If you like your meat dry, like I do, follow the recipe as set. If you like your meat moist, put a lid on the pan to conserve the steam and poke it frequently to avoid overcooking (this will also help keep you from getting bored). Strips, like chicken fingers/chicken nuggets strips, will cook through very quickly. I wasn't lying to my roommate when I told her that it'd cook faster in a pan on the stove. If you use two forks (or a fork and knife) and pull the meat apart, and it is white (or light brown, for dark meat) instead of pink, it's done.
A splash of olive oil
OR (for those who can't cope with “splash”)
1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon olive oil
boneless raw chicken, as much as you're planning on eating, and the type you prefer (or happen to have. For bone-in chicken, either slice it off the bones or consider cooking in the oven.)
a frying pan or suitable substitute
forks (or fork and knife, or, if you are fancy, a spatula)
a loaded salt shaker
This is a fine recipe to pre-cook chicken for anything, including quesadillas, sandwiches, chicken salad, or Fran's Chicken. You can also just eat it. Or do both, and just eat some of it and save the rest leftover for sandwiches or chicken salad or quesadillas. Perhaps with a side of french fries or rice, if you're feeling fancy, and some microwaved canned or frozen vegetables. Look! Dinner! And you didn't make the ghosts of chicken cry to do it.
1.Take the chicken out of the package and wash it. If you prefer strips or pieces otherwise smaller than what it currently exists as, cut it up. After dealing with your chicken WASH THE CUTTING BOARD before you use it for anything else. Chicken has cooties.
2.Put the oil into the pan, and put the pan on the stove. Turn the appropriate burner (y'know, the one your pan is on) to medium-high heat. If the stove dial were to be a clock and OFF is 12, this is about four, four-thirty.
3.Wait a minute or two for the pan and oil to heat up. Don't you dare go to the internet, you'll set the cabinets on fire, or at the very least, set off the smoke alarm. Forgetting about oil is VERY BAD.
4.In fact, if you're planning on eating anything besides chicken tonight, now is a great time to prepare that while you wait for the oil to heat. Open cans, open bags, pour into microwave-safe containers, set for the appropriate time. I'd tell you how to microwave frozen veggies without burning them, but, see, the manufacturer already did. It's on the package. No, really! It even works! I promise.
5.Test to see if your oil is hot. I do this by washing my hands, shaking the excess water off of them, then flicking my fingernails at the pan from about two or three feet away. If it sizzles, you're good. It's important to shake the excess water off FIRST. The why is below, after the rest of the recipe.
6.Put the chicken in the pan, carefully, so you don't burn yourself with splashing oil. Shake some salt on it, turn it over, shake some salt on the other side, and turn the heat down to medium low. If you're on the clock-face analogy, this is somewhere between eight-forty-five and nine-fifteen. It depends on your stove.
7.Cover, if you want moist chicken. Otherwise just turn the chicken over from time to time, whenever you happen to get bored. After about five to ten minutes (or when your microwaved veggies are done), check it to see if it's cooked enough. If it looks like you'd eat it, it's done.
8.Transfer the chicken to your plate (or plates) and turn off the stove. Dish up some veggies if that's how you roll, plop your bad self down on the couch, and eat your dinner. Or proceed to cook something more complicated, if this chicken is but one component in something greater. Enjoy.
Now, the reason why we do not shake large drops of water into hot oil was demonstrated, on a larger, more impressive scale, on Mythbusters. Here are a few of the underlying principles that add up to the point:
- Oil does not turn into vapor when hot, and water does. (Google something called the “smoke point” if you'd like to know what oil will eventually do instead of turning into vapor. Hint: this is also why I told you not to go online and forget about it. (Short answer: it turns into FIRE.))
- Water sinks, oil floats.
- A tablespoon-plus of oil will completely cover a couple of fat drops of water,
- Which, being small and finding themselves in hot oil, will almost immediately convert from liquid to vapor
- Which, yanno, expands
- Violently.
- And, instead of a welcoming little sizzle, sprays you with hot oil
...which would be the point.
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