Why is chicken from restaurants so much more tender and juicy than what can be achieved at home? I've tried every technique but I'm doing something wrong.
>>20971555It's brined or marinated
Mix salt baking pwdr msg sugarPat dry chickenLay chicken on wire rack, coat in mix, leave in fridge overnight
>>20971557First post is decisively the best post
You have shit home appliances.
>>20971555you need to brine your bird and you need to cook it FAST. once you mastah the brine and cooking it in like 5mins without burning it, you will have restaurant bird.anon's basic bitch bird brine:>1 tbsp table salt per 1 cup of water>work-out how many cups you need>boil 1-2 cups of water and dissolve all your salt>add cups of cold water or ice if necessary>once cold or chilled add your biud>full burd: brine 8-16 hours>legs, wings, breast fillets: 4-8 hoursFeel free to add seasonings or whatever to the brine but frankly it's kind of a waste of good spice. you really just need to the saltwater to draw into the meat and then you can season the outside which is better.
>>20971577>cook it fastBrine allows you to cut ok chicken longer without overcooking itIt’s literally one of the main benefits
>>20971587>cut ok = cookLol
>>20971555
>>20971587it does but the best possible combination is to brine and also cook fast. A good oven for a full bird or, as I mentioned in another thread, a hot contact grill that can cook your legs or thighs or whatever in like 5mins is the way to go
>>20971557I've tried brining and marinating but a normal sliced up chicken breast at a shit tier chain restaurant like Applebees or Chilis completely mogs my cooking. It's really demoralizing honestly. They're doing something to those pre-packs to make them insanely juicy. >>20971577Ok I think the difference here is I've been brining my birbs for under an hour every time I've done it. Could this be it? I've never cooked a whole chicken btw.
>>20971557brining is a meme. store chicken is already pumped full of water
>>20971603yeah man for the 1-tbsp to 1-cup brine ratio you want any substantial cuts to brine a few hours. Yes, you can overdo it, but with that ratio I brine a whole bird for 16 hours and chicken breasts for 6-8 and they're juice as fuck. Yes, they are well salted, but this is how you get them in restaurants. They're probably brined and rubbed with some sweet spice mix. OH also you can add sugar to your brine but that gets complicated sometimes. I've done one parts sugar to two parts salt and I've done two parts sugar to one parts salt. Both work fine but you have to really figure out your brining time or it gets fucking gross and sweet
>>20971650>pumped full of waterwhat the fuck are you talking about? I've seen cheep chicken brined to shit at like dollar general but I haven't come across this at any proper supermarket
>>20971737read the ingredients next time, Paul>Contains 10% water by weight
>muh brineIt tastes better because they buy better quality meat directly from farmers
>>20971555Low and slow, that is the tempoIgnore this spaz >>20971577Low and slow to 165. Should take you 3-5 hours. You can also braise it in about 10-15 minutes
>>20971603Sear then stew on sauce People tell me they never had breasts as juicy and tender as mine
>>20972138what are shrooming? chicken is not boeuf, the longer you cook it the dryer and unpleasant the texture becomes. even in a soup overcooked chicken is dry and mealie.chicken you want to cook FAST and let it restFor beef take it slow, let the flavors seep;But chicken needs a quicker cook, for tender juicy meat
>>20972119>restaurant>buy better quality meat
>>20971555Next time you finish a jar of pickles, save the pickle juice and use it to marinate chicken.
>>20971737supermarket chicken is injected with saline. This is called plumping. The exception is if it's labeled air chilled. It's almost always worth paying more for air chilled.
>>20972490what about organic?also I don't live in the USA anymore and the chickens I'm buying are smaller and firmer and I don't think they've been plumpt
I tried dry brining and the end result seemed a little saltier than I wanted. Is that just the deal?
>>20973898Use less salt. I did the same when I first tried the technique.Also to OP. Follow this video and you'll get very juicy chicken.https://youtu.be/yUcZqyGrWYwThe technique can be applied to other meats as well.
>>20971555I dunno but my experience is I used to cook chicken medium temp in the oven or on a nonstick pan, because I wanted to reduce the food sticking, and I struggled, the chicken always seemed to come out dry and tasteless.But then eventually I got a cast iron pan and cooked chicken hot and fast and it comes out sooo much better. Seared outside, juicy inside.I assume at a restaurant they would go for grilling chicken hot and fast.
>>20971555>Why is chicken from restaurants so much more tender and juicy than what can be achieved at home?first it isn't always. I have order something that was, then the next time I ordered it it was dry and tough.
>>20971555Woody breast chicken. If you get chicken from the store its cheap, dry, and tasteless if its woody breast
>>20971603Yeah, you should be demoralized. Applebees is shit tier and makes shitty food. If your chicken is worse, how fucking dry is that? You have to be overcooking it to hell and back to get it drier than them. Chilis makes good food though, but I never had their chicken, always getting ribs n shit. Want tender breasts? Smoke em with a water pan in. Breasts/thighs/wings are 1hr at 225F, whole chicken even better 4 hr at 225F. Be sure to rub the naked breasts with seasoning if you do it that way. Whole chicken won't matter, season the skin if you like chicken skin.
