Main ingredients
Chicken recipes
The most-cooked meat on earth.
Chicken is the most forgiving meat and the most frequently ruined, and the reason is that the two halves of the bird want different things — breast is lean and dries out above about 70°C, thigh is fattier and better at 75°C or higher, and cooking a whole bird is a compromise between them. Almost every technique here is a way of managing that: brining, spatchcocking, cooking thighs and breast separately, or simply choosing thighs, which are cheaper, more flavourful and much harder to spoil. The recipes give internal temperatures and rest times because chicken is the one meat where guessing carries a real food-safety cost.
13 recipes
Roast Chicken with Lemon and Thyme
A whole chicken salted and left uncovered in the fridge before roasting hot then moderate, so the skin crisps and the breast stays juicy.
Kung Pao Chicken
Diced chicken stir-fried fast with dried chillies and peanuts in a sauce that is sour, sweet and salty in that order.
Jerk Chicken
Chicken marinated overnight in scotch bonnet, allspice and thyme, then cooked slowly over smoke until the skin is lacquered almost black.
Green Curry with Chicken and Thai Basil
Cracking the coconut cream before the paste goes in is the step most recipes skip, and the one that decides whether this tastes fried or boiled.
Chicken Thigh and Potato Traybake
Bone-in thighs roasted on top of potatoes and lemon in one tin, so the skin crisps above the juices rather than poaching in them.
Chicken and Prawn Paella
Bomba rice cooked flat and never stirred in a wide pan, which keeps the grains separate and toasts a crust onto the base.
Chicken Tikka Masala
Yogurt-marinated chicken charred hard under a grill, then finished in a spiced tomato and cream sauce that only works if the char goes in with it.
Chicken à la King
Poached chicken and mushrooms in a sherry cream sauce with pimento, served over rice, toast or pastry depending on the decade.
Mole Poblano
A long, dark sauce of toasted chillies, nuts, seeds, spices and a little chocolate, poured over turkey or chicken.
Chicken Stock
Stock from a roast carcass, held at a bare simmer for hours so it stays clear, and what the onion and tomato soups both ask for.
Chicken Noodle Soup
Poached chicken and vegetables in a clear stock, with the noodles cooked apart so the broth stays clean rather than thick and starchy.
Chicken Kiev
Crumbed chicken breast sealed around garlic-and-herb butter, chilled hard so the filling stays in until cutting.
Chicken Congee
Rice simmered in eight times its weight of stock until the grains collapse, into a savoury porridge finished in the bowl.