closely related to oven-baked drop biscuits, I tried using our standard drop biscuit recipe (flour, salt, sugar, baking powder and soda, butter, and buttermilk) in the soup to see if it would produce more pillowy results. These dumplings had great tangy buttermilk flavor. And because they had more leavener and butter than the earlier recipes I had tried, they were far from leaden. In fact, they had the opposite problem: They were so fragile, they disintegrated into the broth as they cooked.
The ideal dumpling should have all the lightness of our drop biscuits, but enough structure to hold together in the broth. Knowing that fat coats flour and weakens its structure, I tried gradually cutting down on the 8 tablespoons of butter in the recipe. At 4 tablespoons, their structure improved somewhat; removing any more compromised flavor. Since I was cooking my dumplings in a moist environment instead of a dry oven, my next thought was cutting back the liquid. Reducing the amount of buttermilk from a full cup to ¾ cup was another improvement—but the dumplings were still far too delicate.
Perhaps the problem was too much leavener, which can lead to over-rising and poor structure. Completely eliminating the baking powder (only baking soda remained) gave them just the right density in the center, but they were still mushy around the edges. While eggs are not traditional biscuit ingredients, I tried adding one, hoping that the extra protein would help the dumpling hold together. A whole egg was too much: Tasters didn’t like the eggy flavor. A single egg white whisked into the buttermilk added just the right amount of structure without affecting flavor. Another useful tweak was waiting to add the dumplings until the broth was simmering, reducing their time in the broth to help keep them whole.
One last problem remained: Steam was condensing on the inside of the lid of the Dutch oven and dripping onto the dumplings, turning their tops soggy. Could I somehow catch the moisture before it dripped back down? I tried wrapping a kitchen towel around the lid of the Dutch oven. It worked like a charm, trapping the moisture before it had a chance to drip down and saturate my light-as-air dumplings and flavor-packed broth.
Lighter Chicken and Dumplings
SERVES 6
You can substitute ½ cup of plain yogurt thinned with ¼ cup of milk for the buttermilk, if desired. To include white meat (and lose a bit of flavor in the process), replace two chicken thighs with two 6-ounce boneless, skinless chicken breasts; brown the breasts along with the thighs and remove them from the stew once they register 160 degrees, 20 to 30 minutes. The collagen in the wings helps thicken the stew; do not omit them.
Stew
2½ pounds bone-in chicken thighs, trimmed
Salt and pepper
2 teaspoons vegetable oil
2 small onions, chopped fine
2 carrots, peeled and cut into ¾-inch pieces
1 celery rib, minced
¼ cup dry sherry
6 cups chicken broth
1 teaspoon minced fresh thyme
1 pound chicken wings, trimmed
¼ cup chopped fresh parsley
Dumplings
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon baking soda
¾ cup buttermilk, chilled
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and hot
1 large egg white
1. For the stew: Pat thighs dry with paper towels and sprinkle with 1 teaspoon salt and ¼ teaspoon pepper. Heat oil in Dutch oven over medium-high heat until shimmering. Add thighs, skin side down, and cook until skin is well browned, 5 to 7 minutes. Using tongs, flip thighs and brown second side, 5 to 7 minutes longer; transfer to large plate. Pour off all but 1 teaspoon fat from pot.
2. Add onions, carrots, and celery to pot and cook, stirring occasionally, until caramelized, 7 to 9 minutes. Stir in sherry, scraping up any browned bits. Stir in broth and thyme. Return thighs and any accumulated juices to pot and add wings. Bring to simmer, cover, and cook until thigh meat offers no resistance when poked with tip of paring knife but still clings to bones, 45 to 55 minutes.
3. Remove pot from heat and transfer chicken to cutting board. Let broth settle for 5 minutes, then skim fat from surface. When chicken is cool enough to handle, remove skin. Using your fingers, pull meat from thighs and, if desired, wings and cut into 1-inch pieces. Return meat to pot and bring stew to simmer over low heat.
