Fabulous Alex! I will try this for a boneless, skinless chicken breast (although I like the skin, I sometimes buy them). 9.5 times out of 10 I overcook them and they come out dry - sauce or no sauce. They can be undercooked one minute and overcooked the next. I had given up.
>________________________________ > From: Alex Stanley <j_alexander_stan...@yahoo.com> >To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com >Sent: Monday, April 1, 2013 6:03 PM >Subject: [FairfieldLife] Free Man In Fairfield, v1.0 > > > >Despite being the laziest person on the planet, overeating at Rory and Rena's >Easter potluck, sleeping like crap, and dragging my sorry carcass out of bed >at 7am, I actually had a very productive day. > >First project: I decided to upgrade the iMac that serves up >http://alex.natel.net/ from Snow Leopard to Mountain Lion. And rather than >simply running the downloaded upgrade app, I extracted the install data from >the download and used it to create a bootable USB flash drive. That way, I >always have bootable media from which to reinstall the OS, even if the hard >drive shits the bed. > >Second project: Putting together an EP-960 Teeter Hang Up inversion table. The >written instructions that come with it are worthless, and just as I was about >to call up the company and rip 'em a new one, I remembered the DVD that came >with it. So, I fired it up, and sure enough, the DVD has a chapter that >perfectly demonstrates proper assembly. Duh. > >Getting back to the potluck... > >Law of Nature: The positively absolutely unmistakably *BEST* way to cook >boneless skinless chicken breast is sous vide at 140 deg F for 3 hours. > >My favorite source of external validation is cooking outstanding food for >potlucks, and potlucks chez Rory and Rena are great because they are a >meat-friendly household. So, on Saturday morning, I cooked a couple organic >chicken breasts at 140 deg F for 3 hours and then popped the bag into the >fridge until Sunday morning. I then made some balsamic vinegar reduction, >using a recipe I found online that called for balsamic vinegar, soy sauce, and >brown sugar. Big mistake. > >Law of Nature: The *ONLY* ingredient in a balsamic vinegar reduction is >balsamic vinegar. > >The soy sauce and sugar ruined it, so I tossed it down the drain and made a >fresh batch in accord with Natural Law. > >Rena was going to make roast lamb, and I suggested she buy some Crosse & >Blackwell mint sauce, which is a vinegar based mint sauce, instead of that >godawful, radioactive green, jelly crap. She couldn't find any, so I made my >own version of it. I made a cider vinegar reduction, sweetened it with >jaggery, and infused mint leaves in the hot reduction. > >I woke up Sunday morning and did my usual Sunday ritual: had my coffee, turned >on the far infrared sauna, and watched CBS Sunday Morning from inside the >sauna. After that, I hit the kitchen. First task: make lime-ginger flash >pickles. Inspired by this video: > >http://youtu.be/yuDFFJ2mazg > >I make a pickling liquid from either fresh squeezed lemons or limes and then >use a vacuum canister and the vacuum port on my foodvac to vacuum infuse the >liquid into the cucumber slices. This time, I used limes, and for the first >time, used the single-gear juicer to make fresh ginger juice to add to the >citrus. In the future, I won't add quite so much ginger, as the pickles were a >bit medicinally bitter. I almost didn't bring them to the potluck, but I'm >glad I did because people LOVED them. > >Second task: make the chicken breast hors d'oeuvres. I cut the chicken breast >into neat little rectangles and topped them with fresh basil and/or fresh >tarragon and half a cherry tomato, with a toothpick holding them together. >Then I drizzled them with the balsamic vinegar reduction. I tried one and was >totally blown away... unbelievably delicious. What's great about cooking >chicken at 140 degrees is that very little liquid separates out; it's fully >cooked, and any microorganisms are destroyed, but the meat is not subject to >higher temperatures where the proteins contract and express out all the >moisture. At the potluck, the chicken breast was a HUGE hit; people raved >about it, and they polished off the entire platter. > > > > >
