Cooking Chicken in a hurry

How to choose chicken, prepare chicken and cook to make Indian dishes in less than 30 minutes.

How to select chicken?

Choose skinless boneless chicken

1. Chicken with bone takes longer to cook than the chicken without bone

2. Chicken breast has minimum fat and connective tissue. It takes longer to gelatinize connective tissue.

3. If you are going to marinate chicken, do not use brined chicken.

Cooking Methods

Dry Cooking

This is the quickest method to cook chicken breast

Chicken Tikka Masala in Hurry

Chicken Tandoori in Hurry

Prepare Chicken

1. Pound the chicken breast to about ½" thickness. This allows all the pieces to cook at the same time. Pounding also helps break down tissues, and enable liquids to permeate the chicken quickly.

2. Remove the wax paper. Cut chicken into 16 equal size pieces. Stab each piece twice with a sharp pointed knife.

3. Marinate or Brine chicken. For Indian cuisine chicken is marinated chicken for 20 minutes to one hour at room temperature. Chicken Marinate in Hurry

Cook Chicken

4. Bake chicken in Tandoor, cook on grill, or stir fry in Karahi (Indian wok). I stir fry at medium to hot temperature for about 8 to 10 minutes. Cook till the internal juices will start to run out. Stir frying eliminates time to preheat oven or the grill.

5. Do not cook for extended time period, it will make the chicken dry.

Dry cooking the chicken breast is the quickest method to cook.

Braising

This method takes little longer to cook than the dry cooking.

Chicken Curry in a Hurry

Chicken Makhani in a Hurry

Prepare Chicken

1. Cut the chicken breast in to pieces as follows:

Squares: 1"x1", ½" thick

Strips ½" to 1" wide x 2 to 3" long, ½" thick

Cubes: ½"x½"x½" Some times, you can buy diced ½" cubes in the stores.

2. The next question is to marinate or not to marinate. It is not necessary to marinate, if the thickness of the squares or strips is kept between ¼ to ½".

Cook Chicken

3. Stir fry chicken at medium to hot temperature for about 3 minutes, till chicken starts to turn brown.

4. Add fluids: water, cream, tomatoes, yogurt.... according to recipe. Bring it to a boil

5. Turn down heat. Simmer, covered on low heat for 10 to 15 minutes.