4. For the dumplings: Whisk flour, sugar, salt, and baking soda together in large bowl. Combine buttermilk and melted butter in medium bowl, stirring until butter forms small clumps; whisk in egg white. Add buttermilk mixture to flour mixture and stir with rubber spatula until just incorporated and batter pulls away from sides of bowl.
5. Stir parsley into stew and season with salt and pepper to taste. Using greased 1-tablespoon measure or #60 scoop, drop level scoops of batter over top of stew, spacing them about ¼ inch apart (you should have about 24 dumplings). Wrap lid of pot with clean dish towel (keeping towel away from heat source) and cover pot. Simmer gently until dumplings have doubled in size and toothpick inserted in center comes out clean, 13 to 16 minutes. Serve immediately.
BEST PARTS FOR BROTH
WINGS NATURAL THICKENER
The multiple joints in chicken wings contain lots of collagen that converts into gelatin during cooking—a better broth thickener than flour, which masks chicken flavor.
THIGHS FULL O’ FLAVOR
Pound for pound, chicken thighs impart richer flavor to broth than any other part of the bird. Plus, they require far less cooking time than a whole bird or carcass.
PAM ANDERSON WITH MELISSA HAMILTON, July/August 1998
One summer vacation my 15-year-old daughter decided to become a vegetarian. After a week-long debate, we finally compromised on white meat. In other words, she was excused from lamb, beef, and pork as long as she would eat fish and fowl. Since hamburgers were one of her weaknesses, I thought she’d cave in pretty quickly. But what seemed like a teen fad has evolved into a way of life.
Since hamburgers are a regular summer supper for us, I needed to find a substitute sandwich for her. Ground turkey was the obvious first choice, but we found out pretty quickly that a lean, fully cooked turkey burger, seasoned simply with salt and pepper, was a weak stand-in for an all-beef burger. Simply put, it was dry, tasteless, and colorless. At the time, believing this was just a passing phase, I had very little energy for turkey burger exploration and simply switched to breaded chicken cutlets.
Now, three years later, finding my daughter’s red-meat resolve still rock solid, I set out to develop a turkey burger that would not only please her, but would also be a desirable, healthier option for the rest of the family. I wanted a turkey burger with beef burger qualities—dark and crusty on the outside, full-flavored and juicy inside.
THE MEAT CASE
Finding the right meat was crucial to developing the best turkey burger. According to the National Turkey Federation, I had three options—white meat (with 1 to 2 percent fat), dark meat (over 15 percent fat), and a blend of the two (ranging from 7 to 15 percent fat).
At the grocery store, I found multiple variations on the white meat/dark meat theme, including preformed lean patties, higher-fat ground fresh turkey on Styrofoam trays or frozen in tubes like bulk sausage, lower-fat ground turkey breasts, and of course individual turkey parts I could grind up myself. I bought them all, took them home, and fired up a skillet.
I first tested the preformed lean patties—refrigerated and frozen—and found them mediocre. To varying degrees, the frozen ones had a week-old-roast-turkey taste. A few bites from one of the refrigerated varieties turned up significant turkey debris—tendon, ground up gristle, and bone-like chips. I moved on to bulk ground turkey.
The higher-fat (15 percent) ground turkey turned out to be flavorful and reasonably juicy with a decent, burger-like crust. Frankly, these burgers didn’t need too much help. On the other hand, I didn’t see much point in eating them either. Given that a great beef burger contains only 20 percent fat, a mere 5 percent fat savings didn’t seem worth it.
For turkey burgers that please like their all-beef cousins, grind your own turkey in the food processor.
At the other extreme with only 1 or 2 percent fat was ground turkey breast. As I was mixing and forming these patties, I knew I had about as much chance of making them look, taste, and feel like real burgers as I did of making vanilla wafers taste like chocolate chip cookies. They needed a binder to keep them from falling apart. They needed extra fat to keep them from parching and extra fat in the pan to keep them from sticking. And they needed flavor to save them from blandness.
With 7 percent fat, lean ground turkey was the most popular style at all the grocery stores I checked. Burgers made from this mix were dry, rubbery-textured, and mild-flavored. With a little help, however, these leaner patties were meaty enough to have real burger potential.
