Pan-Seared Chicken Breasts with Pan Sauce and Spring Vegetables; Kenji's Cooking Show

hey it's Kenji I'm gonna cook some dinner tonight it's um chicken night we're gonna cook those airline chicken breasts that I have from the other day so I got those guys right here so I'm gonna take about should take about half an hour again chicken breasts I just rest them on some paper towels one nice and dry so that you can sear them and then the rest of this stuff is stuff that my wife Audrey picked up from the farmers market I also got this big old carrot then I'm gonna use up so if you go to like a fancy restaurant they have those cute little baby carrots that you know that they use the little multicolored baby carrots if you've got a big carrot you want to be able those things cook nicely because they're small and tender if you got a big carrot you want to be able to cook you want to cook it in a a shape that is gonna kind of like cook evenly but still like lace so what I do is what's called so there's a fancy French term called the Tornai where you kind of cut things into these sort of oblong football shapes with seven sides I do something called like a what I call it I don't know if it's really called a photo name but i call a 420 faux Tornai because it gives you similar looking pieces in size so you do one cut you rotate it a quarter turn you do another cut like that rotate another quarter turn need another cut and you end up with these kind of little sort of weird triangular wedges but by adjusting the thickness of your cut you basically you can get like any size carrot you want thick or thin and you can do this cut and end up with pieces that are all sort of relatively the same size that's enough carrot for the three of us I think also guys you know what I'll get a pot of water gone here we're gonna blanch a bunch of vegetables this is going to be our blanching water so blanching is a thing you do to green vegetables and other vegetables in fact I'm gonna do this too well I'll start with the carrots the carrots are gonna go in while it's still cold because they're a little bit thicker so it's fine to start them cold because you want them to kind of gradually come up to temperature so that they cook evenly throughout whereas if you just dump them into boiling water you know chances are they're gonna be fine but there's you know you run the risk that they're gonna get mushy on the outside before the insides are done snap peas so to do these what I do is I so you take the top and you break it with your fingertip and you kind of push it forward and you pull it down one side and the string comes right out you see that and then you do the same thing on the other side and if no string comes out that means that it's by tender enough that it doesn't matter oh so what we're gonna do is we're going to pan sear those chicken breasts we're going to saute some of these spring vegetables we're gonna make a pan sauce which is going to include these yummy morel mushrooms which are a spring mushroom you can get him at like Whole Foods and stuff but they're they're wild they're never harder they aren't they're not they're not able to be cultivated so they're wild I'm so they're generally a little pricey but they're only around for like a couple months in the spring early spring and they are so delicious especially for like sort of classic French dishes with a pan sauce or the butter sauce let me show you what they look like they got this lovely asparagus so these are these are morels and so they have all these little teeny tiny kind of nooks and crannies which are custom made for butter and sauce to soak into and so they're excellent in dishes like this oh I did that thing on my shrimp video I know I accidentally threw a shrimp shell in with the real shrimp and the and the shrimp part in with the shells and I think I just did the same thing with my peas but I caught myself this time something I frequently do I remember once when when I was when I was a cook at my old fraternity house which is one of my first cooking jobs I had spent I was preparing dinner and I made a whole like a giant giant thing of chicken stock you know enough chicken to feed 40 people and I made a stock out of all the carcasses and it had been simmering there I've been you know dutifully skimming it I'd saved up my vegetable scraps I was making this beautiful chicken stocks I was gonna make soup out of the next day and so I went over I put my strainer in the sink and then I dumped the chicken broth in and I picked up the strainer hey little spider I pick up the strainer and I was like yes I got my stock and then I realized in my hands was all like the the chicken bones and the you know and and then used up fish tools and the stock had just gone down the drain all right so now I'm just going to cut these on a little bias like this well I don't know if I've plugged this knife before but this is a kan kan they're relatively new nice knife company and when a cook has hit it's one his his or her one-year anniversary they get this knife as a gift it's a it's not like you know on this super super high-end expensive expense why if I think it's somewhere between 150 and 200 bucks but it's an excellent knife I think it's really good for the really