The Grilled Chicken Recipe to make on repeat this summer
Hey, everyone.
Today, I'm really excited to show you
a great summer grilling trick if you love chicken.
It's an ingredient that's not hard to find.
In fact, I'm 100% sure that all of you have access to it
because all it is is water.
So this is actually a trick that we've been using
for years and years in our Chinese cooking,
mainly for meat stir-fries.
And you might have heard us talk about
velveting meat for stir-fries,
and that usually involves adding cornstarch and seasonings
and water and oil to meat,
and that really helps make it juicy and delicious.
And over the years, we've noticed that chicken in particular
has a really astounding ability to absorb water.
And the result is is that you get much juicier chicken
in your stir-fry.
So my mom the other day was actually preparing for a party
with friends and family,
and she developed this grilled chicken recipe,
and all she did was marinate the chicken as usual
and add water.
Legitimately, people were raving about the chicken.
I mean, me and Sarah, as my mother's own children,
were astounded at how good the grilled chicken came out.
Everybody was asking for the recipe,
and when you make this chicken,
I promise you that your friends and family
will be doing the same.
I know what you're thinking.
Okay, how much water?
Is it really gonna make a difference?
Two chicken breasts can actually absorb
anywhere from a third of a cup to a half a cup of water.
It's actually a pretty astonishing amount,
and once the chicken sits in the fridge overnight
to marinate, you'll see that all of the water is absorbed,
and all of that water turns into juicy grilled chicken
once it's cooked.
The other trick we use for this chicken is pounding it out.
So when you pound out your chicken breasts to be thinner,
they cook quicker on the grill,
which means that they have less of a chance to dry out.
So there are a few ways that you can pound out
your chicken breasts, and I'll go over all of them.
So the first way is you can just cover your chicken breasts
with plastic wrap or some wax paper, parchment paper,
whatever you have on hand,
and then you can pound it out using just like
a regular old garden variety skillet that you have.
Another good trick is a rolling pin,
but I know not everybody has a rolling pin around.
If you're not a baking guru,
you probably don't have one of these,
but you just kind of go over it a few times,
and that works great.
The other interesting trick that we like to use
is another trick that we learned from Chinese cooking,
which is using the back of a knife.
So you kind of rotate the chicken, quarter turn,
pound it out with the back,
and then you end up with this interesting crosshatch pattern
that really allows the water and the flavorings actually
to penetrate the meat.
So normally with like a meat mallet
that has that kind of grooved pattern to it,
you would achieve the same effect,
but we don't have a meat mallet,
and I feel like unless you're a 1950s housewife,
you don't have a meat mallet either.
So the back of a cleaver, Chinese cleaver,
the back of a thicker chef's knife, honestly, also fine.
That's another great trick to make sure
that your chicken turns out juicy every time.
So what cuts of chicken will work with this water trick?
So we use bone-in, skin-on chicken breasts
because we actually think that with the bone-in
and the skin-on, there's way more flavor,
and all you have to do is debone the chicken breasts.
I'll show you how to do that today.
If I can do it, I'm pretty sure you can do it.
And you can also use boneless, skinless chicken breasts.
So we're gonna cook both today,
and we'll show you how both turn out.
If you wanted to,
you could use boneless, skinless thighs as well,
but thighs are already pretty juicy,
so it's not actually that important
that you use this trick on them.
But like I said, this is a Chinese trick through and through
adding water to meat that we cook in stir fries,
adding water to dumpling fillings
makes a huge difference in the end result of the dumpling.
The addition of water actually makes it such
that you get a really juicy, brothy bite
of your dumpling every time.
There's no reason why we can't use these easy Chinese tricks
when we're cooking non-Chinese recipes in the kitchen.
And this is a perfect example of that.
I think that's all my ranting and raving,
so let's get to it.
First, I'm gonna show you guys how to debone
a bone-in split chicken breast.
And that just means that they took the whole breast
and then split it down the middle
to get two pieces out of it.
Usually one of the chicken breasts
is a little bit easier to debone
because it's the side that got sort of the smaller piece,
at least that's what it seems like.
So this one is a little bit tricky
in that there's a few little bone spur pieces here
that snuck in, so I'm just gonna,
those are just coming away if I like pick them off,
so set those aside.
