Topic: Pre cooked chicken

[mickyp]

The way i understand it is that Restaurants pre cook for speed, so in order to replicate the texture / taste of what we eat out we should pre cook as well, if im pre cooking i tend to marinate and cook as tikka, if its going into a sauce i use hot air in the oven rather than grilling and only cook to it enough so it finishes off in the sauce.

I wondered what other forum members do ?

[Peripatetic Phil]

I gave up on pre-cooking chicken some time (i.e., some years) ago.  I have never liked chicken tikka in a curry (I like each separately, but not combined), and as I am not in such a great hurry as your typical BIR chef, I prefer to cook my curries for longer and allow the (raw) chicken to absorb as much of the flavour of the sauce as possible without becoming over-cooked.  For mutton, it depends on the dish, but for most dishes (and certainly for a  biryani) I find that pre-cooking is essential unless one is willing to go the whole "dum biryani" route; even that cooks the mutton separatel;y from the rice for about 3/4 hour before the two are brought together for the final finishing off.

** Phil.

[mickyp]

Thanks Phil, so would i be right in that you cook the chicken in the sauce without searing in the pan first.

[Peripatetic Phil]

Well, not in the sauce per se

[mickyp]

yep gotcha, thanks

[Unclefrank]

If i am cooking for a few people, 6-8, i just add the chicken raw to each dish but if i am cooking for over 10 then i pre-cook just for ease of cooking and less time in between cooking each dish, when i am cooking for customers i try to get all orders in then i can decide if it warrants pre-cooking.. I do a Work Menu which is half the normal curry amount and 1/2 serving of rice, served in a two compartment container, if i have a few orders of those then i just add raw, so 10 orders i only need to cook 5 full curries.

[livo]

I've been using Misty Ricardo's method for pre cooked chicken and lamb ever since I bought his book. It works for me. I've also used the Kushi method previously, as well as their method for pre cooked vegetables. Another easy pre cook is to boil in a diluted base gravy mix after first making a small infused oil. I only use tikka in CTM.

[jalfreziT]

I'm fully aligned with the ever-practical Phil. Starting off chicken in the pan with G/G until white, then cooking the curry for a little longer than the recipe. I also use a cheap temperature probe to double check the temperature in the largest chicken chunks.

In trying to emulate BIR, I've come to the conclusion that it's important to split BIR techniques in to :

1. those done for speed/efficiency/cost reasons.
2. those that are done for flavour/texture/mouthfeel/looks.
3. those done for both reasons.

In "group one", I have:

- Pre-prepared G/G (IMO used for speed).
- Alu pans (IMO done for reasons of cost and rapid heating up of the thin pan in a busy kitchen).
- Used frying oil (IMO used as an easy way to dispose of used oil, rather than having to collect and transport it for disposal, and possibly paying a disposal fee).
- High output burner (IMO used for speed).

[mickyp]

Its good to know what other people do, JT i agree with the points you raise, regarding high output burners i believe as long as you can caramelise the sauce your ok, Livo i follow Misty"s recipe,s too

UF that makes total sense,

[Naga]

I poach my chicken in large batches using Chewy's marinate-and-poach method. Batch-poaching allows me to freeze the cooked chicken in ziploc freezer bags for later use and, for me at least, is much more convenient than prepping fresh chicken every time I want a curry.

I do the same with chicken tikka and poached or tikka lamb.

I freeze most things curry-related - pastes, pre-cooked meats, base gravy etc - in fact, just about anything that can be batch-cooked and frozen most definitely will be!