One of my favorite sandwiches.
Thigh meat marinated in Goya Mojo criollo (jack it up with a little xtra lime juice, garlic etc) grilled over hot coals.
Pile the meat on a crusty roll along with some sliced red onion, avocado, cilantro, a slice of cheese and a dash of chipotle-ish hot sauce.....Fantastic!!

David Hammond wrote: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.

I take offense on behalf of tofu.

Perhaps if you had said tilapia I would be more forgiving.

Dmnkly wrote: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.

Gosh -- I had always thought of the drumstick as being America's favorite part, so it never occurred to me that dark meat was put down. I've read so many humorous bits about breeding chickens with six legs, and such, I assumed that, other than in the classic dishes I knew, everyone picked dark, given the choice.

Cynthia wrote:Gosh -- I had always thought of the drumstick as being America's favorite part, so it never occurred to me that dark meat was put down. I've read so many humorous bits about breeding chickens with six legs, and such, I assumed that, other than in the classic dishes I knew, everyone picked dark, given the choice.

White meat is definitely the more popular choice these days, so much so that a scientist developed a way to turn dark meat into white meat.

According to Bill Roenigk, senior vice president of the National Chicken Council, Americans have expressed a strong preference for white meat over the last 20 years. Dark meat's color and fat are what make it less attractive, he said, and it's also more difficult to mold dark meat into shapes.

Right now, most dark meat produced in the United States is exported to Russia and the Middle East.

Advertising clearly touts white meat as superior to dark meat, too. When was the last time you've heard anybody bragging their products are full of dark meat? It's always white meat that is equated with quality in the advertising industry.

I like both, but given the choice, will go for dark meat most of the time. However, a properly cooked breast is great, too. Fried, pounded, breaded chicken breast, Chicken Kiev, etc...where would we be without those choices?

Cynthia wrote:

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?

breast stuffed w/ cheese, and ham,
breast stuffed with butter,
breast smothered in mayo

I wonder if these "classics" are really more healthy than how thighs are used. I don't mean that to be sarcastic in any way whatsoever. I just wonder if the dark meat recipes that most people use are less fat/calorie laden than the recipes used with breast meat. If the same recipes are used for each, then yes, the breast meat wins the healthier food battle.

There's all kinds of misleading diet information out there - for instance, it's rarely mentioned that dark meat is a superior source of iron as well as other nutrients.

Breast meat is supposed to be a good source of low-fat protein, which is the basis for many fad diets today. Again, though my preference leans the other way, there are certainly preps that I like breast meat in, and I use it when it's convenient (though, yes, I soak it in butter and EVOO)

seebee wrote:
I wonder if these "classics" are really more healthy than how thighs are used. I don't mean that to be sarcastic in any way whatsoever. I just wonder if the dark meat recipes that most people use are less fat/calorie laden than the recipes used with breast meat. If the same recipes are used for each, then yes, the breast meat wins the healthier food battle.

Of course they're not healthier. There are two completely different issues here. "Low fat" was the response to why breasts are an obsession in the U.S. at the moment. "Chicken Kiev" was the response to a statement that breasts had no value at all.

It sounds like a lot has changed in Chinese chickens in the last 20 years. I was there for 3 weeks in 1987, and though I didnt really eat at any western oriented places (there werent any then as the western hotels were just being built) I ate at a pretty diverse selection of restaurants and street stalls, and they all seemed to serve whole chickens chopped up sort of Jamaican jerk style. Back then most of the chickens were free-range, or at least free-alley, and so they were much gamier than chickens here. I didnt see any giant breasts as mentioned in the Olympics post either. They were all little scraggly buzzards. Very tasty.

-Will

Cynthia wrote:I can't imagine anyone in a Chinese store attributing the eating of any part of the chicken to "white people."

Really? That's exactly what we heard at extended-family dinners as a kid: chicken breast is for white people, silly, and either goes to the token person-on-a-diet (or the token white in-law) or gets left on the carcass for tomorrow's soup. (Yes, my grandfather even ran a grocery in LA Chinatown.)

Honestly, give me tofu, farmed tilapia, fish sticks, wheat gluten shaped into lobster tails, any other kind of blandly generic protein. Sure, properly done -- i.e., slathered in fat -- chicken breast is fine, but that is not how 95% of chicken breasts roll out of the Tyson-Sysco "mechanically separated food like substance" assembly line.

In an effort to move back to the discussion of my new passion for rich, meaty braised thighs, today I dusted some thighs in flour, from a family sized pack I bought this week, browned them, sweated some onion, garlic, bell peppers, and mushrooms then reduced half a bottle of chardonnay down 3/4, added one can of chopped tomato with basil and one can of tomato puree. The thighs have just been added back and will be braising away slowly for the next 90-120 minutes

Chicken thighs cacciatora as they used to call this particular dish at New York area red sauce places.

