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.