What kind of water should I cook chicken in?
There are two options:
- Start cooking the chicken prepared for boiling in cold water
- put it in boiling water
To cook, the chicken carcass is placed in boiling or cold water.
IMPORTANT: If you want to get a tasty broth, it is better to put the chicken in cold water. If the main thing is to get tasty meat, you should choose the second option. The meat protein will thus not curdle and remain in the meat, making it soft and juicy.
In the microwave
- Place the chopped chicken carcass in a microwave-safe container.
- Fill with cold water and close with a lid.
- Some microwaves have functions with ready-made recipes. In this case, you just need to select the appropriate option and install it.
- If the microwave is simple, without additional functions, then you need to set the maximum power and cooking time to 40 minutes.
- Then, before the end of the cooking time (5-10 minutes), add salt, pepper, and bay leaf to the broth.
How to cook chicken in a saucepan until done?
- The washed and seared chicken is placed in a pan.
- There should be enough water in the pan to cover the carcass or its pieces
- After the water with the chicken has just boiled, you need to remove the foam from it, otherwise the broth will not be transparent
- Keep the pan on the fire without a lid until the water boils.
- As soon as the boiling process has established itself, the foam has been removed, the pan with the chicken boiling in it can be covered with a lid and left over low heat.
- The readiness of the chicken is checked by piercing its meat with a knife or fork. A knife or fork tines penetrate into already cooked chicken meat gently and easily
IMPORTANT: There is no specific cooking time for boiled chicken. It all depends on her “age” and size
The finished boiled chicken will be soft and easily pierced with a fork.
If the carcass is purchased in a store, then, as a rule, they sell young, quickly cooking specimens. The cooking time for homemade chicken or chicken purchased at the market depends on its age and method of feeding.
An old chicken can be cooked for an hour and a half, even two, and still remain tough. True, the broth turns out thick and rich.
IMPORTANT: During the cooking process, you need to add salt, onions, carrots, peppers, ingredients that will add flavor to the broth and meat.
Italian pasta in Russian style
You can prepare a lot of delicious dishes from homemade chicken meat. Soups, various salads, snack treats, full main courses. And even chicken is added to pies. We offer you a pasta recipe that is absolutely easy to prepare.
Spaghetti and homemade sirloin are combined with mushrooms and the most delicate creamy sauce. You just have to try it and you are guaranteed gastronomic pleasure.
Ingredients:
- chicken fillet – 700 g;
- salt, ground allspice;
- fresh champignons – 400 g;
- garlic - three cloves;
- refined olive fruit oil – two tablespoons. spoons;
- Russian cheese – 200-250 g;
- onion - one head;
- ground nutmeg - one pinch;
- spaghetti – 0.5 kg;
- cream – 500 ml.
Preparation:
- To prepare a tasty and versatile dish, you will need a few ingredients and half an hour of free time.
- Both poultry and store-bought products will do. It is important to first separate the meat from the bone and remove the skin if we are talking about domestic chicken. Then we thoroughly rinse everything with running water and dry with napkins.
- Cream for preparing this dish is suitable with a fat concentration of 10%.
- Cut the onion into small cubes and sauté in refined olive oil until softened.
- Then add the chopped chicken meat to the frying pan, mix with onions and fry until it becomes soft. Bring the chicken to almost doneness. You can pre-boil the poultry.
- Wash and dry the champignons. Cut the mushrooms into cubes or slices. Place in a frying pan.
- Stir, salt, add ground nutmeg and allspice.
- We continue cooking until all the excess moisture has evaporated, and there will be a lot of it.
- Let's also add crushed garlic and pour room temperature cream over everything.
- After a couple of minutes, add the finely grated Russian cheese.
- Mix well and continue to simmer over low heat until the cheese melts.
- Check the readiness of the chicken and remove the pan from the stove.
- In the usual way, boil the spaghetti in salted water. To prevent the pasta from sticking together, add a little refined olive oil to the water.
- We undercook the pasta a little.
- All that remains is to serve the dish to the table, combining spaghetti with chicken. You can decorate this dish with basil or other herbs.
How and for how long to cook chicken in a pressure cooker until done?
A useful invention of mankind - a pressure cooker - was created in order to quickly and healthily cook various foods. It’s not for nothing that it’s called a pressure cooker. Chicken cooks faster in a pressure cooker than in a saucepan. The exact cooking time again depends on the type of chicken.
To cook chicken in a pressure cooker you need:
- wash
- cut into pieces
- put in a pressure cooker
- add spices and vegetables to it
- to fill with water
IMPORTANT: Instant Pot broiler or chicken pieces will be ready in 15 minutes. A whole chicken will take about 25 minutes to cook.
