Making chicken without it coming-out dry?

  • Thread starter Thread starter LotusCarsLtd
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
L

LotusCarsLtd

Guest
Anyone have any tips for cooking chicken so it’s moist and juicy and yet not undercooked?

Pax!
 
A solar cooker works great, food comes out moist and tender every time.

If you don’t have a solar cooker, you can make one using a dark (spotted with white) enamel pot with a lid, and an oven roasting bag,( turkey size). You have to make sure the pot fits in the bag, and that you can close it.

Just put the chicken in the bottom of the pot, add salt/pepper, garlic, dried or fresh parsley, and a little Rosemary. Cover the pot, put the oven bag around it loosly, and put a tie on the end. Put it out in the sun for approx. 6 hours.

You don’t need to turn it, stir it, add liquid, or do anything to it.

*You have to make sure it is a sunny day.( you don’t want to do this on a cloudy day, or a day with no sun).
*You want to make sure the sun will hit it full on for the entire time.
*You want to leave whatever you are cooking alone. It won’t cook if you keep opening up and looking inside.
 
tuscany said:
A solar cooker works great, food comes out moist and tender every time.

If you don’t have a solar cooker, you can make one using a dark (spotted with white) enamel pot with a lid, and an oven roasting bag,( turkey size). You have to make sure the pot fits in the bag, and that you can close it.

Just put the chicken in the bottom of the pot, add salt/pepper, garlic, dried or fresh parsley, and a little Rosemary. Cover the pot, put the oven bag around it loosly, and put a tie on the end. Put it out in the sun for approx. 6 hours.

You don’t need to turn it, stir it, add liquid, or do anything to it.

*You have to make sure it is a sunny day.( you don’t want to do this on a cloudy day, or a day with no sun).
*You want to make sure the sun will hit it full on for the entire time.
*You want to leave whatever you are cooking alone. It won’t cook if you keep opening up and looking inside.
Click to expand...
OP is from Chitown, we don’t get the nice warm sun you get.

I either cook it in Corningware, or I season with spices and some Italian dressing (or lemon juice, or whatever). But covering it with a lid helps. Also, about 3/4 of the way done I sometimes add water (I try to not add too many extras). But I think the cover over the cookware is what really helps to keep the juices in. If it’s just chicken breasts, then I sometimes add a small amount of water, dressing, or juice to the bottom of the open pan. Personally I like to add a juice, sauce or dressing for more flavor (as part of the marinating).
 
You can solar cook with temps in the 80’s. Just picture yourself sitting in your car with the windows rolled up and it’s parked in the full sun. That’s the same idea of how a solar cooker works. Yes you might not be able to cook with it year round, but on days when it’s in the 80’s or higher, food comes out tender and moist. People think it has to be 100 + degrees to solar cook, not true!
 
tuscany said:
You can solar cook with temps in the 80’s. Just picture yourself sitting in your car with the windows rolled up and it’s parked in the full sun. That’s the same idea of how a solar cooker works. People think it has to be 100 + degrees to solar cook, not true!
Click to expand...
Except here, for at least six months out of the year even the inside of a car isn’t 80.
 
Never boil it! The fat and juiciness seeps out and floats to the top of the water. My mom used to make boiled chicken all the time when I was little and I would have to take a sip of water with each bite to wash it down because it was so dry.
When I cook chicken, it is usually in small pieces in a pan with a bit of olive oil and some spices at medium-high heat for about 5 minutes. I’ve never had it turn out wrong that way. Cooking big pieces of chicken might dry it out because it has to sit in the pan or oven much longer for the heat to reach the center of the piece and the outside dries out.
Also, the chicken I use is usually fresh too. If the chicken you use has been frozen for more than a few days or has been imroperly stored in the freezer, the cold may have sucked out some of the meat’s moisture.
 
I usually cook boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into relatively uniform pieces (serving size pieces) with a couple of tablespoons of butter on the bottom of the baking dish. Season both sides to taste and bake in the oven at 350 degrees for 40 minutes or so (until it reaches the appropriate temp). As long as you don’t over cook it and make sure there is still butter in the dish throughout cooking it remains moist.
 
One of the best ways to keep chicken from coming out dry is to brine it for an hour prior to cooking. Brining would consist of putting the chicken in a bag (or bowl) of warm water with a decent amount of salt. The salt causes the chicken to absorb the water. Once you are done brining, you rinse the chicken off to get the excess salt off and then cook as you desire.

