Airline breast = fanciest chicken white meat

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***RECIPE***

Start with any whole chicken. Remove the wishbone. Remove the wings at the elbows, leaving the humerus bone (drumette). Cut through the meat down to the humerus all the way around the bone, scrape the meat up toward the elbow and remove.

Cut the skin connecting the breast to the leg quarters. Starting at the sternum, peel the breast meat off of the carcass, exposing the still-connected shoulder joint. Cut through the shoulder and the breast should come away with the skin and humerus intact. I like to remove the “tenderloin” muscle that runs underneath the breast.

If you want, you can brine the chicken. Mix up a 3-10% salt solution, depending on how long you plan to brine — less salt for overnight, more salt for an hour or two. I like to put in a little sugar too. Soak the chicken in the brine and blot dry before cooking.

If brined, the chicken probably won’t need any salt on the surface, but you can season with herbs and spices, etc. Put a film of oil in a COLD pan, lay the breasts in skin-side down, turn the heat on medium and let the skin brown slowly. When they’re ready to flip, consider scraping under each breast with a. rigid spatula first to keep the skin from sticking and tearing.

As the cut side of the chicken browns, you could throw some crushed garlic cloves, woody herbs (thyme, rosemary, etc), and butter in the pan to baste. Either baste and flip the breasts continuously in the pan until they’re cooked through, or transfer the pan to the oven. When I’m cooking for myself (and am therefore not that worried about germs), I cook the thickest part of the breast to 155ºF/68ºC, but when I need to be safer I take it to 160ºF/71ºC. It’ll go up a few more degrees as it rests.

Remove the chicken to a plate, dump out the garlic and other solids and deglaze the pan with water or wine to make a sauce. Reduce until almost dry, turn off the heat, wait for all bubbling to stop and stir in as much cold butter as you want.

Slice the chicken and serve sauce on top.

19 Replies to “Airline breast = fanciest chicken white meat”

  1. Please get a sharpener that doesn't damage the blade by ripping the carbides out and leaving a ragged, weak edge

  2. I recommend investing in a boning knife. My chef's knife does most of the knifework in my kitchen, and my boning knife does almost all the rest.

  3. The phrase "Here's how I'm making mash these days" implies Adam changes his method every so often, which means he doesn't get locked up in one method. Keep allowing your cooking to change!

  4. Ah yes, i was looking for a potential recipe to start practicing poultry carving on.

    Thanks!

  5. Your sped up intro shots are not usually your style and are quite jarring. Reminds me of terrible tiktok content. Great vid otherwise.

  6. I never understood people using the term "sexy" for stuff that is anything but a person. Like chill I am not trying to f the chicken ????

  7. I've never seen the wing bone stripped of meat on an airline breast. Is there a reason for this?

  8. This was kind of a missed opportunity to show us how he coordinates the whole meal. He's discussed his favorite way of doing mashed potatoes before, and this is an interesting take on chicken, but what I'd really like to see is one where he explains how to get the timing right for doing them both at once.

  9. 6:53 and 8:49 really make me question if my standards for house keeping are simply too high or if Adam is just trying to make all of us irate.

  10. Pouring grease down the drain?!!! Go Google fatberg.
    ~~ As much as I dislike airline chicken, this version made me hungry! Most banquet/catering servers dislike airline chicken because that bone makes clearing plates difficult. A teetering tower of unbalanced plates.

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