And honestly, I am not like chef de cuisine
when it comes to meat,
but I just use my common sense and a sharp knife.
So you just kinda wanna like run the knife
along the border of the bone.
And there is this sort of like cartilage piece
that's not like a hard bone,
but you are gonna wanna get rid of that.
And then you can kind of just use the knife
to follow the shape of the bone.
And these are like the sort of like rib pieces
of the chicken.
And obviously you wanna keep as much meat as you can
with the main piece and just do your best.
It's not a deal breaker one way or another
because what we do is we actually save these bones
in a Ziploc bag and then we use them to make chicken stock.
And it turns out really great.
So I'm just kinda getting in and around these pieces
you can see from the other side.
So then here is where there is a little bit
of a tricky part is there's this kinda like knuckle-y part
that kinda runs up through the top of the breast.
And that part gets a little dicey.
You kinda just have to cut it out as best you can.
And you can see like I'm exposing it there.
And if rock chicken is not your game,
just forward through this part and skip on over
to the boneless, skinless chicken breast.
So I'm just gonna call it done there.
Sometimes there's a wishbone.
So usually you can just kinda prise that out
with your fingers.
And there it comes, part of the wishbone.
Now I've got my boneless, skin-on chicken breast.
And you can see this part is the tender.
This part does kinda come off
over the course of the pounding.
So I'm just gonna gently remove it.
It just comes right off.
And that can just be marinated as is
cause it's already super tender.
And yeah, I'm just gonna do the same
with my other chicken breast.
If you want, you can also just kind of like tug.
Once you get to pass a certain point of cutting,
you can kind of just like tug this part off.
And you'll see that there is some meat
that's kinda clinging to it.
Again, like I said, that's why it's good
to save these for stock.
But then from there, it's a little bit easier.
You can just sort of cut the bone away
and it's a little bit less dicey
doing it all with the knife.
So that's another option that works just as well.
And I can kinda feel I'm hitting that wishbone again.
So I'm gonna get rid of this piece.
And I see the wishbone poking out.
I know it's a little gruesome.
People just hate dealing with raw chicken
and I get it, but the quicker you overcome your fears,
the better.
Okay, see?
Minimal damage done.
Got it out pretty easily.
There's my second split chicken breast.
And you'll notice there's always one
that's gonna be a little bit bigger.
This is a big one, this is a small one.
That's why we're pounding them to an even thickness.
Okay, so now I've got my boneless, skinless chicken breasts.
For obvious reasons, this is much, much easier
to work with and all you have to do
is worry about pounding these out.
There's absolutely no processing
that you have to do with these.
So the last thing to do to process these chicken breasts
is you may want to trim away some of this fat
that can turn up close to the tip of the chicken breast.
And there is a way that you can do that
without getting rid of all of the skin
because when you grill the chicken, the skin will shrink.
The whole point of this is to get juicier chicken.
It's not a crucial step, but for example,
if my mother were doing this, she would do that.
So if you have folks who are anti-schmaltz,
I don't know why they would be, you can take that extra step.
Like I said earlier,
you can use the back of a Chinese cleaver.
You can use the back of a chef's knife.
It's that blunt side and you can do it
in a crosshatch pattern
or you can just take a rolling pin and just pound it out
and that will work great too.
You can already see just like with a few hits,
like it's already flattening.
I'm gonna do the crosshatch trick
just because I think that that's a newer trick
for most people.
So basically what you do is you just kind of run over it
and you don't want to apply too, too much force.
Like you're not wanting to like kind of gouge
into the chicken so much though,
depending on the thickness of your knife,
if you do, it's totally fine.
So I'm just gonna run over it on both sides
and kind of, you can see there's this crosshatch pattern
that comes up and depending on the thickness of your knife,
well, that'll depend on how much force you want to use
because if it's a thinner knife,
it can actually kind of cut into the meat a little bit.
So you don't want to destroy the integrity
of the texture so, so much.
And you can kind of see that that's what's happening
a little bit more on this rougher side.
It's kind of really getting in there.
And like I said, it's just a nice way to mimic the effect
of like a meat, a traditional meat mallet
and get the chicken a little bit thinner.
