I've spent the better part of my life eating chicken breasts

Just what the hell was I thinking? With a little inspiration from Discovery Channel's "Chef at Home", I did some simple chicken thighs, browned with a dusting of flour, braised in pinot noir, chicken stock, with mushrooms and onions over the weekend.

What a wonderful and wonderfully simple dish for a cold blustery weekend. The fatiness of the chicken thigh works so well with the wine and lends itself so well to braising. They were served with some green beans cooked with freshly sauteed garlic and tomato.

It was the ultimate comfort food.

As of today, I swear never to eat a chicken breast again for the rest of my life.

Huzzah!

Welcome to the dark side, Will!

(Seared chicken thighs with assorted pan sauces is one of my favorite quick and easy dinners.)

YourPalWill wrote:As of today, I swear never to eat a chicken breast again for the rest of my life.

Not so fast, Will! I came at this topic from another angle, as someone who had avoided chicken (and turkey) breasts all my life. A couple of summers ago I discovered the joys of juicy chicken breast thanks to an article in SAVEUR on chicken piri-piri, a Portuguese specialty. Basically, you brush the bone-in skin-on breasts with a mixture of olive oil, lemon or brandy, hot peppers, and garlic that you have previously warmed up. You watch the breasts like a hawk as you grill them outdoors, and do not overcook. Result: Juicy, tender, delicious, perfect chicken breasts.

Notwithstanding Josephine's experiences with piri-piri, I must say that chicken breasts are one of the last common foods I would want to eat. I think of chicken breasts as the tofu of the meat world: bland, inoffensive, able to absorb whatever it's cooked in, but not something for which I would long. Still, eating a Wittstein's breast a few weeks ago, I realized that my lack of interest in this chicken part was mostly due to the fact that the hypertrophied chests of corporate birds have been engineered for size, not taste, and that a chicken raised in a more traditional manner (free-range, drug-free, etc.) has tasty meat everywhere, even on the breasts.

Longtime huge proponent of the thigh, am I. I have started to notice that boneless skinless thighs are sometimes more expensive than boneless skinless breast these days.

YourPalWill- wait till you try 'em in a Thai curry braised in coconut milk, or in an Indian gravy type dish as well. Marinate and grill them for tacos.

I do enjoy breast (not nearly as much) but you do have to watch breast like a hawk when cooking it.

seebee wrote:Longtime huge proponent of the thigh, am I. I have started to notice that boneless skinless thighs are sometimes more expensive than boneless skinless breast these days.

Really? Where? I always keep a stock of boneless skinless thighs on hand and no matter where I shop, they're considerably cheaper. I'd like to know where you see them priced higher so I know what shop to avoid.

I use boneless, skinless thigh meat mainly for convenience in quick-cooking dishes.* When I want to braise chicken pieces, I go with bone-in for three reasons:

1) You're not really saving any effort with boneless on a braise, since it's so simple to pull the bones away at the end of the cooking process.

2) Bone-in chicken thighs are very inexpensive

3) I think they taste better and impart more flavor into the rest of the dish in a longer cook.

Best,
Michael

* You can read about my favorite way to use boneless, skinless thighs here.

Where?

At Whole Foods, that bastion of culinary suckerdom that I frequent, for one. I saw boneless, skinless thighs for $4.99 a pound there last week. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry at the fact that folks would pay such a price for what many consider to be less than prime, pedestrian chicken parts.

I tend to buy mine at Family Fruit on Cicero. $1.99 a pound or less at all times. Same goes for Tony's on Elston.

Personally, I like the additional flavor that cooking thighs on the bone provides.

eatchicago wrote:

seebee wrote:Longtime huge proponent of the thigh, am I. I have started to notice that boneless skinless thighs are sometimes more expensive than boneless skinless breast these days.

Really? Where? I always keep a stock of boneless skinless thighs on hand and no matter where I shop, they're considerably cheaper. I'd like to know where you see them priced higher so I know what shop to avoid.