^^This worked out well. The fattiness of the skin on thighs, really lent some richness to the tomato sauce much like the marrow and fat of a veal shank lends fattiness and richness to braising tomato sauce in osso buco.

About five years ago, I spent six weeks on St. Kitts, 'helping' The Other Dr. Gale on a research project she was working on. (My part was to drink the rum on the balcony, and do a bit of cooking in the kitchen of the tiny—10-room—local hotel where we stayed in Basse-Terre.) The next-door supermarket had basically two sorts of meat: 10-lb bags of frozen leg-quarters from the U.S., and frozen 10-lb bags of the tiniest pork ribs--in three-to-five rib nearly circular segments--you've ever seen in your life.

Our daily bread was produced easily: brown a couple of cut-up chicken quarters in veg oil, extract the chicken parts, sweat a couple onions, a miniscule bit of garlic, several sweet peppers, put the chicken back in the pot, add water, canned tomatoes, rice and a boullion cube, and finish it off. Pretty simple, but whatever goodness the dish had (and, admittedly, it had a bit) came from the nicely browned skin of the thigh and drummie.

That's pretty much what we had for lunch every day, unless we went out 'on the town', which, in those days, wasn't much of a relief.

But anyway, that's where a lot of U.S. chicken leq-quarters end up, down in the Caribbean.

Geo

Had tandoori chicken at India House for lunch today, and thought of you as I enjoyed a thigh. So that's another great way to eat them.

and thought of you as I enjoyed a thigh

Only on LTHForum and the novels of Jean M. Auel.

LTH,

I'm not a breast man, thigh's the way I fly, wing my thing, I'll even peck on a neck before consuming white pasty dreck. That said, I made some damn tasty chicken breasts for dinner this evening.

Backing up a bit, was watching Anne Burrell's show Secrets of a Restaurant Chef last week and she made crisp juicy Chicken Milanese that tempted. Fast forward to Tony's on Elston this afternoon, a pair of push-up bra plump chicken breasts catch my eye, on sale, how can I resist.

Knife cut to even out, gentle meat pound to finish the job, not too thin, hour in a light brine, pat dry, dust with flour, egg wash, roll in crushed Ritz crackers. Pan fry to golden in a med-high pan w/canola oil, hold in 300 oven until rice finishes resting.

Moist, meaty, light buttery crunch from crispy Ritz, Western North Carolina slaw and brown rice round out a simple tasty inexpensive meal.

Ballots are not in, there is a planets worth of dry mealy flavorless chicken breast out there, but my bride and I both agreed if you are going to go chicken breast, this is not a bad way to fly.

Enjoy,
Gary

Tony's Finer Foods
4137 N Elston Ave
Chicago, IL 60618
773-866-0010

4 chicken breasts in the crock pot on low, one can of green chillis, half a bottle of enchillada sauce, one small can of petite cut tomatoes, with onions and green peppers, come home from work, shred with forks, put on top of fresh crispy tostadas from the mexican grocery next door, top with cheese, lettuce, avacado, sour cream and jalapeno slices. Ten minute dinner, and easy clean up.

You beat me to the punch, nicinchic, as I was just going to post about a siimilar use of chicken breasts -- I made enchiladas last night -- got 4 bone-in breasts for $5 at Guanajuato, roasted at high heat on the convection cycle, shredded with forks, tossed with salsa verde, cheese, crema, roasted poblanos and cilantro, rolled up in fresh tortillas, topped with more salsa verde, crema and cheese, and baked for 25 minutes at 350. The whole meal cost less than $9, and I have plenty leftover and some poblanos leftover for chile rellenos.

My uses of chicken breast tends to be limited to roasting them bone-in, skin-on, or shredding them as above and using in some mexican preparation where they're wetted by sauce to keep them moist, or paillard-style, a la GWiv above. Used in those three ways, chicken breasts are not bad at all, despite their bad rep.

I think G Wiv hit on the most important aspects of making a chicken breast moist, and edible.

1) brine
2) pound them out
3) bread, and pan fry, or deep fry

Personally, I wouldn't brine a boneless, skinless breast. That seems the surest way to breaking down the proteins past the point of mealiness. But I tend to be judicious in my brining of any protein for precisely that reason. Brining bone-in chicken in buttermilk for frying, now that's another story.

