Ulog #193: How to Cook Really Juicy Chicken Breast

A lot of people, particularly in Malaysia, don't really go for chicken breast as it's notoriously known for being dry. The chicken thigh is a more popular part that people go for instead of the breast or other parts as it's termed by people "more juice" compared to the chicken breast.

But why is there such a vast difference here in Malaysia? Well it all comes down to well cooked chicken versus not well executed cook on chicken.

For a chicken lover like myself, I enjoy the different taste and textures of each part and depending on what I feel like having that day, I'll go for that particular part. I don't have a particular favorite part because if you cook the part well, every part of the chicken is my favorite.

So how do you cook chicken breast well? It's fairly simple actually. Once you understand how chicken breast reacts to heat and which technique best suits this part, you'll cook like a pro and have juicy and tender chicken breast all the time.

Marinate/Brine

Firstly, marinate/brine. This is an important and crucial part of the cooking process of having a juicy and flavorful piece of chicken breast.

Brining your chicken is basically submerging the chicken in a salt water solution. The amount of salt should be about 10-15% of the amount of water. So if you're having 2 liters of water, just add about 20g of salt and you're good to go. You can add in your own blend of spices but a very basic one of just salt and pepper would do magic.

A marinate on the other hand should just cover the chicken and coat it and not submerged. I normally use a blend of herbs and spices like smoked paprika, cumin, coriander powder, some fresh herbs like parsley and aromatics like puree garlic. I mix this all with oil and then marinate the chicken in the oil.

Both these techniques will give you not only a seasoned and tasty meat but a more juicy one as well. Gives you a sort of insurance in the cooking process if it's slightly overcooked, you'll still have very tasty chicken breast.

Cooking Method

In this post I will just share 1 cooking method and save the other one for another post before this post gets too long and boring to read. Haha.

Grilling - You can either use a pan on a stove top or a griddle like the one you see here in the picture.

The key to this is cooking it low and slow. On low heat and slightly longer time. The trick I use is to normally get the pan or griddle on high heat before adding in the chicken. As soon as you put in the chicken breast and it stars to sizzle and sear, turn your heat down to low and leave it in the pan for around 5-7 minutes. This is a butterflied chicken breast which is about an inch in height.

After that, flip the chicken and turn your pan to medium to low heat and cook for another 5-7 minutes. You won't need the oven which means less washing and an end product of perfectly cooked chicken breast. To check whether your chicken is done without cutting in to it, it should feel firm and not springy.

Look at that chicken after being sliced. You can see it's not grainy or "fibery" looking. It's smooth which shows you that it's not overcooked.

Hope this helps. I'll post up more cooking tips every now and then. But if you're just plain lazy or had a long tiring day, just stop by my food truck and I'll hook you up to some awesome tasting grub.

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