Most flavorful of all and only about 10 percent fat were the boned and skinless turkey thighs I ground myself in the food processor. I first tried grinding the skin with the meat but found that it ground inconsistently and I had to pick it out. In the next batch I left it out and found the meat was equally flavorful and lower in calories (my butcher declared my home-ground skinless turkey almost 90-percent lean when he tested it in his Univex Fat Analyzer).
For all the obvious reasons, I had sworn that even if I liked the outcome I wasn’t going to make grind-your-own-turkey part of the recipe, but these burgers—meaty-flavored with a beef-like chew—were far superior to any I made with the commercially ground turkey. Of course, I had suspected as much, given my liking for grind-your-own-chuck beef burgers. If you are willing to take the time, food-processor-ground turkey thighs cook up into low-fat turkey burgers with great flavor and texture.
I CAN’T BELIEVE IT’S NOT BURGER
For those with little time or energy for this process, I decided to see what I could do to improve the lean commercially ground turkey. To improve texture and juiciness, I started with the obvious—milk-soaked bread. For comparison I also made burgers with buttermilk- and yogurt-soaked bread. All these additions made the burgers feel too much like meatloaf and destroyed whatever meaty flavor there had been, since turkey is mild to start with. The bread and milk lightened the meat’s color unpleasantly, while the sugar in both ingredients caused the burgers to burn easily and made it impossible to develop a good thick crust.
I tried dozens of other fillers to improve the texture, and the real winner—for flavor, texture, and easy availability—was ricotta cheese. Moist and chewy, it gave the burger the texture boost it needed and required very little effort.
Finally, I decided to experiment a bit with added flavorings, and found that some Worcestershire and Dijon mustard enhanced the burgers’ taste without drawing attention to themselves.
The Best Grilled Turkey Burgers
SERVES 4
1 (2-pound) bone-in turkey thigh, skinned and boned, cut into 1-inch chunks
2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon pepper
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
4 hamburger buns, toasted
1. Arrange turkey chunks on baking sheet and freeze until semifirm, about 30 minutes.
2. Working in 3 batches, pulse semifrozen turkey chunks in food processor until largest pieces are no bigger than ⅛ inch, 12 to 14 pulses. Transfer ground turkey to bowl and stir in Worcestershire, mustard, salt, and pepper. Divide meat into 4 portions and lightly toss 1 portion from hand to hand to form ball, then lightly flatten ball with your fingertips into 1-inch-thick patty. Press center of patty down with your fingertips until it is about ½ inch thick, creating a slight depression. Repeat with remaining portions.
3A. For a charcoal grill: Open bottom vent completely. Light large chimney starter three-quarters filled with charcoal briquettes (4½ quarts). When top coals are partially covered with ash, pour two-thirds evenly over half of grill, then pour remaining coals over other half of grill. Set cooking grate in place, cover, and open lid vent completely. Heat grill until hot, about 5 minutes.
3B. For a gas grill: Turn all burners to high, cover, and heat grill until hot, about 15 minutes.
4. Clean and oil cooking grate. Place burgers on grill (hotter side if using charcoal) and cook, without pressing on them, until well browned on both sides, 5 to 7 minutes, flipping halfway through cooking.
5. Move burgers to cooler side of grill (if using charcoal), or turn all burners to medium (if using gas). Cover and continue to cook until burgers are cooked through, 5 to 7 minutes longer, flipping halfway through cooking.
6. Transfer burgers to serving platter, tent with aluminum foil, and let rest for 5 to 10 minutes before serving on buns.
variations
This recipe will enrich store-bought ground lean turkey so that it makes excellent burgers. Ricotta cheese can burn easily, so keep a close watch on the burgers as they cook.
Substitute 1¼ pounds 93 percent lean ground turkey for turkey thighs and add ½ cup whole-milk ricotta cheese to turkey with seasonings.
Japanese miso, a paste made from fermenting rice, barley, or soybeans, gives the turkey burgers a particularly savory, beefy flavor.