good night for the for the money all right our carrots are boiling away I'm actually gonna throw some potatoes in there to my bench scraper meanwhile I'm gonna get my pan heated up also for my chicken started preheating oh look at this nice this cool new camera I got them we're gonna see how this works all right I think we're in a 360 video mode all right ready hi I think we're recording now okay he's gonna get a preheating over sort of low heat right now so that it gets a nice evening yeah this is a really heavy copper pan you don't need a copper pan for this although a dish like this actually you know cast-iron I generally love cast iron carbon steel but it's not ideal for a dish like this because councilor and carbon steel when they're well seasoned are essentially nonstick and you actually want chicken to stick a little bit because that's what creates fawned which is the the stuff that turns into your pan sauce so with morels I'm just gonna just sort of quarter the larger ones just split in half the smaller ones you want to make sure that they you know you do that partly partly for surface area you know a little they cut more so that they can cup more butter as you eat them butter and sauce and then also sometimes very rarely you might find like worms or bugs hiding out inside them so you want to make sure those are not there we used to put my daughter's hands on Instagram and then we realized you know what if we're gonna keep her privacy we're gonna keep it um so we don't put any of it run anymore so she just ran by but I will dutifully look away to make sure that nobody can see what she looks like [Applause] it's not because she looks not because she's ugly she looks like she looks like her mother's you don't have to peel your asparagus that's sort of the theme of this channel how you don't have to do this I tend to find especially with his big fat asparagus like this the the outer layers can get a little bit sort of fibrous I once spent a couple days working at a restaurant the restaurant of a rather famous chef who who does videos on YouTube they get millions of views and he's kind of angry all the time at that restaurant that I worked that I spent a few days working at they would take the asparagus cut off literally just this top part and then throw the rest of it away into the trash and I remember I was working there on the first I was there and I was like can we use those for staff meal or something and someone looked at me like I was crazy and said there was no time I didn't think that was very cool so some people like to snap their spare asparagus like that and they say it breaks naturally where it becomes fibrous um that's not true you can break the asparagus wherever you want depending on how you pull this so if I hold it like this it's going to right there if I photo like that is gonna snap here so which one is right so I just kind of feel I'm like all right that feels some little woody so I'm gonna cut that part off there's snapping thing you know it works if you don't want to pull out a knife that's fine now I'm gonna cut these into little pieces about the same size as the snap peas we're gonna start all saute all these vegetables together and glaze them if you're using store-bought stock you want to go unsalted or low-sodium if you can't find totally unsalted unsalted stock and then the trick to making it more like homemade stock is to this Louise about a cup and a half of this or so so the trick is to add this unflavored gelatin you can buy it in packets I buy it in bulk because I use a lot of it but add unflavored gelatin to it a couple tablespoons per cup we're gonna let that bloom and so the thing is when you make stock at home when you make a really nice rich rich stock or you go to a restaurant you get a really nice rich stock there's a lot of connective tissue in that chicken collagen that converts it to gelatin as its boiled with water and the gelatin is what gives a stock its rich texture and mouthfeel store-bought stalks don't have actually have a ton of chicken in them even the best ones and so they generally don't have a lot of body so they don't really work first for pan sauces that well sauce is where you really need that sort of that texture to give them that sort of glossy richness and to really emulsify well so your sauces come out kind of thin if you make them with store-bought stock so the trick is to just add gelatin to them and it completely changes the texture and it makes them really suitable for making pants masses those are all done meanwhile let's get our chicken going in there so chicken we're going to do just a little bit of oil it's gonna render some fat out you know so basically it's going to cook mostly in its own fat season it well season it skin side up first [Applause] Sault song pecker okay now oil going increase it to a little bit slightly like medium heat so the oil is shimmering not like super hot not like smoking hot but just lightly shimmering which is what we want and they're gonna lay it skin side down very gently you don't want to you know the pan is hot but don't be afraid to get your hand close to it because what happens is if you do if you don't get your hand close enough when you're laying things into it that's when you