I would add that the reason why I think chicken breasts have the reputation for being dry, inedible things is that most people just overcook them. Add to that, most people are cooking the boneless, skinless kind, which doesn't have the benefit of the skin to baste it (and add flavor). A boneless, skinless breast needs to be pounded thin and then cooked at a relatively high heat. If you cook them low for 20 minutes, you'll be left with a dry piece of shoe leather.

aschie30 wrote:Personally, I wouldn't brine a boneless, skinless breast. That seems the surest way to breaking down the proteins past the point of mealiness. But I tend to be judicious in my brining of any protein for precisely that reason. Brining bone-in chicken in buttermilk for frying, now that's another story.

For any high heat cooking method(deep fry, pan fry, baking/roasting, grill) I brine pretty much everything these days(shrimp, scallops, chicken wings, pork chops, chicken breast). I just change the brining times, and brine mixture based on what I am cooking.

jimswside wrote:I just change the brining times, and brine mixture based on what I am cooking.

Exactly!

G Wiv wrote:

jimswside wrote:I just change the brining times, and brine mixture based on what I am cooking.

Exactly!

now that I always have cranberry juice in the fridge for our toddler to drink, it has become a regular in some brines for pork, and chicken wings instead of the sugar componant.

I know I watched entirely too much tv this weekend. One show I caught mid-stream was about a wedding that was somehow affiliated with Martha Stewart. The food was catered by Tayst restaurant in Tennessee, and featured fried chicken that was brined in sweet tea, then marinated overnight in buttermilk. I often marinate in buttermilk and I like the way it makes the chicken tender and moist, but I've never heard of a sweet tea brine. I was intrigued (although not enough to actually get vertical, go in the kitchen and try it out).

The sweet tea brine appeared in a John T Edge book on fried chicken a few years back. Sounds interesting. Nebver tried it. But, it sounds interesting. If it hadn't come from an expert like Edge, I wouldn't have believed it.

Crispy--pls tell me about the overnight marinade in buttermilk. How much, skin on/off, do you brine too? etc. I've never heard of it, but it sounds interesting. Yoghurt marinade is used in Indian cooking, of course, but I've never heard of buttermilk.

TIA--

Geo

Geo wrote:Crispy--pls tell me about the overnight marinade in buttermilk.

Geo,

Buttermilk seems a fairly standard brine for frying chicken, or did you mean sweet tea then buttermilk.

Past Buttermilk Fried Chicken post --> here

Enjoy,
Gary

Tnx for the link Gary--I followed that whole thread out, interesting discussion of skin. I'm off to the store, ploughing through the Montréal snowscape, in a few minutes and I think I'll just get some leg quarters to try. Might be a prob finding buttermilk, now that I think about it... Ouf.

Geo

[BTW, if you look at Hammond's comments in that thread there's something weird: the thread dates from '05, but Hammond's sig contains a quote from '08. In addition to all his other esteemable features does the guy *also* own a time machine??]

Geo wrote:[BTW, if you look at Hammond's comments in that thread there's something weird: the thread dates from '05, but Hammond's sig contains a quote from '08. In addition to all his other esteemable features does the guy *also* own a time machine??]

Geo -- if you use the "signature" feature in the "Profile" section of User Control Panel for your account, past posts automatically update with the most recent signature, irrespective of when the original post was made. Basically, the signature is independent of the content of the post. But seeing as how the perception could (obviously) be otherwise, I am going to update my (currently non-existent) signature to state "Call me, crazy, but I predict in the year 2009 America will have a black president and the Arizona Cardinals will play in the Super Bowl," so that my posts from back in 2006 look extremely prescient.

Edited to correct grammar.

Geo wrote:[BTW, if you look at Hammond's comments in that thread there's something weird: the thread dates from '05, but Hammond's sig contains a quote from '08. In addition to all his other esteemable features does the guy *also* own a time machine??]

Sadly, not magic at all - if you change your sig, it changes it on all of your posts ever made. The sig applies to YOU not to the POST.

I'll throw in my 2 cents in defense of chicken breasts. In an effort to lose a few lbs. I've been making an effort to eat lean protein. When I need a quick meal (usually several times a week) I'll end up poaching a chicken breast. It's a neutral flavor that serves as a great foil for whatever seasonings I'm using. Plus, by poaching (frozen breasts into simmering water for 15 minutes + a couple more minutes sitting in the hot water off of the heat) you retain the moisture and avoid the dry, stringy texture that turns most people off of breasts. Yesterday's lunch was freshly poached (still hot) chicken breast over baby spinach and avocado tossed with a French vinaigrette (made with a fairly heavy does of Dijon and an aged balsamic, lighter on the olive oil). The hot breast absorbed the dressing easily and also slightly wilted the spinach. Other days I'll just top the breast with Trader Joe's Tomato Chutney, which packs a nice dose of ginger.