I use boneless, skinless thigh meat mainly for convenience in quick-cooking dishes.* When I want to braise chicken pieces, I go with bone-in for three reasons:

1) You're not really saving any effort with boneless on a braise, since it's so simple to pull the bones away at the end of the cooking process.

2) Bone-in chicken thighs are very inexpensive

3) I think they taste better and impart more flavor into the rest of the dish in a longer cook.

Best,
Michael

* You can read about my favorite way to use boneless, skinless thighs here.

I shop at places that generally have boneless skinless chicken breast on the regular at 1.99 lb, and when it's on sale, it will dip as low as 1.25 lb ( I have seen it at 99C / lb, but that is an absolute rarity) when the B/s breast dips under 1.99 or 1.69 /lb, THAT'S when it goes for less than the B/S thighs. As I said, it's not a REGULAR occurrence, but it does happen sometimes. My regular spots for b/s breast and thighs are CertiSavers - (Tony's, Butera, Fair share etc)
Normally, reg price for b/s breast is 1.99/lb
Normally reg price for b/s thighs is 1.69-1.99/lb
When b/s breast goes on sale, but thighs do not, then the breast will be cheaper than the thighs. I've only seen this happening in the last two years.

I would also much prefer mainly using bone in for the flavor, but the bride secretly scoffs at the work involved while eating. If I really wanna go all out, I will cook and then remove the meat from the bone, but it's one of those things where it's just not usually worth the hassle for me. Although, when I do it that way, I DO get to gnaw the meat particles of the bones that I couldn't get by pulling or slicing

P.S I only buy olives at whole foods - sometimes baba ghannouj. Don't think I've been in one more than twice in the last 12 mos. Not a chance I'd buy meat there.

YourPalWill wrote:At Whole Foods, that bastion of culinary suckerdom that I frequent, for one.

seebee wrote:Not a chance I'd buy meat there.

Slightly off-topic rant about the meat department at Whole Foods (and yes, I'm a sucker who shops there too, Will). One, they don't have short ribs. (At least never at the North Ave or Huron stores.) That's ridiculous. Two, I once asked one of the guys in the butcher shop to quarter a whole chicken that I was buying and he responded that he didn't know what "quartering" was. I had to explain to him about chicken parts and basic division before one of his co-workers rescued him. It was simultaneously sad and annoying.

I too am more of a thighguy, but one saving grace for chicken breasts: Freddy's (GNR, Cicero) lemon chicken palliard. A true classic.

aschie30 wrote:Slightly off-topic rant about the meat department at Whole Foods (and yes, I'm a sucker who shops there too, Will). One, they don't have short ribs. (At least never at the North Ave or Huron stores.) That's ridiculous.

It might not be as convenient for you to get to as the North or Huron store, but the South Loop store consistently has short ribs, always English cut and sometimes both English and flanken.

The North Ave. store had (prepackaged) short ribs last Saturday. I didn't get them because they were rather small and unappetizing but they had them. The Ashland store has them in the butcher case.

I never liked dark meat at all -- until I got a smoker. Smoked thighs and legs are fabulous. Breasts aren't bad, either, but the darker meat just seems to work better in the smoker. However, for all other applications, I still go with white meat -- and I love the flavor. Favorite preparation is chicken Excelsior House -- dredged in butter and paprika, baked, and then topped with a thick sour cream/sherry/mushroom sauce. Yum. No, wait, chicken Kiev is my favorite -- stuffed with herbs and butter. Ooops. Making myself hungry again.

This puts me in mind of a conversation I've had (Oh, lord - am I repeating myself again, or did I tell this story verbally at an LTH lunch... ) I was asking about the chicken feet preparation at the Dim Sum booth in Mitsuwa, and the nice young man behind the counter asked me "do white people really like chicken breast?" I laughed, and said they might but I don't. He said "but I think they're so dry..." I could only agree wholeheartedly.