I will say there's no need to get it super, super thin.
This is pretty thin.
And when they cook up on the grill,
you actually want some thickness to it
so that they don't dry out
before you can get some good color on the grill.
Though that's another reason why you want to make sure
you have, you start with a super hot grill.
So the Chinese cleaver is a little sharper
and it's also heavier.
So it can, it kind of gets the chicken
to a flatter place quicker.
And I'm not going to go crazy on the top two too much.
And I'll probably just go over the bottom
like one time in each direction.
So now I'm going to rotate
and just get that nice cross hatch texture
and just open up the chicken for the water to absorb.
That's it.
Those are my two chicken breasts process.
You can use either one for this recipe
and both will turn out great.
It's really just a matter of personal preference.
So now we're going to get onto the marinade.
If you have one of those food processors
or mini food processors or food choppers
or a garlic press, now's the time to get it out.
I don't know about you,
but our garden is busting with fresh thyme
and oregano right now.
And it's just a really great way to use it up.
And the thyme kind of has that lemony flavor.
So you don't even need fresh lemon.
I mean, you could put some fresh lemon if you want
or squeeze it over when it's finished cooking,
but it's really not necessary.
If you want, you could use this technique
of using the water in the marinade
and then pounding out the chicken
and you could do whatever flavor combinations that you want.
So it's really up to you.
The one thing that is important
is that it should marinate overnight for best results.
But I feel like you get away with like half a day
or a full day if you do it in the morning
and then cook it at night.
So it's flexible.
I've got my oregano and my thyme and I've got my garlic.
So I'm just going to start by processing this thyme
because it can be a little time consuming.
Really the main stem that you're worried about
is the like woody part of it.
If some green stem gets in,
it's really no big deal in my experience.
So this process doesn't have to be perfect.
Does not have to be perfect.
Just basically get the little leaves
and the little tender stems off of the thyme
so that you're not wasting any of the good stuff.
And then like this, this is what you want to discard.
Okay, so I need a little less
than the same amount of oregano
and I'm just going to chop it all together
to make my life easier.
Chinese cleaver is great for something like this.
Just makes quick work out of it.
You want it pretty finely chopped
because if it's too big,
it's just going to burn on the grill in big chunks, so.
Okay, I'm just going to move that aside
while I get my garlic going.
Two tablespoons of minced garlic
and you don't have to be overly precise about this.
So I'm going to get the herbs into this bowl
and then I'm going to start working through my garlic
and I am going to cheat and use a garlic press.
Or I like it extra garlicky,
so I'm just going to use what I've got here.
So I'm going to add one and a half teaspoons of salt.
I have this pre-ground black pepper dust just for ease.
I'm going to use a quarter teaspoon.
If I was using fresh ground, I would just eyeball it.
Now I need three tablespoons of olive oil.
In they go.
And this gives the chicken that delightful summery flavor.
I'm just going to mix it up.
So I think I kind of over-indexed on my herbs
and all the excitement,
so I'm just going to add a little bit more
until I get closer to a paste-like texture.
That should be good.
If you were following this recipe
with the exact by the tablespoon measurement,
you wouldn't have to do that, but I am not quite
following the recipe.
Okay, so that's my marinade done
and now we're going to mix the chicken with the water.
So this is the fun part where you get to see
how much water this chicken absorbs.
So I have one cup of water here
and we're just going to add it slowly
a little bit at a time.
You don't want to slosh it all in.
And then you kind of just stir it with your hands
just to kind of work it in
and give the chicken time for it to absorb.
If you're squeamish about touching raw chicken,
well, congratulations on getting this far,
but you could also do this step with a spoon.
And we're already down to,
we've already got a quarter cup in here of water
and I am anticipating using at least a half a cup,
if not a little bit more here.
So I'm just continuing to mix it in
and I've added in a third of a cup now.
All right, so the chicken has absorbed
that last bit of water.
I'm going to go for a full half cup for these pieces.
Okay, so here we go.
Moment of truth.
I added in a half cup of water.
There's a little bit of straggler water
that's taking a little while to absorb,
but once we add the marinade in and this sits overnight,
that's all going to be gone.
I'm going to go in with my herb and garlic marinade now
and then mix it in, cover it into the fridge
and we're going to have some awesome grilled chicken tomorrow.
