Cooking For Engineers

georgeX6 · Guest

When chicken soup is cooked too long, the chicken gets tough and stringy. About how long should chicken be be boiled at sea level for max tenderness and no stringiness?

Thanks.

GaryProtein · Joined: 26 Oct 2005 Posts: 535

If you think "overcooked" chicken in chicken soup gets tough and stringy, you never cooked it long enough or did something else wrong. Overcooked chicken in soup literally falls apart and is TOO tender, but I like it anyway because the flavor of the soup is stronger. I like to boil the chicken (about 4 pound chicken) for 45 minutes or so, larger ones for an hour to get out all their flavor. I might use two chickens depending on the amount of soup I am making. Other people may like it cooked longer or shorter, but tough chicken coming out of soup isn't cooked long enough.

Michael Chu · Joined: 10 May 2005 Posts: 1654 Location: Austin, TX (USA)

Also, are you using whole chickens (cut up bone in counts too) or boneless skinless breasts? If you're using boneless, skinless breasts, they will never get truly soft because there just isn't enough collogen to convert to gelatin and coat the muscle fibers and so little fat that there's just no natural lubricant. The muscle fibers will just tighten up and stay tight.

DrBiggles · Joined: 12 May 2005 Posts: 356 Location: Richmond, CA

GaryProtein · Joined: 26 Oct 2005 Posts: 535

I forgot to mention that for the best taste, cook the vegetables for 45-60 minutes to fully extract their flavor into the water prior to putting the chicken into the pot. That way their flavor gets into the chicken. If you must have firm vegetables, you can throw out the "well cooked" vegetables and put in fresh ones to come out just tender or el-dente as you finish cooking the soup. I agree with Michael, cut up bones like neck and spine or cleavered/broken rib bones are also great in the soup.

Chicken soup should ALWAYS be made with the skin on the chicken. If you don't cook it with the skin, you'll never get all the chicken flavor into the soup. For the fat-o-phobes, skim the fat off the top or you can let it cool and lift the congealed fat off the top and then re-heat the soup. The taste is worth the effort if you must have completely de-fatted chicken soup.