Stir 2 teaspoons white miso together with 2 teaspoons water. Omit Worcestershire and mustard and add miso mixture with seasonings.
Pan-frying develops an especially nice crust on the burgers when grilling isn’t an option.
Heat 2 teaspoons vegetable oil in 12-inch skillet over medium heat until just smoking. Add burgers to pan and cook over medium heat without moving burgers until bottom side of each is dark brown and crusted, 3 to 4 minutes. Flip burgers and continue to cook until bottom side is light brown but not yet crusted, 3 to 4 minutes longer. Reduce heat to low, position skillet lid slightly ajar on pan to allow steam to escape, and continue to cook 8 to 10 minutes longer, flipping burgers if necessary to promote deep browning, until burgers register 160 degrees. Serve.
PREPPING TURKEY THIGHS FOR BURGERS
We found that the extra step of grinding fresh turkey thighs ourselves made the most flavorful, best-textured burgers.
1. To remove skin from turkey thigh, grasp it with paper towel for better traction and pull.
2. With boning knife, cut along top of thigh bone, scrape meat away on both sides and underneath, and discard bone.
3. Cut thigh meat into 1-inch strips and then cut each strip into 1-inch cubes. Freeze until semifrozen.
J. KENJI LOPEZ-ALT, November/December 2008
For most of us, juicy, perfectly cooked roast turkey shrouded in crisp, burnished skin is like a desert mirage: a beautiful idea, yes, but one that always seems just out of reach. Here’s the crux of the problem: getting the dark meat up to temperature and the skin crisp without overcooking the white meat. Breast meat needs to reach about 160 degrees and not much more or its muscle proteins will tighten up, squeezing out juices. At the same time, dark meat must be cooked to 175 degrees. Another problem is that dark meat cooks especially slowly, particularly the thighs, which, due to the anatomy of a turkey, are shielded from direct oven heat.
Enter two safeguards we’ve long advocated in the test kitchen: salting the turkey or brining it in saltwater. Both measures change the structure of the bird’s muscles, allowing it to retain more moisture, especially at the exterior of the breast, the area most prone to overcooking. But neither measure is foolproof, and each takes the better part of a day. I wanted to cut out at least one kitchen task this Thanksgiving and skip that extra step. My goal was no less than the perfect turkey recipe, an approach that would get my fowl from supermarket to table in just a few hours, with meat as moist as prime rib and crisp, crackling skin. And since this would be the ideal recipe, I wanted to end up with great and easy gravy, too.
TAKING TURKEY’S TEMPERATURE
To find out exactly how much of the turkey was hitting the 160-degree mark, I roasted a turkey using our standard method (start in a 400-degree oven breast-down and finish breast-up at 325 degrees). I took the temperature of the breast meat at ¼-inch intervals all the way from the coolest point (which registered 160 degrees) to the very exterior. This test showed that more than 50 percent of the turkey breast was reaching temperatures above 180 degrees, with some parts reaching nearly 200 degrees. No wonder brining is usually necessary to ensure meat that isn’t completely dried out!
This problem was nearly identical to a dilemma I had encountered last year when developing a recipe for thick-cut steaks, when I found that high-heat cooking caused the outer layers to overcook. The solution? Lower the heat. I baked the steaks in a gentle 275-degree oven before finishing them in a hot pan, resulting in perfectly and evenly cooked meat. Maybe, I reasoned, a slow-roasted turkey might also be the key to juicy meat.
I roasted my next turkey at 275 degrees, again taking its temperature at ¼-inch intervals once the center had reached 160 degrees. This time, the majority of the meat stayed reasonably close to the 160-degree mark, with only the outermost layers reaching between 170 and 180 degrees—a marked improvement that was verified by correspondingly juicier breast meat. But three problems had emerged. The most obvious was the pale and flabby skin, which failed to brown at the lower temperature. Second was the extremely long cooking time (more than 5 hours), which not only tied up the oven but left the meat in the 40- to 140-degree “danger zone” (the temperature range at which bacteria flourish) for too long. Finally, with the lower temperature, while the breast meat stayed closer to 160 degrees, so, unfortunately, did the legs and thighs. By the time the breast was done cooking, the thighs were still a disquieting pale pink.