Just going to use a chicken to scrape every last bit out.
I'm just mixing it together.
And that's the prep.
And now it's ready to go into the fridge.
I'm just going to cover it with a plate
and get it in the fridge.
We've got our marinated chicken.
This has been sitting overnight
and there is no water down there.
So this water has been completely absorbed by the chicken.
It's ready to hit the grill.
We actually have three grills at our house.
We have a charcoal grill, a gas grill,
and then a built-in grill.
But usually we use this grill
just because it's quick and easy.
And that's really the theme of this recipe.
And also the built-in grill is broken.
So it's preheated.
It's been preheating for a good 15 minutes, I would say,
15, 20 minutes.
And you really want to make sure the grill is nice and hot.
So it's about about,
it was at about 500 degrees when I first opened it.
It's hovering at 475
and that's perfect for grilled chicken.
Now, grilled chicken,
any grilled foods can and will flare up,
especially if you have grease hanging around in your grill.
You've been using it a lot over the summertime.
So it's really safest to have someone watching the grill
at all times to avoid ruining your dinner
and burning your food, just like I did two weeks ago.
The trick with grilling chicken,
if there is skin on the chicken,
is that grilling and searing, honestly,
you always want to do skin side down.
So those are the boneless,
the deboned skin on split chicken breasts.
These are my favorite.
We're also going to do some standard boneless,
skinless chicken breasts today.
And honestly, we're not really anticipating
that those cook up terribly, terribly different,
but if you really like chicken skin like I do,
then self-explanatory.
The really nice thing about the bone and skin
on chicken breasts is that you do get the chicken tenders.
So I'm just going to nestle those there for safety.
And it can be a little tricky to prevent those
from falling through the grill.
So just watch them.
As you can see, I've oriented the chicken
such that it's perpendicular to the grill marks,
or horizontal in other words.
And we're going to rotate the chicken
so that we get full sear coverage.
And you want to be rotating the chicken
before you do any flipping.
So keep that in mind.
Atmosphere.
You can entertain yourself as you like
in front of the grill.
Okay, so I did close the grill for just a little bit,
but I can hear some vigorous sizzling,
so I'm going to check on it.
You always want to burp your grill to avoid heat
burning yourself.
So you can kind of see around the edges
that the chicken is cooking pretty quick.
So I'm just going to take a little peek.
What's going on?
So that looks really nice.
So now, like I said, I'm going to rotate it like 45 degrees.
And I'm going to do that with all the pieces.
And you can kind of move it to like a newly hot spot
if you want.
And then I'm just going to let it cook for a little bit.
I mean, this really doesn't need any rotating.
Those chicken tenders are so good.
So since it's cooking pretty quickly,
I think I'm going to leave them uncovered.
And the reason why I know it's cooking quickly
is you can see around the edges,
it's starting to turn white.
So it's kind of like when you look
at the cross section of a piece of salmon
and you can see like the cooked parts start to converge
and meet in the middle.
Same for the chicken.
And if you're nervous,
we do recommend using an instant read thermometer.
And once it hits, I think 155 to 160,
that's when you can be really safe in taking it off
and let it rest.
And then in that residual resting time,
the temperature will come up to 165.
And look at this chicken.
I mean, if this isn't a big old vote
for team skin on bone in, I don't know what is.
This is the skinless chicken breast,
which also looks great.
So like I said, it's a matter of personal preference.
Now I'm going to flip these and look at that chicken skin.
I mean, I will always be a sucker for chicken skin
and that will never change.
And look at those chicken tenders.
Honestly, those are the best part.
No skin on the tendies though.
No.
Okay, so the chicken is done.
We tested the internal temperature
and it's just hovering close to the high 150s.
So we're going to take these off.
That's our juicy grilled chicken.
And I'm really happy with the way this turned out.
And it smells so good.
You could use this as a summertime noon dish.
You could pre-cook it and use it in salads all week long.
It's just a really solid, really good grilled chicken.
And I hope you guys like it.
Since I have been yapping inside, I have been...
You haven't been yapping because this is the next day.
Oh, that's right.
So it's the next day, I'm wearing the same outfit.
Just ignore that.
We are...