>>20971555Because you suck at cooking.
>>20972142post breasts or GTFO
>>20971555Tasty chemicals
>>20972148You haven't really cooked before
>>20974371yessuh
>Why is chicken from restaurants so much more tender and juicy than what can be achieved at home?Because you don't know how to cook.
>>20971555They use actual birds that aren't filled with water. Jabroni Chickens, Gianone Chickens, etc.Go to a whole animal butcher and order some quality poultry and you'll see the difference vs the supermarket garbage
>>20976057Fucking A. Jidori Chicken not JabroniFucking autocorrect
>>20971603>cookletthat's your problem, just get better at cookingI bet you overcook your chicken and that's your biggest problemrestaurants suck at cooking, a good home cook will do better than at least 80% of all restaurants, the only exception being places that will charge you 50$ a plate.Try this, in a pan that can go from stove to ove (Cast iron or stainless, or carbon, no nonstick shit) preheat oven to 425 degrees and preheat pan. Season bone in chicken thighs with salt and pepper and then sear the skin until golden in the pan, flip over so skin is right side up and transfer to the preheated oven and cook at 425 for 30 minutes. Remove from oven, take the chicken out of the pan and do not cut it, set it aside to rest, the pan should have a bunch of brown stuff at the bottom. Chop one onion and add to the pan and set to medium low heat, pinch of salt and then preferably cover so that water comes out and deglazes the pan, you can also add a splash of vinegar if you want, this will make a nice pan sauce with the onions.Serve over your choice of starch.
>>20971555You're soaking it in seasoned buttermilk and then cooking it with the utmost care? Doubt.What restaurant? If it's KFC you're dealing with chemicals and saline injections and god knows what. Any nice restaurant is seasoning or salting it ahead and cooking it perfectly. It's not that easy to make restaurant level food at home. But anyone can learn it with practice and knowledge.
>>20971603Those restaurants buy frankenfood from Sysco that has 20 ingredients in that "chicken". Yeah, it's packed with salt and MSG and sugar and texture enhancers and more. I've seen fully cooked products with fake grill marks on them and liquid smoke. Go to a food show sometime and marvel at the man-made horrors. And sample; they're really quite delicious. They just aren't real food that you should go out and pay for. Ever.
>>20972456You apparently eat at restaurants employing 'kitchen managers' instead of chefs.Get your ass out of here.
>talking about humans eating trash cuts
>>20971555I bet a lot of the meat is chicken thighs.
>>20971650>store chicken is already pumped full of water>>20972109>Contains 10% water by weightDo Americans really?
>>20971577>cooking a whole bird in 5 minutesretard
>>20977412not the whole bird you tard
you retards overcook your chicken
>>20977420You literally said: > cooking it in like 5mins without burning it, you will have restaurant bird.>you will have a restaurant bird>a bird
>>20977456
>>20971650>store chickeni have a small coop or get chickens from the old lady a few miles drive away.
>>20971577Please enlighten us with how to cook the different parts. Cooking time/heat etc.
>>20977999>Full Bird (brined 8-16 hours)180ºC for 60-80mins>Breasts fillets (brined 4-8 hours)hammered flat, dredged in flour, pan fried in olivolle for like 5mins a side (unless making piccata where the chicken finishes being poached in the sauce)>Legs and Quarters (brined 4-8 hours)heavily seasoned and pressed into a hot contact grill for about 10mins>Wings (brined 8-16 hours)Bake at 200ºC for 45ish minutes
>>20976753>restaurantsYou keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
>>20971577>you need to cook it FAST.>>20978008Those cooking times aren't considered fast, those are very standard. For juicyness and tenderness like OP specifically asked for you will get it more juice and tender by slow cooking a whole chicken for a long time. Here's an example where he cooks it for 3.5 horus on 135C: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n86-OcR0s0I
>>20977456when I crucify you I'm going to nail up a sign that says "E. S. L." over your head
>>20978031You cook it as quickly as possible, rather than as slowly as possible which you might do with a chuck roast or something. hot pan, hot grill hot oven. Obviously you are cooking it as fast as you can without burning it or undercooking it
>>20978044In any case a slower approach will give more juicy and tender result which is what OP asked about. Not that there's anything wrong with those cook times you posted.
>>20978089>a slower approach will give more juicy and tender resultnot for chicken it won't
I cube up thighs and blast them as fast as possible. Always really juice. Perhaps start out with cubing up dark meat and getting comfortable blasting ass in the kitchen.
>>20978318thighs are the most forgiving by a longshot. I tend to use thighmeat for soups. If I use breast I toss the chicken cubes in at the very end and just simmer them until safe to eat. Overcooking breast is a horrible thing
>>20971555Break it down into a drumstick and thigh, then brine in saltwater for 2 hours. 2 tbsp salt 2 cups water.