SEPARATION ANXIETY
I knew from past chicken recipes that spreading the legs out from the breast helps them to cook faster. Could separating them completely help even more? Even the most sentimental cook would surely give up their Norman Rockwell dream of a whole golden brown bird emerging from the oven in exchange for the juiciest turkey with the simplest preparation.
Rather than go through the hassle of breaking down a whole turkey, I bought a turkey breast along with two leg quarters (thighs and drumsticks). I roasted them elevated on a rack over a baking sheet to promote air circulation. This time, after just under three hours in the oven, the breast had reached 160 degrees. And without the insulating effect of the turkey’s backbone and breast meat, the thighs and drumsticks serendipitously reached 175 degrees just as the breast finished cooking! Cutting into the breast revealed tender, juicy meat.
Swapping out a whole turkey for parts and roasting at a low temperature guarantees the juiciest meat.
The only remaining problem was the skin. Most turkey recipes achieve crisp skin by starting the bird in a hot oven to brown it, then lowering the heat to finish cooking. But a higher starting temperature meant a higher oven temperature the whole way through, which led to dried-out meat. Increasing the heat near the end seemed more promising, but ultimately proved untenable; leaving the turkey in the oven as it heated up slowly also caused it to overcook. But what if I allowed the turkey to cool before popping it back in the oven to crisp the skin? I roasted more parts, this time removing them from the oven before raising the temperature as high as it would go—500 degrees. I allowed the turkey to rest for a full half hour until the temperature of the meat had dropped to around 130 degrees. After the turkey was in the oven for 15 minutes, I hesitantly poked my instant-read thermometer into the skin, which made an encouraging crack. The thermometer revealed what one taste soon confirmed—the turkey was perfectly cooked from center to edge and surrounded by flawlessly rendered, crisp skin.
THE GRAVY TRAIN
My remaining task was to find a simple way to create rich gravy. For a foundation, I placed a mixture of carrots, celery, onions, and flavorings under the turkey with some chicken broth. After a couple hours in the oven, the savory roasted vegetables were further seasoned by turkey drippings. Once the meat was cooked (but before crisping the skin), I strained the liquid and added more canned broth. The turkey’s resting period gave me plenty of time to cook up a dark golden roux from flour and butter that I whisked into the broth. Barely 20 minutes later, the roux and broth had thickened into an intense gravy.
I’ll still brine a turkey whenever I get the urge to provide a picture-perfect Thanksgiving centerpiece. But I have a feeling most times I won’t even start worrying about the bird until the afternoon of the big day, knowing that I can easily produce juicy turkey with crisp skin—and a rich gravy—all in time for dinner.
Slow-Roasted Turkey with Gravy
SERVES 10 TO 12
Instead of drumsticks and thighs, you may use two (1½- to 2-pound) whole leg quarters. The recipe will also work with a turkey breast alone; in step 2, reduce the butter to 1½ tablespoons, the salt to 1½ teaspoons, and the pepper to 1 teaspoon. Many supermarkets carry “hotel-style” turkey breasts, which still have the wings and rib cage attached. If this is the only type of breast you can find, you will need to remove the wings and cut away the rib cage with kitchen shears before proceeding with the recipe.
Turkey
3 onions, chopped
3 celery ribs, chopped
2 carrots, peeled and chopped
5 sprigs fresh thyme
5 garlic cloves, peeled and halved
1 cup chicken broth
1 (5- to 7-pound) whole bone-in turkey breast, trimmed
4 pounds turkey drumsticks and thighs, trimmed
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
1 tablespoon salt
2 teaspoons pepper
Gravy
2 cups chicken broth
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
2 bay leaves
Salt and pepper
1. For the turkey: Adjust oven rack to lower-middle position and heat oven to 275 degrees. Arrange onions, celery, carrots, thyme sprigs, and garlic in even layer on rimmed baking sheet. Pour broth into sheet. Place wire rack on top of vegetables.
