Just Plain Chicken

(KM) #21

?? The maths!

(Bob M) #22

I really liked this, though it’s not plain chicken:

It has wine, so it’s going to have more carbs. But they put the skin out of the liquid, so the skin stays crispy. They also cook the thighs to 195F, which sounds high, but works really well.

(Fiddlestix H. McWhiskers) #23

Just out of curiosity, why would you post that in a thread that is titled, “Just Plain Chicken?”

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #24

What? Did I not get it right?

I did my best, despite coming from a benighted country! :grin:

(KM) #26

I think you divided instead of multiplying. 20 min per pound is 44 min per kg, not 9. (Don’t despair, it’s kinda nice when you make a mistake every 10000 posts or so. :grin:)

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #27

Thanks for catching that.

#28

I made my chicken today, used a higher temperature (230C and 210C) and only 75 minutes, it will need air frying but the chicken is very tender! (I probably would have stopped cooking it earlier but I have a nice slab of pork loin as always and that needs time. I have the usual juicy chicken thighs without a proper color now.)
I will eat it tomorrow. And will experiment with even lower times later. I just always cooked/baked until the color was right and oven chicken is pretty reluctant there.

(Steve L.) #29

I don’t bake or roast meat higher than 325-350º oven temp because it creates heterocyclic amines which are toxic. Those blackened grill marks and the darkened meat on the outside of steaks etc sure tastes good, that’s for sure. But it’s not healthy. I know, I know, I’m an old fuddy, duddy.

I would bake the chicken at 325-350ºF on one side for fifteen minutes, then turn it. Place a probe in it and bake to 160ºF internal temperature and remove. It’ll raise the chicken to the required 165ºF to kill the pathogens like e.coli and campylobacter. Put some salt and butter and whatever herbs and spices you like on it and you’ll be good to go. I would not add olive oil while baking because of the oxidized double bonds that are created by heating olive and avocado oil. I know that the omega 9 fats like olive and avocado oil have only one double bond so less double bonds than the seed oils, but there is still that double bond that can be oxidized. I don’t ever heat olive or avocado oil because of this. If I need to heat a fat with my cooking I make it butter or tallow.
I like the probes from Thermoworks, but there are others that work also.
Thoughts, replies, ideas?

Steve Lauterbach, MD
Retired ER doc who put his type 2 diabetes in reversal with a ketogenic diet.

(Alec) #30

I think some of these temps and times are high. When I cook thighs or legs, I simply bake at 180C (360F) for 25mins. That’s it. Leaves chicken juicy, but still cooked through.

#31

I am totally confused then. I saw high temps here so I have tried that instead of my normal 200-210C… And reduced the time without problem, I may like the pork better this way (the chicken apparently doesn’t care, I cook it for 1-2 hour at any normal temp and it just gets cooked and juicy as always BUT still needs the air fryer)…

Fine, I go back to my usual temp and take out the thighs at different times, some air frying to make them crispy and then I compare them!

But that’s below 180C! Never cooked meat that low temp! I fear it would take forever… BUT I can try! (Will need more thighs, I only have 4 left.)

Why the butter? Flavor? Chicken is quite fatty (at least the skin is but I often see an impressive amounts of visible fat on the meat as well. maybe it’s different in different countries, Hungary definitely isn’t against fat) so it has its own fat… But butter tastes amazing.

Blackened stuff… I ate huge amounts of charcoal with my food in the past (interestingly, some food handles even true black well while, for example, pancakes get too dark brown spots and they become inedibly bitter) but that was before all my kitchen machines worked with electricity. I still like to fry/roast/cook most things into oblivion, well mostly just giving it a nice color… But that takes time… And chicken skin is best (nearly) fully crunchy, I wonder if that is possible with lots of air frying or I need to take it off the meat in the end. I will try more air fryer, less oven.

How do you fry? Maybe not at all? It’s my number one cooking method, it always was. That’s how I produced my charcoal when I went to do other things as the frying food can be super boring. It’s good I trust my genetics but I quite love my induction cookers too where I have a way bigger control over the heat.

(KM) #32

There could be another element here as well. In the US most of our chicken is grown hyper quickly. We are eating enormous birds, up to 3 lb (that is the weight of a Costco rotisserie chicken, but they have some saline injected in them) and potentially as young as 5 weeks old! This is a very tender chicken and might not require the sort of cooking that a fully mature bird or a stewing hen would.

