Poaching Chicken is Handy (and Tasty!!)

Hello! We've been on a small break from writing due to some company visiting from colder climates and other such things. So we're finally sitting down to write about some of the better things we've cooked over the past few weeks.

One night a couple weeks ago we were craving some chicken tacos. We wanted to figure out the best way to make good chicken taco meat, so we decided to try poaching.  I've always been turned off by the word "poach" because it makes me think of boiling and bland, but it turns out it's the opposite of bland!  The chicken actually comes out juicy and flavorful.  Since poaching allows you to be creative with the flavors that go into the chicken, we could easily apply it to making some flavorful chicken for our tacos.

To start we placed the chicken in a pot (we used breasts with the bone in and skinned, but it could be any pieces). We then added whatever amount of left over chicken stock we had in the fridge, and then enough water to cover the chicken. You can use just water for poaching, but it's better to use stock to infuse more flavors into the chicken. We also threw in some liquid from a can of tomatoes that we drained since we were going to use the tomatoes later in the tacos.  We also threw in some garlic, onion, celery, oregano, red pepper, salt, and pepper. Basically, you can throw in whatever spices, herbs or aromatics you wish to flavor your chicken with. It's probably a good idea to use flavors in the poaching liquid to go along with the theme of the meal.

We brought it to a boil and then quickly turned it down to a simmer ( and covered the pot. We left it at a slow simmer for about 12 minutes  (10-15 minutes or so depending on the amount and thickness of the chicken... though it could be much longer if you have a few pounds of chicken in there).  After the simmer, we turned off the burner, and left the chicken in the poaching liquid for another 10-15 minutes before taking it out to cool. This allows the chicken to soak up all those good juices and flavors while it finishes cooking.  You can then use the chicken in recipes that require cooked chicken (like tacos) or eat it on its own (on a salad, yum).

We then sauteed some onions and tomatoes along with some seasoning in a fry pan. After the onions softened and browned a little, we tossed in our poached chicken and had ourselves some delicious chicken tacos topped with fresh chopped avocado. Yum!

From Kitchen Assays