tough chicken breasts
All the chicken breasts we buy or we can find are tough and even hard after cooking, sometimes. Wife is fixing some now sliced and in bbq sauce. Don't have great hopes for it. How do you fix Chicke...
Forum Discussion
BigBlockTank wrote:
I'm a pit master from NC, and I think that everybody has some good ideas on chicken.
But, to add mine if I may, I brine all poultry before I cook it. The brine is nothing more than cold water, and sea salt. I saturate the cold water and that doesn't put too much salt in the water. Soak you poultry overnight. Add your seasonings that you like, and cook over indirect heat. Low and slow will make a very tasty tender chicken.
Beating and pounding is just fine, but I would save that for chicken fried chicken, or something besides BBQ cooking.
If you want to break down the connective tissue in the meat, any meat for that matter, soak it overnight in beer. Yep, good old beer, and use just a cheap one too.
Try a tequila lime chicken. Cheap tequila (and Jose Quervo is not even tequila, so use a decent, real tequila) and real lime juice. When you put the chicken on the grill, most people will pour out the marinade, due to raw poultry. But, put it in a saucepan and reduce it by about half. Add some honey and cream, and heat it til it is warm. Serve it over your chicken!!!
x2+......this is it.
Other than the Tequila Lime recipe (I'm allergic to Tequila perhaps due to an overindulging youth), the above is spot on. I use two brines for chicken: an apple/orange juice brine with fair amount of brown sugar and/or a B&C (beer & coke...and that's about the recipe) brine. Overnight with either will guarantee tenderness; brining for an hour or so will avoid toughness as long as one doesn't go thermonuclear on the pit or oven.