2. Pat turkey parts dry with paper towels. Brush turkey parts on all sides with melted butter and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Place breast skin side down and drumsticks and thighs skin side up on wire rack in vegetable-filled sheet, leaving at least ¼ inch between pieces.
3. Roast turkey parts for 1 hour. Using 2 large wads of paper towels, turn turkey breast skin side up. Continue to roast until breast registers 160 degrees and drumsticks/thighs register 175 degrees, 1 to 2 hours longer. Remove sheet from oven and transfer wire rack with turkey to second rimmed baking sheet. Let turkey parts rest for at least 30 minutes or up to 1½ hours.
4. For the gravy: Strain vegetables and liquid from sheet through fine-mesh strainer set in 4-cup liquid measuring cup, pressing on solids to extract as much liquid as possible; discard solids. Add broth to measuring cup (you should have about 3 cups liquid).
5. Melt butter in medium saucepan over medium-high heat. Add flour and cook, stirring constantly, until flour is dark golden brown and fragrant, about 5 minutes. Slowly whisk in bay leaves and broth mixture and gradually bring to boil. Reduce heat to low and simmer, stirring occasionally, until gravy is thick and measures 2 cups, 15 to 20 minutes. Discard bay leaves. Off heat, season gravy with salt and pepper to taste. Cover and keep warm.
6. Heat oven to 500 degrees. Place sheet with turkey in oven. Roast until skin is golden brown and crispy, about 15 minutes. Transfer turkey to carving board and let rest, uncovered, for 20 minutes. Carve and serve with gravy.
DON’T LEAVE YOUR TURKEY HIGH AND DRY
EXPERIMENT We roasted two non-brined turkeys, one using our standard high-heat approach (start in a 400-degree oven and finish at 325 degrees), the other roasted at 275 degrees the entire time. Once the center of each breast hit 160 degrees (the ideal temperature for moist, tender white meat), we recorded its temperature at ¼-inch intervals to the very exterior.
RESULTS The outermost layers of the high-heat breast topped a moisture-obliterating 210 degrees. The exterior of the slow-roasted breast reached a much more moderate 176 degrees—proving that if you can roast at low heat, the meat will still be moist, even without a brine.
Most supermarkets carry whole bone-in turkey breasts as well as leg quarters and individually packaged thighs and drumsticks. Try to avoid breasts that have been injected with a saline solution (often called “self-basters”), as we find it masks the natural flavor of the turkey. Also, ignore any pop-up timer that may come with the breast; the meat will be long overcooked by the time the popper pops.
Stuffing fans generally fall into two camps: those who favor the crusty version baked in a dish, and those who love their stuffing cooked in the turkey’s cavity, where it can absorb the bird’s flavorful juices. I envy the households where the plentiful baking-dish version is in high demand. At my house, everyone wants a helping of the ultrasavory, supermoist stuffing from inside the bird, but there’s never enough to go around. This year I was determined to revamp the stuffing cooked outside the bird to give it the rich flavor and soft texture of stuffing from the turkey cavity. Then everyone who loved this style could come back for seconds, even thirds.
BASIC BEGINNINGS
I would start with the easy stuff: nailing down a basic recipe. The usual suspects in stuffing are canned chicken broth, celery and onion cooked in butter, eggs, fresh herbs—I chose time-honored thyme and sage—and, of course, dried cubes of bread. Many recipes call for drying the bread cubes by simply leaving them out for a few days. I already knew this was not an option. As bread stales at room temperature, its starch molecules undergo a process called retrogradation, causing it to become hard but not necessarily dry. Instead, I would “stale” the bread cubes in a 200-degree oven for an hour. This method actually removes moisture, ultimately leading to a drier structure that allows the bread to soak up more liquid for a better-tasting stuffing.
We make our stuffing taste as though it was cooked inside the bird by topping it with turkey wings.