run into trouble because you end up dropping you down that hot oil splashes up and that's how you burn yourself so I always say I always say that a a hot pan can sense fear so you gotta make sure that you're not afraid of it same with it same with that when you're deep frying you want to lower your food gently into it and get your hand all the way down right above the surface so that way when you actually completely let it go it doesn't splash back up and bite you some chicken we're just gonna let go on its own for a little while the trick with chicken skin on chicken is that when it's ready to release it will it will release itself easily if it's struggling at all to release like if it's if it's sticking to the pan at all that means it's not ready to be turned yet and what you're gonna end up with this kind of mangling mangling the skin which is not what you want you don't want mangled skinned chicken meat alright so now I'm gonna blanch my vegetables green vegetables I'm just doing these all once if I was at a restaurant right now I would probably do him one at a time so that they were both perfectly cooked but I'm not so I won't [Music] I'm gonna do this all stove top so I'm using relatively moderate heat getting there so I know it's just kind of almost there almost there better go a little bit longer reduce the heat well it's upside-down we're gonna season that second side and I'm gonna grab some ice in this bowl come on [Music] [Applause] you know that she's doing a mighty close now another couple seconds mmm and I'm gonna go stranger out for this no my strainer one I think probably my daughter is playing with it outside let's use a Soyuz can I use what here you go let's use that alright so on these vegetables just about you know like a minute you want them to still be nice and crunchy and fresh spring vegetables are the best spring vegetables like most spring vegetables like asparagus snap peas English peas they are at their best when they are just picked so you know if you're getting in the Peruvian stuff year-round can get you know you can get Peruvians asparagus year-round or Mexican asparagus and it's fine but the difference between that and local asparagus that has just been picked and you're getting it the days been picked is like night and day because the the local stuff is still super super sweet just sort of like um you know older varieties of corn of sweet corn the moment that they're picked they started their starches start - sugars start to convert the starches and so they get they are at their sweetest right when they're picked and they get progressively less and less sweet corn used to be that way but most modern varieties of super sweet corn actually stay sweet for even after they're picked so you can historic modern corn in the refrigerator and bring it out you know a week later and it's still gonna taste super super sweet which is remarkable I think modern Mart one of the marvels of modern vegetable breeding when courting I guess is also one of the marvels of ancient vegetable breeding us been around awhile alright let's put that chicken over look at the color on that skin we nice and crispy over moderately low heat right now and now we are going to butter and baste so a little bit of butter got these herbs with some rosemary and some thyme save a little bit for the garnish those two pretty things I'll save for the plate maybe I'll put the parsley in the vinaigrette for salad that's what I'll do shall I go in the salad or shall it go in the chicken I shall do booth alright so this bottom piece will will roughly chop it up I'll go into that chicken pan oops sorry shop I mean this either one are you all finely diced shallots you do just like onions so cut them vertically like that give him a couple of horizontal cuts and you have large chunks like that you can throw them into your chicken then what time are we at right now we're at 25 minutes all right this might be more like a 35 minute meal instead of a 30-minute meal but I spend a lot of time dilly-dallying and blathering right you can excuse me so facing just like I would do at stake a little bit of a little bit of olive oil just up up the volume a bit so sizzling fat but to put the meat up on one side tilt the pan towards you and then spoon it over and this is gonna get all that flavor from the aromatics into the meat it's also gonna help it cook more evenly and help keep the skin nice and crisp it's gonna keep get the skin nice and evenly Brown also just it's fun to do you know it just gives you something to look busy while you're on the line and the chef's staring at you gingy I want to see you basting face don't waste or if you can lean you can clean that's the that's the one I do not yellow my cooks that way but you know that was that was the culture back then not sure chef culture feel like every chef should have to have kids before they before they become chefs that I can pig and learn how to mellow out a little bit so that chicken by the way I aim for around 150 degrees so at 165 it takes less than two seconds for there to be a seven log reduction that's only one out of every ten million will survive 165 degrees for two seconds or less and that's what's considered sort of sterile and we're talking about