I have never really understood the whole chicken breast fetish of American eaters (it doesn't seem obviously related to our other cultural breast fetishes---or should I say poitrine prefrences?). We always claim to love things juicy and tender, yet chicken breasts generally aren't. Then they charge us more on top of it.
It's easy enough to avoid the millions of tasteless "char-grilled" boneless chicken breast sandwiches, made from the saline-infused (hmm, maybe there is a connection to that other fetish?) factory-farmed, frozen blobs of blandness. But what really saddens me is when various asian restaurants feel the need to use (proudly, or perhaps resignedly) only boneless white meat chunks in their dishes. The shortest distance between good food and mall food is by way of boneless chicken breast cubes.
Happily, I think most of the Argyle and Chinatown places still use thighs in most cases. It's what we use at home, often in recipes that call for breasts. Either bone-in or boneless as the prep. requires.
I know it's possible to keep a breast moist if you pay ferocious attention to it and/or give it hours in a yogurt or buttermilk bath before cooking. But why pay more to take all that trouble, when a lovely, juicy thigh will give you the same reward for nothing?

Thighmaster.

mrbarolo wrote:I have never really understood the whole chicken breast fetish of American eaters (it doesn't seem obviously related to our other cultural breast fetishes---or should I say poitrine prefrences?).

I know it's possible to keep a breast moist if you pay ferocious attention to it and/or give it hours in a yogurt or buttermilk bath before cooking. But why pay more to take all that trouble, when a lovely, juicy thigh will give you the same reward for nothing?

No connection with American obsessions?!? Breast meat is lower in fat than thigh meat. Can you imagine anything more fetish/obsession-related than lowering fat?

Though for some of us, it's not about juicy or fat, it's about taste. I don't like dark meat. And it's really not that hard to cook a juicy, yummy chicken breast. Also, if you look at the history of high-end culinary efforts, the chicken breast appears far more often than thighs -- and not just in the U.S. Most of the world's greatest chicken dishes use the breast, on those occasions when a whole chicken is not employed.

As for Mhays's comment -- I understand Asians thinking breast meat is dry -- it is much harder to keep it moist when you cut it up into little pieces before cooking it. That said, it doesn't keep Asians from eating the breast meat. Of course, the conversation was at Mitsuwa, and the Japanese prefer beef, while most of the rest of Asia goes with chicken or pork, not liking the strong taste of red meat. I can't imagine anyone in a Chinese store attributing the eating of any part of the chicken to "white people."

True enough. I hadn't actually thought about the lower fat angle. (That's how out of the mainstream I am.)
True again about the very high-end use of boneless breasts in classic dishes. That, in fact, is where I tend to make my exceptions. If a really good restaurant/chef is doing one of those dishes, and there's some hope that the kitchen might have actually boned and unfrozen chicken breast itself to work with, and has the technique not to overcook it and dry it out, I'm happy to order it.
It's that vast swath of middling places that order their uniform 6 0z. frozen breasts from the supplier and then dry them out and serve them on a bun or under a Sysco sauce that make me flee to thighs.
(I also wonder, if you take the skin and subcutaneous fat out of the equation, how much more fat is in the actual thigh meat than the breast meat? I'm sure there is a difference. But I wonder how much.)

Cynthia wrote:
...Also, if you look at the history of high-end culinary efforts, the chicken breast appears far more often than thighs -- and not just in the U.S. Most of the world's greatest chicken dishes use the breast, on those occasions when a whole chicken is not employed.

What are some of these dishes that you referring to?

mrbarolo wrote:(I also wonder, if you take the skin and subcutaneous fat out of the equation, how much more fat is in the actual thigh meat than the breast meat? I'm sure there is a difference. But I wonder how much.)

3.5 ounce servings, no skin, roasted, chicken breast - 3.5 grams fat, thigh - 5.7 grams, and leg - 8 grams.

Turkey breast, which I think is even harder to find done well than chicken, is a mere 1.6 grams of fat for that same skinless serving.