Normally, stuffing can be made with anything from cornbread to artisanal loaves, French baguettes, or Italian bread. But I wondered if one would prove better than another for achieving the moist texture I was shooting for. I didn’t want to fool with making cornbread or hunting down a good ready-made batch, so I rounded up the other three candidates, along with sliced sandwich bread. I cut each bread into cubes and staled them in the oven. I was right to be concerned about the style of bread: Baguettes had too high a ratio of crust to interior, leading to a chewy stuffing. The superfine crumb of Italian loaves became overly soggy and blown out, while artisanal breads like ciabatta were simply too tough. The best choice turned out to be ordinary, easy-to-find sandwich bread, which baked up soft but still retained some shape.
TRICKLE-DOWN THEORY
It was time to get on with my real goal: infusing the dressing with meaty turkey flavor. Ground sausage is a great way to impart an extra meaty dimension to stuffing, so what about simply adding ground turkey to the recipe? I browned 1 pound in a skillet, combined it with the other stuffing ingredients, threw everything in a baking dish, and put the whole thing in the oven. This got me nowhere. Unlike ground sausage, which, when added to stuffing, brings to the mix lots of flavorful fat and often herbs and spices, ground turkey is both relatively lean and bland. All it did was produce lumps of none-too-flavorful meat amid the bread cubes.
Next, I flirted with the idea of swapping the canned broth with a rich homemade turkey stock that I could reduce for extra intensity. That fantasy lasted about a minute as I tried to imagine myself tending to a pot of stock, all the while juggling the dozens of other things I needed to get done for the big feast. There had to be an easier way to re-create the rich fatty juices that trickle down inside the bird. Then it occurred to me: I could actually get that same trickle-down effect by covering the stuffing in the baking dish with turkey parts—in essence, creating a makeshift turkey cavity.
First I tried meaty turkey legs and thighs, which had the obvious advantage of exuding lots of flavorful juices (and fat). These proved a bit cumbersome, so I turned to turkey wings. To get every last bit of turkey juice and fat to render, I split the wings into sections and poked holes in the skin with a paring knife. I arranged the perforated wing pieces on the stuffing and baked it in a moderate oven—375 degrees—for an hour, until the wings reached a safe 175 degrees. I was onto something. The flavorful juice and fat from the roasted wings had penetrated deep into the stuffing. The only problem? The top layer had dried out in the oven.
The next time around, I covered the wings and stuffing with foil. This kept the stuffing moist, but the wings didn’t get a chance to brown. Without all the new flavor compounds created by browning, the stuffing didn’t have the richness I had noted in my previous attempt. If I wanted browning, the only other option was to sear the wings before placing them on the stuffing. I was happy to find that the 3 pounds of wings I’d been using fit into a skillet in one batch. After searing, I removed them, then sautéed the aromatics and added the chicken broth. Another benefit of this approach was that I could scrape up the flavorful fond that had built up on the bottom of the pan and incorporate it into the savory liquid. I combined the liquid with the aromatics and the bread along with eggs and more chicken broth (to augment the juices from the wings) and placed the mixture in a baking dish, arranging the seared wings atop the stuffing. I covered the dish with foil, and to prevent the bottom of the stuffing from becoming crusty, I placed the baking dish on a baking sheet, which offered some protection against the oven’s heat.
A little over an hour later, I had moist, tender stuffing that certainly looked the part—and my tasters declared it to be as rich and savory as any inside-the-bird stuffing they’d sampled. Stuffing this good shouldn’t be reserved for the holidays, I thought, so I tested my new recipe using chicken wings, which unlike turkey wings are easy to find year-round. Since chicken wings are less fatty and meaty than turkey wings, I discovered that I needed to increase the amount of chicken broth and decrease cooking time to get comparable results.
With so much turkey flavor, I needed only to add some sausage, tart dried cherries, and toasted pecans to give my stuffing true holiday pizzazz. I also created a couple of variations: one with bacon, sautéed apples, and leeks, and another with just a handful of parsley for fresh flavor.
Ultramoist, full of turkey flavor, and in a quantity that allowed my guests to have multiple helpings, these stuffings clearly showed that they didn’t need to be stuffed at all.
