SQUASH YOUR BIRD
What is the number one bodybuilder food, yesterday, today and forever? This is a slam-dunk no-brainer: skinless chicken breast. The reasons are multitudinous and irrefutable; skinless chicken breasts deliver more bounce per ounce and more bang for the buck than any other single protein source. Oh sure, egg whites trump everything in sight when it comes to price, but separating the yolks from whites is a royal pain in the ass and you still have to cook them. Harder yet is to make egg whites tasty there is a way to make a delicious egg white omelet but that is an article in itself. We'll explore the egg white culinary conundrum in a future article.
Certain seafood products have just as much protein per 100-gram serving as chicken breast but have you checked out the price of halibut or cod lately? At my local grocery they were asking $12.00 per pound for halibut and $6.98 per pound for cod. Shellfish with a similar protein/fat profile to chicken breast was even worse, if that's possible. Lobster and crabmeat were fetching a staggering $14 bucks per pound. Pork is out of the question; the fat content is off the chart and beef prices have skyrocketed as of late. Besides, with the exception of flank steak or filet, the saturated fat content of beef is problematic.
Flank steak, last I checked was $4.98 per pound but in order to produce a flank steak meal that doesn't taste like boiled shoe leather requires the skill of an Iron Chef. Who has the time, inclination or expertise for that? Turkey is a great bodybuilding food and should be in heavy rotation with chicken. It seems that all nutritional roads lead back to white meat chicken: the high protein, low fat content and affordable price make it the hands-down choice of fitness freaks worldwide.
On the other hand preparing a chicken breast that is delectable, moist and tender is damned difficult. The breast is thick and during the cooking process the outside invariably dries out before the center is cooked thoroughly. Have you ever heard the expression rubber chicken? This refers to steam table-style preparation of chicken breast and few things are less appetizing than spongy chicken.
Cooking the perfect chicken breast is a dietary dilemma, a regular Rubik's Cube of protein preparation. Nothing tastes worse than chicken tough on the exterior while still cool and raw on the interior. One solution is to cook the bird breast long and slow in order to make them moist but this requires the skill of Julia Childs and the patience of Job. I have beaten my head up against the bird breast preparation problem for nearly two decades. I've tried baking them covered, diced them into tiny equal sized cubes, cut them into long strips, I've pan fried them in high grade olive oil, roasted them long and slow in the oven, flash sautéed them over a super hot flame, marinated them then grilled them over coals, barbequed, braised, crock pot cooked themyou name it, I've likely tried it.
None of the methods resulted in a truly sensational breast. Recently, however, I devised a wild and unique method that produced absolutely the best breast I've ever tasted. This slightly crazed method of preparation allows you to produce a chicken breast that can be sautéed, baked or grilled to succulent perfection.
The key is to squash the bulbous breast flat prior to preparation. By eliminating the rotund profile, by squashing the raw breast into a low rider you can cook a perfectly done, juicy breast every single time and in less than 5 minutes. Those who've tasted the end result of the squashing method, be it BBQ, pan fried, baked or broiled, praise the finished product as the best tasting chicken breast they've ever encountered. All you need to turn a stringy, dried on the outside/raw on the inside rubber breast into a perfectly prepared gourmet treat is a pounding device, a cutting board and a sturdy surface. The trick is not in the cooking but in the squashing; once squashed, any cooking method works. Here's how it works: first, you need a squashing implement.
Being a Purposeful Primitive I use a small dumbbell with a flat end. Slip the dumbbell head into a plastic zip-lock bag. This keeps the iron head of the dumbbell from ever coming into contact with raw chicken. Place a plastic grocery bag over a sturdy cutting board and set the board on floor. The force used to mash a breast is a little too intense to perform on a kitchen counter; the repeated blows could conceivably damage the counter surface. After you've wrapped your dumbbell and covered the board, take a boneless skinless breast and set it in the middle of the cutting board while holding the small end of the breast with a finger. Allow the dumbbell to drop from about six inches and impact the breast on the highest thickest part. Be careful that the weight doesn't slide down and squash the finger holding the breast in place.
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Tools & Products |
Real-time Squashing |
Give it several as many whacks as necessary to squash the mother uniformly flat. Once the fibrous core is hit square the breast will give way and flatten out nicely. Each subsequent whack requires a softer blow. Be careful or you can mash the breast into useless pulp. I pound the breast until the finished product is uniformly flattened but not decimated. The breast will optimally end up about ¼ inch thick.