Homemade or market chicken (young) will be cooked in 35 - 40 minutes. A middle-aged and active chicken will cook for about an hour, then check when done.
Tips for boiling chicken
Which chicken should I choose for cooking?
For salads and main courses, tender, meaty parts of chicken and chicken fillet are suitable. For soups and broths, you need to choose rich parts with fat and skin; as an addition to them, chicken bones are also perfect for broths. If the broth should be dietary, then use only bones and a little meat.
How to cook chicken for different dishes
Fully cooked chicken is added to the shawarma, since it is then hardly subjected to heat treatment. In Caesar salad, the chicken can be fried in oil, but if you want to get a dietary salad, then boiled chicken fillet will do - you need to cook it for 30 minutes. Cook the chicken for broth for 1-2 hours.
What are the calories in chicken?
Calorie content of boiled chicken fillet is 110 kcal. The calorie content of chicken with skin is 160 kcal.
How to cook chicken for soup?
For soup, cook the chicken in a large amount of water: for 1 piece of chicken with bones you will need 4 times more water (for example, for a leg weighing 250 grams, 1 liter of water). Add salt at the beginning of cooking to create a rich broth.
How to prepare chicken for cooking?
Clean the chicken from any remaining feathers (if any), wash and dry with a towel.
How to serve boiled chicken?
Boiled chicken can be served as an independent dish, then you can decorate the boiled chicken with spices and herbs, and serve along with vegetables, sauce and cream.
What spices should I add when cooking chicken?
After boiling, you can add peeled onions and carrots, pepper, salt, oregano, marjoram, rosemary, basil, and Provençal herbs to the chicken. At the end of cooking, you can add 1-2 bay leaves.
How to cook tough (old) chicken
As a rule, the meat of country chicken (especially old) is very tough and it is quite difficult to cook it soft. To soften it, you need to marinate it before cooking: rub it with kefir or lemon juice, and leave it in the refrigerator for 4-6 hours. Then cook the tough chicken in the usual way for 2-3 hours. Another option would be to cook homemade chicken in a pressure cooker - whole or in parts for 1 hour.
How and how long to cook a whole chicken after boiling?
- Even if you put chicken in a pot of boiling water, it will take some time before the water boils again
- When the water boils along with the chicken, the process of cooking the carcass itself has begun. Now you need to remove the foam and close the pan with a lid.
- Leave to simmer over low heat
When the chicken boils, cover it with a lid.
A whole chicken will take longer to cook than a chicken cut into pieces. The approximate cooking time is an hour - one and a half, and if market chicken, then two hours, or even longer. It is necessary to check the readiness of the chicken no earlier than after the specified time.
How to cut a carcass into pieces for cooking: legs, wings, thigh, drumstick
Before cooking, the chicken is cut up. First, the carcass is prepared as described above. Then the last joint of the wing and the tips of the legs are trimmed; nothing else is needed if the carcass is cooked whole.
If the carcass needs to be cut, the legs are separated, cutting at the joint into drumstick and thigh. Next, the wings are cut off. The breast and back are separated by cutting along the sides and near the throat.
In addition, you can cut the breast into fillets and bones yourself. To do this, first remove the skin from the breast. Then, using a sharp knife, the flesh is separated from the breast bone and ribs.
How and how long to cook chicken breast after boiling?
It is unlikely that anyone will specifically separate chicken breast from chicken purchased at the market or from homemade chicken. Usually these are used to prepare tasty, healthy and rich broths.
The chicken breast is cooked for about half an hour.
If you cook chicken breasts, then most likely they were bought in a store, already specially separated. This means that the breast is taken from a young, fast-cooking chicken. Therefore, the chicken breast will cook from 20 minutes to half an hour after boiling.
Sauce for boiled chicken
Products
Walnuts - 2 tablespoons Prunes - 2 handfuls Mayonnaise or sour cream - 2 heaped tablespoons Pomegranate sauce - 3 tablespoons Sugar - half a teaspoon Salt - a quarter teaspoon Chicken broth - 7 tablespoons
Preparing sauce for boiled chicken
1. Cut or crush the nuts using a hammer through a towel. 2. Chop the prunes. 3. Mix mayonnaise/sour cream, pomegranate sauce, sugar and salt; mix well. 4. Add chopped nuts and prunes. 5. Pour in chicken broth, mix well.
How and how long to cook chicken for soup?
Chicken for soup is cooked for 35 minutes.
- The process of preparing boiled chicken soup will take 30 - 35 minutes.
