The only boring breasts in the world

Martin Yan does this instructional parlor trick where he butchers a chicken in 18 seconds.  At the end of it, he nips the skin off of the breast, flops the meat onto his cleaver, shows it to his audience and says "$4.95."

The boneless, skinless chicken breast is the Seth MacFarlane of the culinary world: boring, derivative, ubiquitous and overrated.  It's supposed to be better and healthier than other meats, but in reality it's just a slab of bland protein that somehow got a gig hosting the Oscars.

It takes a lot of concerted effort to make a boneless, skinless chicken breast palatable, though it would take a lot more to do the same for American Dad.  Tonight I tried a method that works really well for skin-on, bone-in chicken breasts (The Simpsons of chicken breasts): pan searing and oven roasting.

Start off with the marinade of your choice; if you have some really good free-range, farm-raised chicken, you can skip it.  Lightly coat the breasts with olive oil, then slap on some seasoning.  I usually coordinate flavors with whatever my sides are: tonight we were having garlic and leek mashed potatoes, so I hit the chicken with a mix of thyme, black and red pepper and salt.

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees and get out a good heavy bottom skillet that's oven-safe (no plastic handles).  Once the oven is up to temp, warm your skillet over medium-high heat and then drop your chicken breasts in there (skin side down if you've got an option).  Don't move them around at this point: it's OK if they stick a little bit, though the oil should mitigate that.  After about 4 minutes, you should have a nice brown sear on one side (it'll look especially beautiful if it's a skin-on breast).  Flip the breasts over and then put the whole skillet in the oven.

In about 15-20 minutes, the chicken should be cooked through to 165 degrees (it never hurts to check with a probe thermometer if you can't tell by feel).  Pull the skillet from the oven and remove the breasts to set aside and rest.  While that's happening, put the skillet back on the heat on the stove top and drop a pat of butter in it.  Crack in some fresh black pepper an a little bit of salt, then grab your wooden spoon and deglaze the pan with some white wine, bourbon or vodka.  Not only will this make cleaning your skillet easier, but the reduced sauce is the perfect complement to your chicken.

A relatively simple, yet elegant treatment of the boneless, skinless chicken breast that yields a tender, juicy, flavorful experience that transcends the tasteless, tired source material from whence it came.  In other words, way better than The Cleveland Show.

Cebolla. Comino. Caldo.

Taco night in our house is serious business, and a lot of that stems from the fact that I found a great Mexican pulled chicken recipe that I have been using with tremendous success for the past few years.  From this recipe and several others, I've stumbled upon the secret holy trinity of Mexican cooking: onions, cumin and chicken stock.

Sure, onions in their many varieties are ubiquitous across cuisines of the world.  No, cumin is not unique to Mexican food and is probably more immediately thought of as an Indian staple spice.  Chicken stock is commonly used in any cuisine that features the chicken (yeah, that's right, all of them).  But somehow, when you mix the three of them together, the magic of Mexican food is born.  Add some tomato salsa and ground red chiles and you've got yourself a party, er, fiesta.

After about 20 minutes of simmering, these boneless, skinless, boring chicken breasts will hit 165 degrees and be bursting with flavor.  Take them out of the liquid and let them rest.  We all need to rest after we party.

Time to reduce.  You want to concentrate the flavor and thicken the sauce.  Water isn't welcome at this party. Water isn't really welcome at any party.  I like to squeeze in a little lime juice at this point to give the sauce a little tart kick.

Once the chicken is rested, it's time to pull it apart.  Almost every recipe I've seen for pulled anything says to use two forks.  Nuts to that.  I was picking up dinner from City Barbecue one night and saw a dude there pulling meat with a dough scraper.  I filed it away and used one the next time I made pulled chicken.  So much faster and easier.  As long as the meat is tender (which your chicken should be if it's cooking in liquid), all you need to do is drag the blade against the grain and the strands should separate without much effort at all.

Once the meat is pulled and the sauce is thickened, it's time to mix those two back together. You should have enough liquid to coat all of the chicken liberally.

While the chicken was simmering, I made some Mexican rice and refried beans to go along with our tacos.  Guess what went into those?  If you said "onions, cumin and chicken stock," congratulations: your short-term memory is just as good as your reading comprehension skills.