Blackened chicken is a popular and easy-to-prepare dish that involves generously seasoning poultry with Cajun spices and cooking it over high heat in a skillet with melted butter. Boneless chicken is recommended, and soaking it in ice water, salt, and sugar or marinating it in bottled oil and vinegar can help keep it moist. Preheating a heavy cast iron skillet and opening windows and doors to ventilate smoke are also important steps.
The blackened chicken brings a depth of flavor that is both exotic and comforting. Diners in restaurants love blackened chicken, and so do home cooks because preparing it isn’t difficult, and the results are visual marvels that taste like what they look like. Blackened chicken is simply poultry that has been generously seasoned with Cajun seasonings, then grilled or cooked over high heat in a skillet.
The first step to creating the blackened chicken that will have diners two paces around the table involves seasoning. Every Cajun cook has a favorite spice mix, but most include hot, ground cayenne powder paired with sweet paprika. Many cooks add dried herbs such as oregano and thyme. This is once fresh herbs are no better because they will burn. Virtually everyone agrees that onion and garlic are a must.
The smart cook adds this spicy mix to a pile of melted butter. Skip the substitutes. For this dish, the butter not only adds its sweet, charming flavor, but it helps with the browning. Patting the meat dry with a paper towel is an important next step because it allows the buttery sauce to shine through and seals in the chicken to keep it moist.
One trick to fabulous blackened chicken is to preheat a heavy cast iron skillet on high heat. Other fat-bottomed pans that don’t warp over high heat, too, but experienced cooks know to ignore any cooker that has been coated with nonstick material for this dish. Another little tip is to chill the chicken before dipping it in the herb-butter mix for the best seal.
Boneless chicken works best, but nobody wants a jerky piece of meat, so it’s important to keep an eye on the cooking process. While this sounds straightforward, it can be a little difficult to see through the ocean of smoke that will be exploding from the pan. That’s why any cook who has already undergone the blackening process knows to open all windows and doors, even in the dead of winter.
A smart way to keep the breast meat from drying out while cooking is to first soak it in ice water, salt, and sugar. It just needs to swim for about half an hour to be able to resist desiccation. Other cooks swear by marinating meat with salad dressing in bottled oil and vinegar as a first step.
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