With every subsequent breast your squashing technique will improve and after you've done a half dozen the procedure will become easy, effortless and effective. A couple of tips and pointers: before beginning the procedure, examine each chicken breast and see if it contains a tender. This V-shaped strip of meat is attached to the main breast and runs alongside the long length of the breast.
The tender is a parallel flap of meat and if your breast has one (some do, some don't) take a sharp knife and remove this and set it aside. The chicken finger is already sufficiently pliable and need not be squashed. After you've removed the tenders and squashed your first breast into a ¼ inch fillet, set it flat on a dinner plate.
Stack all subsequently flattened breasts one on top of another. At the conclusion of the process you'll have a collection of delicious chicken tenders and stack of flattened breasts ready to cook.
Cover them with clear saran wrap and place them in the refrigerator until you are ready to cook them. They'll store this way for a full week before putrefying.
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Shoot for 1/8 to ¼ uniform thinness |
Dredge in whole wheat flour & shake off excess |
Remove the zip lock bag off the end of the dumbbell, take the plastic grocery bag off the cutting board and throw both into the garbage. The cutting board and dumbbell are free of any contaminants and need not be cleaned. Be sure and wash your hands. Presto you're done!
I have two or three super easy ways to prepare squashed breasts and each is worth passing along; one is a stove top dish; another is done using a gas or charcoal grill and third is oven baked.
The quickest and easiest way for a serious athlete to prepare a squashed breast is to place a small amount of olive oil into a pan, heat the oil and drop in a dredged breast into the pan then sauté for about two minutes per side.
My favorite method is to rinse a squashed breast in cold water and lightly dredge the wet breast in whole wheat flour (available at the local grocery store) before sautéing in olive oil. Olive oil has a smoke point of around 375-degrees; cover the bottom the pan with 1/8 th inch of oil and heat it as hot as possible but not to the point where the oil starts to smoke.
Drop the flour-dredged filet into the hot oil. Depending on how thick or thin you're squashed the chicken determines cooking time per side. I like to brown a whole wheat chicken fillet about one minute per side and turn them twice (with tongs) for a total of four minutes.
Let the completed filet sit on top of a wire rack for a few minutes after cooking to drain. Even out of the hot oil the bird continues to cook. The finished breast comes out crispy on the outside, moist and succulent on the inside and the whole procedure takes less than five minutes.
You'll be thanking me profusely as you munch on the first one. Chuck Deluxe eats eight squashed breasts at a single sitting and murmurs continual thanks and praise to me, his chicken benefactor, with each succulent bite.
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Use enough olive oil to cover the bottom of the pan |
Start to finish in 15 minutes |
You can marinate squashed fillets in a commercial sauce available at the grocery store. Let them soak up the sauce for 30-50 minutes then throw the marinated breast on the preheated gas or charcoal grill for a minute or two per side. This procedure produces a wonderful grilled, glazed breast.
If you would like to bake them, bread the breast with whole wheat flour, place them on a wire rack set on a bake pan and slide them into a 400-degree over for 10-15 minutes. This procedure produces a crispy baked chicken breast.
I prefer this procedure to placing a plain fillet in the oven since without some sort of coating a plain baked breast tends to dry out.
I showed my method of squashing to one no-neck friend and he devised yet another cooking method. He would place a flattened filet on a plate and lay some cooked spinach on top of the breast. Next he would add some diced onions, jalapeno peppers and salsa. He would then roll the fillet/spinach/salsa mixture up into a tight tube and stick the circular tube onto a skewer and grill them.
You can place a toothpick though the tube and bake them at 400-degrees for 20-minutes or tie them with butcher string and slow cook them in a deep dish pan with a lid. The variations are limitless and I'm sure we'll devise a whole slew of new ways and methods to cook squashed breast. The hardest part of dieting is strict eating, particularly if the foods you prepare are bland, unimaginative and tasteless.
The path to success is made straight and easy when you are able to devise meals that actually taste great. Once you've learned how to put taste back into fitness foods, success is just a matter of time. Find yourself a small dumbbell, break out the cutting board and start pounding the hell out of hapless breasts true, your family will likely think you've lost your mind like Jack Nicholson in The Shining (Here's Johnny!) as they see you sitting on the floor squashing breasts, but apprehension will turn into appreciation when you serve them up the best bird breast they've ever eaten!