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Duchess of Umbrage · @iBlame

919 followers · 3149 posts · Server kolektiva.social

Glutton of Umbrage Report:

All y’all pressure-cookin’ foodies probably already know this, but for some reason I didn’t: steaming chicken thighs in an instapot (hi temp, 7 minutes, natural release, on a rack over 1 cup of water) yields the most outrageously succulent result in the history of succulence.

No shit. Orders of MAGNITUDE succulent-er than poaching, sous-vide, grilling, baking, or pan-frying.

Or, in this case, smoking. Needed some cooked, shredded chicken for King Ranch Casserole and was too wan and languid to fire up the smoker in this heat, so for the first time I went for the quick, lo-energy, set-it-and-forget-it pressure-cook option.

My expectations were low. But oh my god. I scarfed down practically half the batch right out of the pot, it was otherworldly how juicy it was. Granted, you lose the color and the smoky flavor, but hell, it’s a casserole, you can just chuck in some extra chipotle or smoked paprika to make up for it. I’ll never go back to the smoker for shredded chicken, and am gonna use the insta-method for chicken salad as well, no question. The texture is just too good.

Am also gonna experiment with applying a glaze after cooking and caramelizing it with a blowtorch to fix the color/crust problem for non-casserole applications.

Lagniappe: it makes a serviceable chicken broth at the same time if you first chuck some aromatics (onion, garlic, carrot, celery, peppercorns) into the steaming water.

Note: I’ve only tried this with thighs. Breast meat will probably be good too, but I suspect is unlikely to produce quite as bonkers an outcome.

#cooking #succulence