But as for the frozen, dried out chicken breast on a bun -- I can't disagree that that would be an unpleasant experience. I just avoid that kind of chicken breast. But as I noted above, there are plenty of great recipes the home cook can manage that also render delicious, moist results -- though rarely low in fat.

seebee wrote:What are some of these dishes that you referring to?

Chicken Kiev and Chicken Cordon Bleu are two classic dishes that come to mind.

seebee wrote:

Cynthia wrote:
...Also, if you look at the history of high-end culinary efforts, the chicken breast appears far more often than thighs -- and not just in the U.S. Most of the world's greatest chicken dishes use the breast, on those occasions when a whole chicken is not employed.

What are some of these dishes that you referring to?

It certainly isn't the case in China, which I think we'd all agree is one of the world's richest and most technically impressive cuisines. When I travel in China, sometimes I wonder what the heck they're doing with all of the breast meat.

Sending it to the States, no doubt

Dmnkly wrote: When I travel in China, sometimes I wonder what the heck they're doing with all of the breast meat.

Sending it to the States, no doubt

How odd -- I've traveled a fair bit in China, and I've seen whole chickens in numerous preparations, all with breasts attached. And I've seen myriad soups and stir-fries that clearly had as much light meat as dark. Of course, they use what I call "the propeller cut," when cutting up chicken, so you don't have the obvious breast piece we get in the U.S. -- but there has always been white meat in there.

Perhaps, like here in the U.S., the breast is more expensive, so one sees more of it in more high-end places and less in street food. In a land that thinks beef and lamb are for barbarians, because the taste is too strong, it's hard to imagine dark meat being preferred to light -- unless it's an issue of cost.

Cynthia wrote:

Dmnkly wrote: When I travel in China, sometimes I wonder what the heck they're doing with all of the breast meat.

Sending it to the States, no doubt

How odd -- I've traveled a fair bit in China, and I've seen whole chickens in numerous preparations, all with breasts attached. And I've seen myriad soups and stir-fries that clearly had as much light meat as dark. Of course, they use what I call "the propeller cut," when cutting up chicken, so you don't have the obvious breast piece we get in the U.S. -- but there has always been white meat in there.

Perhaps, like here in the U.S., the breast is more expensive, so one sees more of it in more high-end places and less in street food. In a land that thinks beef and lamb are for barbarians, because the taste is too strong, it's hard to imagine dark meat being preferred to light -- unless it's an issue of cost.

I assure you, my dining in China runs the gamut of refinement... high-end Hong Kong eateries to roadside garages in industrial areas of Guangdong. I find dark meat to be much more common even in more expensive restaurants where the difference in cost is clearly not an issue. And I didn't mean to suggest that there's no breast meat -- simply that I don't see it with the ubiquitousness that I see here. And of course whole birds is a different story. But my purely qualitative impression is that when it comes to "parts" dishes, breast is a minority cut.

Incidentally, I adore this about China.

nr706 wrote:

seebee wrote:What are some of these dishes that you referring to?

Chicken Kiev and Chicken Cordon Bleu are two classic dishes that come to mind.

Exactly. And Chicken Kiev is one of my favorites.

Chicken Excelsior House and Chicken Rochambeau also come to mind, but I can't remember a menu in France or Italy that didn't have several offerings featuring chicken breasts.

And of course a proper chicken salad is always made with breast meat (and mayonnaise).

Of course, chicken breast is frequently used as a less-expensive substitute for veal, so one sees a lot of chicken saltimbocca or similar. But that's not really the same as being a classic dish, is it?

Cynthia...

I should add, I'm not anti-breast by any stretch of the imagination. I'm just tired of the stigma dark chicken meat carries in the States of being an inferior, cheap cut of meat. There are few things that gall me more than somebody writing off a restaurant because they used "cheap, fatty dark meat". There are beautiful things about chicken thighs that breasts will never achieve, and I consider it one of my missions to fight the tunnel-vision that keeps those things from being widely appreciated.

