How to make a perfectly cooked chicken?

You may be wondering why one should take the time to read about a topic that’s been written about so much. When you search for advice, you will find many sources. Some will provide exact temperatures and times, while others will give you an exhaustive guide. Much of the time, they work. But there are also many cases when they do not. Even if you are the Michelin-starred chef in your household, it’s hard to get perfectly cooked chicken.

Do not ignore the science behind cooking. You can control the taste and the aroma if you know what’s going on inside that cooking pan. Each time you cook the dish, you will come up with the same taste.

Read the blog to learn how to make the chicken with a tender bite, juice oozing out, and each strand of muscle melting into your mouth.

Table of Content

How to achieve that finest of tenderness?

You must have heard people saying, “Oh, the bite was so soft,” or “The chicken bone came clean out of the meat,” or even, “Oh no, it’s chewy, hard, and dry.” Why this difference in dialogue? Simple, either because the chicken is too young or too old. Well, yes, it is a deciding factor.

There are three types of muscles: skeletal, smooth, and cardiac. The skeletal muscle forms body parts like legs, arms, and thighs. It runs along the bone and helps with movement. The internal organs, like the digestive system and blood vessels, are smooth muscles. In contrast, cardiac tissue is somewhere between skeletal and smooth. Mostly the skeletal muscle of the chicken is the one that we eat.

The skeletal muscle is a collection of muscle fibers. Have you ever seen a stack of hay? How are the hay bales piled together with a thread? The collection of muscles is similar but more organized. The connective tissues (endomysium) bind the muscle fibers into many groups. The groups come together and form bundles. The connective tissue holding the groups together is the perimysium. All the bundles together create a single skeletal muscle. The connective tissue sheet covering the muscle is the epimysium.

What are these connective tissue?

Connective tissues look like a matrix of protein fibers and jelly-like substances with cells floating in them. The protein fibers are collagen and elastin. The jelly-like matter is the ground substance.

The collagen provides strength to the tissue, and elastin makes it flexible. Collagen is not soluble in water, yet it can dissolve when cooked for a long time. But elastin is not at all soluble. The ground substance is water, salt, and glucose. The gel-like appearance is because of complex carbohydrates.

There are many types of connective tissue, like blood, lymph, and fat tissue. Each has a different construction. In some places, amounts of collagen may be high, like in tendons. Elastin is more abundant in ligaments, making them stretchable. The ground substance is dense and solid, like bone.

In muscles, collagen creates cross-links, which increase in number with age. So, the younger chicken tastes better than the older ones, as the cross-links make the meat tough.

You can find the details on muscle fiber in the following blog.

“Do you know the secrets of chicken tenderness”?

The cooking of muscle fiber?

Everyone knows that cooking usually tenderizes food and makes it more digestible. As soon as the heat is increased, larger molecules break down into smaller ones. However, this isn’t the case for chickens. Its tenderness follows a rising and falling pattern during the cooking process.

Protein has three structures: primary, secondary, and tertiary. The first one is only the long chains of amino acids. The amino acids form bonds to form a wave- or sheet-like secondary structure. This, when coiled or twisted, creates the 3D format.

The heat disturbs the second and third structures of the protein. Thus, only the long chain of amino acids remains. These chains come together and make the protein compact. The protein loses its structure and becomes rigid. It releases bound water, and the meat shrinks. The collagen still holds the shrunken muscle fiber. The meat toughens gradually and reaches its peak at around 50 °C. The initial toughness is known as rigor calories.

Above 50, with an increase in each degree, the collagen dissolves slowly. The process continues until the temperature reaches 65 °C. The cross-linking of muscle weakens it, thus making it soft.

Overcooking

The chicken you cooked in haste turned out tough and stringy. So you took the extra time to slow cook it. But to your dismay, you had the same disappointing result. You felt frustrated and let down, but you knew you had to find a new store for your next purchase.

The chicken you bought may be a problem, but the cooking method is equally important. Let us find out how?

The meat begins to lose its tenderness once it crosses 65 °C. It becomes rigid and stingy once it reaches the 85 °C mark. The collagen number decreases drastically after a certain point. It makes the meat proteins shrink more and lose water. The meat becomes chewy and stringy.

The amount of collagen is equally important. Too many cause a strong bond among the shrunken muscle proteins, whereas too few can be even more harmful. The loss of linkages causes the bond to loosen to the point where muscle proteins are severely damaged.

What is juiciness?

The chicken is juicy, not because it can hold much water. But it shows several other attributes. Our experience with food starts with seeing and smelling. The aroma and appeal of the food make us like or reject it. Next comes the taste. The mouth does that job for us. It cuts the food into smaller portions and releases the juices.

The juices relate to the water-holding capacity and the fat percentage.

Fat inside the muscle

Adipose connective tissue is the carrier of fat cells. The cells contain a nucleus, cytoplasm, and fat-filled space. The size of the space varies as per the fat content. Sometimes it is so big that it covers almost the area in the cell. It pushes the cytoplasm and the nuclei toward the cell wall.

The fatty tissues lie between the muscle bundles inside the perimysium. During cooking, the adipose connective tissue’s proteins break down with the muscle protein. It causes the fat droplets to leak through the cell wall. The fat droplets get mixed with the damaged collagen. It eventually flows out of the muscle tissue with water and dissolved collagen.

The fat coats the mouth and keeps it moist for a long time. And also adds to the flavor of the chicken. Everything together creates a feeling of juiciness.

Water holding capacity

It is the result of drip loss and hydration. Let us talk about it one by one.

Drip loss

The drip loss is the amount of water and other extracts lost during aging and cooking. The aging process causes the protein to lose its hold on the water. Some weak bonds between the muscle proteins trap this water. When protein degrades during aging, the water drips out of the muscle. It contains protein extracts and fat. The drip loss depends on how much the protein is damaged during the rigor mortis.

In the case of cooking, the muscle further loses its ability to hold the water. We have discussed earlier that heating causes a change in the protein structure. This change is much more significant than the one that takes place during aging. As a result, it can vary depending on the heat and time ratio. Prolonged heating can cause the protein to lose more water. It makes the meat chewy and dry.

Hydration

This is directly related to the meat’s calcium, sodium, and phosphorus ions. Usually, the ions are so tightly bound to the muscle that it never comes out as drip loss. And keep the muscle hydrated. But a lower pH of 5.6 can weaken the ion and increase the drip.

Marination

It helps in retaining the water-holding capacity and reduces drip loss. Usually, an ionic marination, like a brine, is much more helpful than an acidic one. The ions help to maintain the hydration level in the muscle protein.

The presence of water makes the protein breakdown more smooth. It causes less damage to the protein. This helps to achieve the desired protein level and maintain the perfect tenderness.

What are flavoring components?

A perfectly cooked meat will develop a browned flavor. It is due to the volatile compounds of ammonia, hydrogen sulfide, amines, and organic acids. These result from changes in fat, proteins, and other compounds during cooking.

Perfect cooking

There is no exact definition of perfect cooking. You can make your chicken easy to handle by keeping a few things in mind. Whether you are going for steaming or roasting, always marinade your meat. Salts are the best choice. Yet vinegar or lemon also does the magic.

Cooking on moist heat is preferable to cooking on dry heat. Heating causes severe vibration and damages the protein badly. The presence of water makes the breakdown smooth and causes less damage. As a result, water storage capacity is increased.

Slow cooking is better than high-heat cooking. If you are going for slow cooking, ensure that you don’t cook for a long time. Try to reach up to 74 °C and hold for 2 to 3 minutes at that temperature.