(Steve L.) #33

See answers below please.

Shinita

    September 9

I am totally confused then. I saw high temps here so I have tried that instead of my normal 200-210C… And reduced the time without problem, I may like the pork better this way (the chicken apparently doesn’t care, I cook it for 1-2 hour at any normal temp and it just gets cooked and juicy as always BUT still needs the air fryer)…

Fine, I go back to my usual temp and take out the thighs at different times, some air frying to make them crispy and then I compare them!

KernCanyonCamper:
at 325-350ºF

But that’s below 180C! Never cooked meat that low temp! I fear it would take forever… BUT I can try! (Will need more thighs, I only have 4 left.)

Hi Shinita,

I did not mean to cause confusion. I don’t believe there is any one way to cook meat that is correct to the exclusion of other methods. Just so we get the chicken to a final internal temp of 165ºF/74ºC to kill the pathogens, any cooking method that one uses that works for them is fine. I cook at lower temps to avoid the creation of heterocyclic amines, but many are not concerned about this issue and cook meat on the stove in pans and in the oven at temps that do create these amines.

Why the butter? Flavor? Chicken is quite fatty (at least the skin is but I often see an impressive amounts of visible fat on the meat as well. maybe it’s different in different countries, Hungary definitely isn’t against fat) so it has its own fat… But butter tastes amazing.

I mention butter because some folks wish to cook meat and/or vegetables on the stove in pans or in the oven with an additional fat. Some use olive oil or avocado oil for this purpose. I do not for two reasons. First, even though olive and avocado oil have only one double bond, that bond can be oxidized by heating. I prefer not to eat oxidized oils. Of course the seed oils are worse because they contain more than one double bond so the potential for oxidation is higher, but it still exists for olive and avocado oil. Also, heating olive oil degrades the delightful subtle flavor of good extra-virgin olive oil, so for that reason also, if a recipe calls for olive oil I add it after heating the food in the recipe.

Butter is highly saturated fat, it does not contain many double bonds, so heating it does not cause oxidation of double bonds. That’s why I mentioned cooking (heating) with butter.

Blackened stuff… I ate huge amounts of charcoal with my food in the past (interestingly, some food handles even true black well while, for example, pancakes get too dark brown spots and they become inedibly bitter) but that was before all my kitchen machines worked with electricity. I still like to fry/roast/cook most things into oblivion, well mostly just giving it a nice color… But that takes time… And chicken skin is best (nearly) fully crunchy, I wonder if that is possible with lots of air frying or I need to take it off the meat in the end. I will try more air fryer, less oven.

The decision about what temperature to heat meat is a personal one. I recommend trying different temps and deciding what works for you. Again, I use lower heat to avoid the creation of heterocyclic amines. But that’s just me. Others are not concerned about this issue.

KernCanyonCamper:
I don’t bake or roast meat higher than 325-350º oven temp

How do you fry? Maybe not at all? It’s my number one cooking method, it always was. That’s how I produced my charcoal when I went to do other things as the frying food can be super boring. It’s good I trust my genetics but I quite love my induction cookers too where I have a way bigger control over the heat.

I do fry often. I use butter instead of a vegetable oil for the reason noted above. I fry at a lower heat so as not to blacken the meat. Does the blackening taste good? Yes indeed it does. If I am at a friend or family member’s home and they serve meat with browning or blackening, will I eat it? You bet I will and I’ll enjoy it. I just choose not to blacken my everyday food so I don’t have persistent exposure to the heterocyclic amine carcinogen.

I hope this helps.

Steve

#34

I understand why butter if something, I wondered about the need for additional fat. As chicken may even give me extra fat, more than what I need with the meat. It didn’t happen last Sunday but I had very very lean pork and that needed it if some escaped (but maybe it was the shorter cooking time and the fat only comes out in the air fryer…?).

Not really, RED/brown tastes good (if it’s prettily well done, it looks red to me and we call it red in my language), not black. And crunch. I don’t do black unless I forget about my meat, that’s unfortunate BUT it doesn’t ruin it immediately. It does eventually but I cut off those pieces and decide to NEVER leave my meat on high temp… It’s very rare nowadays.