that that's specifically for Salmonella but most bacteria are in that range where is at 140 degrees it might take I think it's like 23 minutes or something for the same bacterial production same seven long reduction and so once you get once you start getting above about 130 degrees or so that's when that's when in bacteria sort of to actively start dying off with the exception of a few bacteria but as long as you as long as you're above that temperature range for long enough and you know by the time by the time you're 150 you probably know how long you've seen the video but it's probably taking like a good 10 minutes to get there or so and so you're you're pretty much clean already and then in the time it takes with a chicken to rest you get the rest of the way there so I let it date about 150 it's just right around where we are right now 140 140 146 I'm comfortable with that if you're squeamish at all about this of course you don't have to you don't have to follow my guidelines do whatever you want all right thinking that chickened out it's gonna be super juicy at this temperature which is great because we like juicy chicken right there to some of those spent aromatics then it's gonna go in here is there's Morales over the fresh butter [Music] little bit of fresh olive oil I'm not gonna season these because they're probably quite a bit of salt left over in that pan for the chicken and we're gonna be making a sauce in the same pan so I don't want to accidentally over season everything all right so we're getting nice and brown I'm gonna hit that with my herbs if I had remembered to leave shallots leftover I would have done that too I'm gonna hit him with also with a tiny splash of soy sauce I find soy sauce always brings out the flavour of these mushrooms nicely just a teeny splash then I've got this um vermouth and these after the glaze you could use white wine you could use sherry you can use beer you could use nothing you know you don't have you don't need to add a liqueur to it um it adds you know liquor generally you use them in pan sauces because they add complexity and they also had acidity but we're gonna be adding acid in a couple stages here anyway so I'm gonna be adding some lemon juice to the end put this over the hotter burner so it reduces faster all right now here's that chicken stock with the gelatin in it we're gonna hit that in there don't think we're gonna need all of it you throw our butter right in and that's going to emulsify and you'll see as it reduces it's going to turn into a really nice rich glaze where's that chicken stock we're gonna glaze our vegetables with Oh little mustard in there of the chicken reduce finish producing over there while I finish off these missions all right so now you see I think the sauce is getting this is what we call well in French there's a term call of net pay which means kind of like - well it's like when the sauce coats things Knapp's it so this is what they're talking about when when they say it should like coat the back of a spoon we're almost at that stage but here we go just about there so you see that how rich and thick mm-hmm it's so good there we go that's looking like a sauce and it's pasting what this is gonna shut off the vegetables are going to finally finish producing I'm gonna cut this chicken so when we cut the chicken we want to go at a bias sharp knife nice biased I guess he can fan it out let's see how we did on the internals boy you look out look at how juicy that is can you see that that's just like glistening I would say let's say we nailed that one now we're gonna plate it up all fancy-like not too fancy some beautiful lays vegetables I could have reduced this glaze a little bit more but you know I ain't Thomas Keller here and that's a reasonable element around the vegetables for a portion we'll save the rest of seconds take this chicken this is like classic classic French cooking like this you go to a bistro and like Lyon and you would get this or breasts we had some wonderful chicken with glazed spring vegetables and breasts I think it even had a Morel sauce all right sauce [Music] [Music] of course you don't have to use morels you can use um you know this will be great with a mix of mushrooms like shiitake or cremini or even plain old button mushrooms are just fine and as I pointed out I did this with store-bought stock whatever random mustard I had in my fridge supermarket butter you know this is all supermarket ingredients of course you know you can upgrade and get the farmers market stuff is probably make it taste better but this works very well like whatever you got hmm so mmm there's morels oh let's get that little nice little bit of garnish that we promised there you go nice little pretty flowers how do you ready for dinner see when you can cook chicken breasts like this and you nail that temperature I think is better than a chicken thigh I don't know again maybe I'm just kidding it was cuz I got my dad now I'm getting old but that was pretty hard to be alright I'm gonna grab my family we're gonna sit down and eat you

Channel: J. Kenji López-Alt

Views: 604,558

Rating: 4.9476838 out of 5

Keywords:

Id: Bt8YgEr-9is

Length: 27min 53sec (1673 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 22 2020