comments:
How do you calibrate a digital thermometer? It's this one https://www.amazon.com/dp/B017613C3C?ref=ppx_pop_dt_b_asin_title&th=1
Salt your meat at least an hour before you cook it. Ideally you'd season it the night before and just let it sit in the fridge until you're ready to cook it. Salt takes time to migrate into the interior of the meat. Most newbie cooks make the mistake of using high heat for everything. In reality high heat has fewer use cases than you may think. It's for rapidly bringing water to a boil and for searing steaks, but for most other stuff medium or edging towards medium-high is the way to go. Stoves are also going to vary a lot so take this into account. Do mise-en-place. That is, get all your ingredients ready (vegetables washed, peeled, and chopped, protein seasoned, etc) so the process goes smoothly. Taste as you go. i.e. when making a sauce or stew or whatever, taste frequently so you can adjust the seasonings as needed. Buy a meat thermometer if you don't have one already. This is the one I use, it's p great: https://www.amazon.com/ThermoPro-TP-16-Thermometer-Stainless-Standard/dp/B017613C3C/?th=1 Basic pan-seared chicken breast with pan sauce: Mise-en-place: Season your chicken the night before, chop up some onions and crush a couple garlic cloves (as well as any other vegetables you wanna include). Have some broth/stock/wine/beer (i.e. cooking liquid of choice) ready. Black pepper and herbs/spices of your choosing. Pat your chicken dry with a paper towel, then heat up oil in a pan on medium heat. Once the oil starts to shimmer, lay your chicken in there skin-side down. Give it 3-4 minutes, check to see if the skin is golden-brown. If it isn't give it a bit more time. Flip to start cooking the other side. At this point you can slide the thermometer in so the tip is in the middle of the thickest part of the meat. Once the thermometer reads 155*F, move your chicken onto a plate (skin side should be up) and cover it with foil. By this point there should be some golden-brown/dark brown bits stuck to the pan (unless you're using nonstick). So long as it isn't black and burnt, this is good. It's called fond and it's packed with flavor. Add the chopped onion to the pan and cook on medium heat until the onions turn translucent. Add your garlic cloves second and cook a couple minutes until the garlic softens. Add in about a cup of your cooking liquid of choice and bring it to a simmer until the volume reduces by half. Taste the sauce. Season with pepper, your herbs of choice, and salt if needed. Taste again, adjust seasonings as needed. Serve chicken with sauce and bread.