Bread Stuffing with Sausage, Dried Cherries, and Pecans
SERVES 10 TO 12
Two pounds of chicken wings can be substituted for the turkey wings. If you’re using chicken wings, separate them into two sections (it’s not necessary to separate the tips) and poke each segment four or five times. Also, increase the amount of chicken broth to 3 cups, reduce the amount of butter to 2 tablespoons, and cook the stuffing for only 1 hour (the chicken wings should register above 175 degrees at the end of cooking). Use the meat from the cooked turkey or chicken wings to make salad or soup.
2 pounds hearty white sandwich bread, cut into ½-inch cubes (16 cups)
3 pounds turkey wings, cut at joints, trimmed
2 teaspoons vegetable oil
1 pound bulk pork sausage
4 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 large onion, chopped fine
3 celery ribs, minced
Salt and pepper
2 tablespoons minced fresh thyme
2 tablespoons minced fresh sage
2½ cups chicken broth
3 large eggs
1 cup dried cherries
1 cup pecans, toasted and chopped fine
1. Adjust oven racks to upper-middle and lower-middle positions and heat oven to 250 degrees. Divide bread cubes between 2 rimmed baking sheets and spread in even layer. Bake until edges have dried but centers are slightly moist (bread should yield to pressure), 45 minutes to 1 hour, stirring several times during baking. (Bread can be toasted up to 24 hours in advance.) Transfer bread to large bowl and increase oven temperature to 375 degrees.
2. While bread bakes, use paring knife to poke 10 to 15 holes in each turkey wing segment. Heat oil in 12-inch skillet over medium-high heat until shimmering. Add wings in single layer and cook until golden brown, 4 to 6 minutes per side. Transfer wings to separate bowl.
3. Return now-empty skillet to medium-high heat, add sausage, and cook, breaking into ½-inch pieces with wooden spoon, until browned, 5 to 7 minutes. Using slotted spoon, transfer sausage to paper towel–lined plate.
4. Add butter to fat left in skillet and melt over medium heat. Add onion, celery, and ½ teaspoon salt and cook, stirring occasionally, until vegetables are softened, 7 to 9 minutes. Stir in thyme, sage, and 1 teaspoon pepper and cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Stir in 1 cup broth, scraping up any browned bits, and bring to simmer. Add vegetable mixture to bowl with dried bread and toss to combine.
5. Grease 13 by 9-inch baking dish. Whisk eggs, 1½ teaspoons salt, remaining 1½ cups broth, and any accumulated juices from wings together in bowl. Add cherries, pecans, sausage, and egg mixture to bread mixture and toss to combine; transfer to prepared dish. Arrange wings on top of stuffing, cover tightly with aluminum foil, and place dish on rimmed baking sheet. Bake on lower oven rack until wings register 175 degrees, 1 to 1¼ hours. Remove foil and transfer wings to plate; reserve for another use. Using fork, gently fluff stuffing. Let rest for 5 minutes before serving.
variations
Bread Stuffing with Leeks, Bacon, and Apples
Omit pecans. Substitute 12 ounces bacon, cut into ½-inch pieces, for sausage. In step 3, cook bacon in skillet over medium heat until crisp, 5 to 7 minutes. Using slotted spoon, transfer bacon to paper towel–lined plate; pour off all but 2 tablespoons fat from skillet. Proceed with recipe from step 4, substituting 2 leeks, white and light green parts only, sliced thin, for onion and 3 Granny Smith apples, cored and cut into ¼-inch pieces, for cherries.
Bread Stuffing with Fresh Herbs
Omit sausage and increase butter to 6 tablespoons. After browned turkey wings have been removed in step 2, melt butter in skillet over medium heat. Proceed with recipe from step 4, substituting 3 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley for dried cherries and pecans.
TURKEY WINGS TO THE RESCUE
Baking stuffing with browned turkey wings on top creates the same rich savoriness of stuffing cooked inside the bird.
1. BROWN WINGS Sear turkey wings to give stuffing savory depth.
2. TOP, COVER, BAKE Top stuffing with browned wings, cover with aluminum foil to trap moisture, and bake.