We tried this when we made chicken marsala and it came out wonderful. If we don’t brine, we marinade the chicken. Both methods do the same kind of thing. We’ve even brined whole turkeys and whole chickens. The result is so juicy and delicious. The longer you let it brine the better, but an hour would work on smaller pieces of chicken.

God Bless,

Jessica
 
Google “Beercan Chicken”. It’s the best, most moist chicken I’ve ever tasted. I do it on the grille all year round. The leftovers make great chicken salad. Good luck.
 
jjtc said:
Google “Beercan Chicken”. It’s the best, most moist chicken I’ve ever tasted. I do it on the grille all year round. The leftovers make great chicken salad. Good luck.
Click to expand...
Totally agree - the best, most moist chicken I’ve ever had, and it is perfect every time. We never have leftovers when we make this for friends, all that’s left is a bare carcass!

~Liza
 
For moistness, dark meat (thighs and drumsticks) comes out better than white meat. If you really need the texture or flavor of white meat, there are a few things I do to keep it moist. Bake or grill it inside its skin, and be sure to rub the skin with some kind of oil or fat before baking. In the crockpot, without skin, with a can of condensed cream of chicken soup, cooked on low all day. The last option, which is the least healthy, is frying it in its skin in very hot oil. I really don’t like cooking with or eating boneless skinless chicken breasts, unless it is in a soup or casserole or crockpot dish. Even when I do my darndest to keep it moist in the pan or oven, if it is cooked without skin or cream soup, it squeaks between my teeth and dries out my mouth. It’s just awful. And I am a pretty good cook normally, just not with boneless skinless chicken breasts! :o
 
tuscany said:
A solar cooker works great, food comes out moist and tender every time. … Put it out in the sun for approx. 6 hours.

You don’t need to turn it, stir it, add liquid, or do anything to it.
Click to expand...
A six hour cooking process could end up with poisonous food. Any food which has a temperature between 40 and 140 F for more than several hours can poison you.

There is a trick which is used in slow cooking methods such as this (and smoking for example) which is to brine the meat. Since bacterial growth occurs from the outside inward, if you brine your chicken overnight, then you significantly reduce the risk.

You can look up brining recipes on the web. Personally, I like to use apple juice as the liquid in my brine for chicken. I don’t solar cook, but I do a lot of smoking of meats.
 
Baking chicken in a yoghurt-based sauce such as a basic Indian curry sauce can help, or roasting it in foil with some bacon over the skin and/or a pork sausage-meat based stuffing (sausagemeat, oatmeal and fried onions, or sage and onion).

Also, if roasting, one technique is to heat the oven very hot to begin (250’C - don’t know how to convert that to Farenheit) so that the skin goes nice and crispy and then reduce the temperature to about 140’C-160’C and cover with foil so that the juices stay in the chicken while it roasts.

Thin strips of stir-fry chicken cooked quickly would be another way to keep it from drying out.

Most importantly, get good quality chicken. Some of the cheap stuff has been pumped full of water (with syringes) or put in nitrogen deep-freeze then thawed before packing - that will never stay moist.
 
Bake it. I’m no Chef Ramsay by any means but I’ve never baked a dry chicken. And if you cook it rotisserie-style, don’t poke it: you’ll release the juices.
 
Oh, how I HATE dry chicken! It’s just the worst.

I make a very, very moist chicken breast and hubby and my friends rave about it. 😊

I take my boneless, skinless, FROZEN breast and put it in a skillet with a bit of olive oil. Turn the heat up medium high to sear both sides, but not burn. Then keep the temp up and add a bit of water at a time, so it is essentially steam cooked. Adding a bit at a time and letting it steam off before adding a bit more makes a yummy sauce of sorts all by itself.

When it’s almost done I let the water simmer off completely, and the sauce coats the underside of the chicken.

There are times when I don’t even use any seasoning because it’s so good by itself. And by sauce I don’t mean like a gravy, but a thick juice that coats the breast.

Yum. Moist, tender, juicy, every time. 👍
 
I must say that i got a good laugh from this when i thought you said ‘children’ instead of chicken. Anyways use the shake and bake, it comes out best like that, i think. Or grill it.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top