- For soup, it is advisable to cook the chicken after cutting it into pieces
- If the chicken is young, and 15-20 minutes have already passed after boiling, then you can gradually add the necessary ingredients to the soup
- So, first put onion and salt into the broth, then - prepared and cut into pieces potatoes, the cooking time of which in the broth is 10 - 15 minutes
- Next, add cereal or noodles to the broth and cook for 10 to 5 minutes.
- At the end of cooking, a couple of minutes before turning off, add cooked carrots, onions, celery (to taste), peppercorns and bay leaves into the soup.
Recommendations for using kitchen gadgets
Some modern devices even prepare soup, but for the most part they are used to boil chicken legs, legs or drumsticks tasty and in just a few minutes.
- In a slow cooker. We lay out pieces of the prepared product, fill it with cold water, salt, lay out a couple of bay leaves and some vegetables. To ensure that the product is cooked evenly, wings should be cooked with wings, drumsticks with drumsticks, etc. We set the “Extinguishing” mode, start the timer for 30 minutes.
- In a steamer. With this approach you will have to spend a little more time, but it will turn out very tasty. Place the pieces in a bowl in one layer, it is better if they do not touch each other. The processing time is 45 minutes from the moment the steam is supplied.
- In the microwave. How long to cook chicken in the microwave depends on the power of the device. At maximum power, the processing time is about 20-25 minutes. Halfway through processing, the legs, drumsticks or other components should be stirred or turned over.
When using the listed gadgets, it is recommended to add various spices and herbs to the water. Thanks to them, the meat will become more flavorful and even simple wings will turn into an exquisite delicacy.
How and how long to cook chicken broth?
The chicken must be scorched to remove any remaining feathers, washed, cut up, or cooked whole.
You will get a delicious broth if you cook the whole chicken.
If you cook a whole chicken, make sure that all the meat is thoroughly cooked. This will take longer than, for example, boiling chicken in pieces. If the goal is to prepare a delicious broth, then it is better to take homemade or market chicken. Even if not very young. You'll just have to lengthen the cooking time, perhaps 2 hours or even longer.
Calories and nutritional value
A chicken carcass is usually cut into several parts - legs (thighs, drumsticks), wings, back and breast. All chicken is suitable for cooking.
If you want the broth to be clear, it is best to use the breast or back. Legs and wings are suitable for richer broths. Chicken giblets also go well; soup made with this broth will be strong and fatty.
The calorie content of different parts also varies.
Part of a chicken carcass | Calorie content, kcal/100 g | Fats, g | Proteins, g | Carbohydrates, g |
Breast | 137 | 1,8 | 29,8 | 0,5 |
Shin | 158 | 5,6 | 27,0 | 0 |
Hips | 185 | 11,0 | 21,3 | 0,1 |
Wings | 186 | 12,2 | 19,2 | 0,0 |
Soup set (back, tail) | 181 | 12,6 | 16,5 | 0,4 |
Liver | 166 | 6,2 | 25,9 | 2,0 |
Heart | 182 | 10,9 | 20,0 | 1,1 |
Stomachs | 114 | 4,2 | 18,2 | 0,6 |
Chicken (whole) | 170 | 7,4 | 25,2 | 0,0 |
Which part of the chicken is best to make broth from?
The most healthy and dietary broth is obtained from chicken giblets, and these are the legs, the upper part of the wings, the neck, the head with a scallop, the stomach, and the liver.
True, it is better not to use liver for broth; it imparts a specific bitter taste and changes the color of the broth.
A delicious broth is made from chicken giblets.
Some people like to cook broth from chicken breasts, some prefer to choose meat with bones, so that they can later savor it with cartilage. It all depends on personal tastes and desires.
Entirely
Even before checking the time, you need to wait for the liquid to boil. The length of the cooking process will depend on which part of the chicken is used. There are several recommendations in this regard:
- a whole carcass is cooked for about 1.5-2 hours, here you need to take into account the total weight of the broiler chicken itself;
- country poultry takes a little longer to cook, usually taking about 2.5 hours for the entire cooking;
- it will take more than three hours to cook a hearty rooster broth;
- The soup is cooked for approximately 60 minutes based on chicken breast, legs, chicken fillet and wings;
- It takes about 40 minutes to prepare the giblet broth.
Water is poured into the bowl so that the meat is completely covered. The readiness of the product is easy to determine; it should be easily pierced with a knife or fork and easily separated from the seeds. White color also indicates that it is ready, but pink is a clear sign of unpreparedness.
Can I cook frozen chicken and for how long?
Of course, it is better to cook from defrosted meat. Well, what if you don’t have time to wait for the chicken to defrost?! Frozen chicken can be placed in boiling water. You just have to wait longer for it to boil, and it will take longer to cook. Add another 40-45 minutes to the usual cooking time for boiled chicken.
Chicken from the freezer can be cooked without defrosting if desired.