In Week Seven of the Kitchn Cure, Sara Kate is challenging you to learn a new skill. It could be as simple as properly dicing an onion or as complicated as rolling out pasta.
This reminded us of several years ago, when we discovered something extremely elementary about chicken breasts, and how it changed our cooking confidence forever...
We used to be timid chicken browners.
We rarely had the heat up high enough, and we'd try to move the breasts around in the pan to check the progress, tearing the meat as it stuck to the bottom of our stainless steel skillet. There was a layer of oil on the bottom, so the fact that those breasts stuck and shredded when we tried to move them was endlessly frustrating.
It took us a while to learn that we should leave those breasts alone, over high heat, until they formed a crust. Such a simple, basic concept, one that most of you probably know, but figuring it out made us feel like we'd conquered mountains.
In these final weeks of the Kitchn Cure, as you begin experimenting without recipes and trying new techniques, remember that even small skills - if they are new to you - can open up a world of options and empower you to tackle bigger projects. And if you have questions about a basic technique that you've yet to figure out, ask us! There's no shame in this Kitchn. We're here to help.
Have you had a big a-ha moment? What skill did you discover, either years ago or yesterday, that has altered your cooking in a big way?
Related:
Browning: How Dark Do You Go?
(Image: Elizabeth Passarella)
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Gosh, I think every skill I learned was an ah-ha moment at one time.
How about whacking a clove of garlic with the side of a knife, covering it with kosher salt and turning it into garlic puree in 30 seconds?
When my friend Tuan taught me how to pan fry a dumpling. Sounds simple right? Well, it is when you steam them first in a small amount of water mixed with oil. When you remove the cover the water will have cooked down leaving a slick of oil to crisp the bottoms of the now tender dumpling!
view art's profile
A crust??? I'm definitely having a moment. I just thought I couldn't cook chicken, and I hate dry chicken so much that I just can't eat it, so I've been leaving the chicken cooking to the boy. I'll try it out this week.
view d1g1t1ze's profile
Variation in baking... there was a recipe for the ultimate muffin a few years back in some magazine and it was essentially a base recipe but then you would select 1 or two of a list of fruits and 0-1 of a list of nuts and then a glaze with 1 or 2 items off of another list. In my mind you never ever could deviate in baking but this recipe set basically showed you what was acceptable to change and so you could get a fabulous pineapple blueberry muffin with lemon-coconut glaze (which were my faves) from the same recipe as a simple banana muffin.
view sally599's profile
My a-ha moment is knowing that I want the recipe for the chicken in the picture! I must have it!
view sunbyrne's profile
i had an ah-ha this weekend that you could add the pancetta/celery/carrot/onion soffritto from that 4-hour lasagna recipe (at simply recipes) to a jar of store-bought tomato sauce and a handful of browned chorizo and come away with something that tastes really fabulous but doesn't require four hours. (i'd never even heard of soffritto before seeing that recipe, and never cooked veggies in butter and salted pork before)
view lindsey kathlene's profile
sunbyrne: The picture above is our Chicken with Shallot-Apricot Sauce, and it's in our recipe archives. Or you can click here. Enjoy!
view Elizabeth P's profile
My moment was very similar to the browned chicken moment. It was when I perfected fried potatoes/ hashbrowns. My dad is a master, and I've always wanted to replicate them, but would either burn them or not cook them enough, so they'd be hot and mushy. The secret is the same. Put them in hot oil and LEAVE THEM ALONE ;) I couldn't get it out of my head, but it's the truth. When you want to mess with it, wait another minute or so. Then you (and the potatoes) will be golden!
view STLcolleen's profile
I had been turning and checking small pieces of skillet cooked chicken breast for years and it ends up dry and flavorless.
Once while making some BBQ coated baked chicken, my husband said to leave the pieces bigger, and the chicken was juicy and flavorful. I'd been making the pieces smaller for larger surface area of whatever is coating the chicken. Or smaller to cook faster in the skillet.
Been baking all our chicken since in large pieces. Maybe I'm ready to go back to the skillet.
view drmeglet's profile