chicken breast quickies - that didn't come out right

square plates are awesome - like a canvas!

Sautéing or braising chicken breasts in a fry pan has got to be the easiest and quickest way of preparing a meat-based meal, but I’m surprised to find how many people still have trouble with this. I’ve prepared a few pointers to make the process a bit more clear and get you on your way to happier, healthier breast-feeding.

These chicken breasts were reserved for cooking from a previous post on chicken stock. Check that out if you want to learn more about stock creation.

The two biggest concerns around the breast appear to be knowing when it is properly cooked through, and what to do about seasonings and flavors. The second concern starts first. Think of flavors in advance and you’ll save yourself a lot of trouble – better than the scenario where the thing’s already in the pan and you realize too late that you didn't plan the next step.

This goes back to the idea of mise en place, the French way of saying don’t have the things you want to use in an inaccessible pantry back cupboard. Keep things you use frequently handy, and get the things you want to cook with out and ready before cooking. It’s a simple idea but it makes things go much more smoothly.

This time around we’re keeping our recipe very simple, but you can work in all kinds of things after getting this down. Of course the vegetables here can be switched out with others of your choice. The lovely thing about what we're doing here with salting the vegetables a bit while cooking is that this will end up making its own sauce, by drawing the vegetable juices out. That just sounds delicious already right? Say it with me now - vegetable juices.

The Procedure:

In the video, I previously had poached these breasts in water to help create a chicken stock base. You can poach in boiling water for about 1 minute if you like, but if you have the time, you might as well turn that water into a chicken stock since you're already off to a good start.

Salt and pepper your breasts – both sides – and rub in bit of oil with maybe an herb. That's plenty right there, but I put it on a plate of sliced onions for some more flavor, since I wanted to cook onions anyway.

Get your frying pan hot on high heat, and then lower to medium heat.
 

over a bed of onion slices for a nice addition

Add your oil, wait a moment for it to get hot as well.

Place in your ingredients starting with the hardest ones, like carrots. You don't have to cook these for so very long, just a minute or two is fine.

Make some room in the middle, and place your chicken in the pan skin-side down – away from yourself in case of oil splashes – and listen for a sizzle (and make sure it’s there). I reiterate - if there is no sizzle, the pan has gotten too cold. If you just leave it on medium the whole time this shouldn't be a problem.
 

Keep on medium and don't walk away from the frying pan too much, chicken doesn't take that long. This is key - do not move the chicken around. One flip is what we want, so leave it and only check to see if there's that golden color on the skin.

When the skin has gotten nice and golden, turn it over. It should only take 2-3 minutes per side, but chicken breasts vary in thickness so that's only a rule of thumb. When the chicken is done, take it out of the pan (or it’ll keep cooking) and put it on a plate to rest. One note, if you cover the pan with a lid like I do towards the end of the video here, the steam will cook the chicken from all around, so it'll stay juicy.
 

There are two methods for confirming that the chicken is cooked through. One is to use a meat thermometer – internal temp should be 74 degrees C or 165 degrees F. The other is to cut open the thickest part and confirm that there’s no pink meat. Once you cook a lot of these, a third option opens up and that’s to check by feel, the spring-back of the chicken when you poke it. By the way, I've noticed the look-and-see method only works for chicken breasts, for other meats it’s better to have a thermometer around.
 

And oh yeah, this is a chicken breast, don’t throw the skin away. That’s the best part! If you’re that worried about the extra calories, well, just don’t be worried. You’ve already gone lean by going chicken, right? Who would want to get rid of that crispy golden deliciousness?

Ingredients from the video

two chicken breasts SKIN ON
1 onion sliced
1 stock broccoli
1 carrot
2 big tomatoes diced
white wine or flavorful liquid (stock etc.)
herbs (thyme and sage here in the vid - you could also use dried if that's all you have, you poor thing)