Dmnkly wrote:

Cynthia wrote:

Dmnkly wrote: When I travel in China, sometimes I wonder what the heck they're doing with all of the breast meat.

Sending it to the States, no doubt

How odd -- I've traveled a fair bit in China, and I've seen whole chickens in numerous preparations, all with breasts attached. And I've seen myriad soups and stir-fries that clearly had as much light meat as dark. Of course, they use what I call "the propeller cut," when cutting up chicken, so you don't have the obvious breast piece we get in the U.S. -- but there has always been white meat in there.

Perhaps, like here in the U.S., the breast is more expensive, so one sees more of it in more high-end places and less in street food. In a land that thinks beef and lamb are for barbarians, because the taste is too strong, it's hard to imagine dark meat being preferred to light -- unless it's an issue of cost.

I assure you, my dining in China runs the gamut of refinement... high-end Hong Kong eateries to roadside garages in industrial areas of Guangdong. I find dark meat to be much more common even in more expensive restaurants where the difference in cost is clearly not an issue. And I didn't mean to suggest that there's no breast meat -- simply that I don't see it with the ubiquitousness that I see here. And of course whole birds is a different story. But my purely qualitative impression is that when it comes to "parts" dishes, breast is a minority cut.

Incidentally, I adore this about China.

I had no doubt your dining would be fairly diverse, though I was guessing it would lean toward the homely/authentic/roadside offerings.

I thought your original comment suggested you hadn't seen any white meat. I, on the other hand, don't remember seeing dishes that specified parts, dark or light. But as I noted, when whole chickens were served, the parts were not as clearly defined as they are in the West.

As for adoring China, I love almost everything about it, but can't say that serving dark meat would be something that would change my opinion one way or the other. I will, however, add to my original note that thighs were okay if they were smoked that thighs are also okay if they're in Chinese food, if that is in fact what I'm commonly seeing. Because I encountered almost nothing in China I didn't enjoy eating. However, I still won't be reaching for the drum stick when I'm just picking something up at Boston Market. But that means there's more dark meat for you.

Cynthia wrote:I had no doubt your dining would be fairly diverse, though I was guessing it would lean toward the homely/authentic/roadside offerings.

Sadly, no. My travels in China have been exclusively business-related, so it's predominantly been fairly upscale restaurants. But when I have free time or when we're visiting a factory that's out in the sticks, I get in the less refined stuff.

Cynthia wrote:I thought your original comment suggested you hadn't seen any white meat. I, on the other hand, don't remember seeing dishes that specified parts, dark or light. But as I noted, when whole chickens were served, the parts were not as clearly defined as they are in the West.

This much is very true. They cut 'em up a lot differently over there, that's for sure

Cynthia wrote:I still won't be reaching for the drum stick when I'm just picking something up at Boston Market. But that means there's more dark meat for you.

Indeed! And lesser availability of my beloved dark meat is the burden I shoulder in my quest to increase Americans' love of the chicken thigh

At our house, the breast is the "punishment" cut - if you're the one who forgot to ask for all dark meat, or if you've been caught sneaking the wing tips out from under the bird, that's what you get. My one concession is quick-cook dishes like chicken fingers or chicken piccata, but I don't trust those to anyone but me.

...If I had my way, hens would be shaped more like me and less like Mae West.

I come down strongly in the thigh camp, but The Chow Poodle likes breast meat. We're made for each other. No part of a chicken goes to waste in the Z household.

HI,

In Moscow in the early 1990's, I visited friends who served "Bush Legs" for dinner. They were dark meat chicken quarters imported from the United States, "Because American's only want white meat." They implied it was food aid from the United States, though it may have been a market preference, thus called "(George) Bush Legs." They enjoyed their joke more than I did.

If the chicken is being grilled, then my favorite chicken part is the back for the high skin to meat ratio as well as for those oysters. I also like the tail very much, but I am not alone and often don't get to it in time.

Regards,