Tender & juicy chicken breast

Chicken breast fillet can be really tender, juicy and tasty. In this recipe I will explain you how to achieve good result. Such chicken fillet I’m using f.e. for Caesar salad. There’s no need to consume all cooked chicken at once – leave some pieces for tomorrow, it can be stored in a fridge.

Ingredients:

• 1 kg of chicken breast fillet
• 2 tbsp of white wine
• 2 tbsp of honey
• 2 tsp of mustard (paste) or 1 tsp of mustard powder
• ~1 tbsp of flavorless oil for frying

Instructions

1. Get rid of sinews and separate big and small fillet. Big fillet is too thick from 1 side, so cut this piece off in order to make it of the same thickness. Cut-off piece will be as thick as small fillet.

2. Stir ingredients for marinade. If the honey is firm, soften it in microwave oven (10 sec., 360 W). Mix chicken with marinade and leave it for 15-30 min.

3. Like with steaks it’s hard to describe frying process, as most of things I do relying on my feelings and intuition. First of all spread some oil over the surface of frying pan.

It will be easier to cook in a big frying pan. If you are using induction stove and its circle is smaller than the bottom of frying pan, keep in mind that it will be hotter in the area right over the circle. That’s why I put big pieces of chicken fillet in the centre and the edge of a pan I use for cooking smaller and thinner pieces.

Secondly, bear in mind that we have fillet of different thickness, it means that thin pieces (small fillet and cut-off pieces) require twice less frying time. Otherwise they’ll become dry.

Thirdly, we’ll start frying at high heat and the marinade contains honey. It means that it will be caramelizing and will be easy to get burned. Due to it between frying every portion we’ll need to stop and wipe off soot with slightly wet paper towel. That’s why I recommend taking big frying pan – this way you’ll have only 2 portions of chicken.

Fourthly, every stove, frying pan and fillet thickness are too individual. It means, I can’t give you the exact time of frying. When one cooks chicken breast fillet, it’s very important to cook it through (raw centre in chicken fillet is not tasty and not good) but not to overcook it (it’ll become too dry).

So, let’s start at high heat (induction – 1800 W). Preheat frying pan and put chicken fillet. It requires some space, so reserve a distance at least 3 cm. between each piece. Fry for 2 min. and flip over fillets (using induction stove I usually reduce the heat to medium-high, 1000-1200 W, using gas stove the heat remains high) and cook 2 min. Small fillet is ready, so put it to a plate. Continue flipping over big fillet every minute, in total it requires 6-7 min., so 2-3 min. are left from now on.

Leave cooked chicken fillet to rest on a plate for 10-15 min. Now I recommend cutting it in 2 pieces right in the middle: to see whether the meat is cooked through (=white). If it’s not, preheat frying pan and fry chicken fillet at high heat 1 min. for each side.