Stuffed chicken breast was the recipe I made the first time I cooked dinner for people I actually wanted to impress. I was nervous, had practiced it twice that week, and still somehow managed to overfill the pocket so that half the filling melted out into the pan during baking. The result was still good…
The first chicken stir fry I made at home tasted nothing like what I ordered from our local Chinese restaurant. The chicken was chewy, the vegetables were either raw or soggy, and the sauce was thin and watery. I figured the difference was the restaurant equipment a proper commercial wok running at temperatures a home…
I bought my first slow cooker because a coworker would not stop talking about hers. She described coming home after a full day to a kitchen that smelled like dinner had been cooking for hours because it had. I figured anything that could produce slow cooker chicken that good was worth twenty dollars at a…
Lemon herb chicken was the first recipe I made that my mother-in-law asked me for. Not a complicated braise or a slow cooked weekend project a simple weeknight chicken with lemon, garlic, and fresh herbs. She had grown up cooking and had never asked anyone for a recipe in her life. That said something. The…
I made crispy oven chicken wings for the first time out of necessity. The fryer I had borrowed was returned before game day and I had two pounds of wings already thawed. I found a recipe that mentioned baking powder, figured I had nothing to lose, and threw them in the oven. They came out…
Juicy baked chicken breast has a reputation problem. Mostly deserved. I spent a long time making chicken breast that came out technically cooked but completely unpleasant – dry, chewy, the kind of thing you eat with enough sauce to distract from the texture. Then I stopped baking it at 350F and everything changed. That one…
The best chicken marinade I ever made was an accident. I was out of my usual ingredients and threw together what I had – olive oil, lemon juice, garlic, soy sauce, and a spoonful of brown sugar. Left it overnight because I forgot to cook it. Pulled it out the next day expecting average results…
Honey garlic chicken was the first recipe I made that actually tasted like something from a restaurant. Not close to restaurant quality actually like it. My family asked me to write down what I did before I forgot, which I never do, so that tells you something. I have made it probably forty times since…
These crispy baked chicken thighs changed the way I cook chicken at home and it started with two simple mistakes I kept makings. They came out fine – cooked through, decent flavor – but the skin was always a little soft. Rubbery, almost. The kind you peel off and set aside instead of eating. Then…