To any of our Indian blog readers, this post is specifically for you. As I do business in India, I find a lot of people asking me how to cook chicken. They often tell me that they have a hard time eating it because they typically boil it. I believe that boiled chicken
is hard to eat because boiled chicken does NOT have much flavor! Stop boiling chicken and prepare in a more flavorful way so that you can actually enjoy eating it rather than feeling like you are eating a rubber tire. Here are some tips for how to do so:
1) Marinate the chicken first. Choose whatever assortment of herbs and spices that you like and put it with 2 spoonfuls of olive oil, canola oil, or coconut oil. Let it marinate in that mixture for 1-24 hours. The longer you let it marinate, the more the flavors get into the chicken.
2) Cook it on the grill or in a pan. Cooking on the grill with charcoal gives chicken a great smoked flavor along with the flavors of your marinade. Cooking in a pan does not require any more oil. Just poor the marinade into the pan with the chicken.
3) Cook on low to medium heat. This only takes a few minutes longer than cooking with high heat and it keeps the chicken tender and juicy.
4) Do not cook chicken well done. This is the biggest mistake people make as they try not to undercook chicken. Chicken only needs to be cooked until it is white all the way through. This does not mean that is has to be super brown or charred on the outside.
5) If you use a pressure cooker, still marinate the chicken, but experiment with how much time it takes to get the chicken cooked like point #4 and no further.