Velveting Chicken
August 11, 2014Velveting chicken is a traditional Chinese technique for preparing chicken for cooking. It keeps then chicken succulent and juicy when cooked in a stir-fry, but is a great way to keep breast meat (which is notorious for becoming dry easily) from drying out in many other dishes like pies or bakes.
Mix up a marinade of egg white and cornstarch/cornflour, how much of each will depend on the amount of chicken you are preparing. A ratio 1 egg white to 2 table spoons of cornstarch/cornflour is usually about right, you want the consistency to resemble single cream/half & half.
Coat the chopped, raw chicken in the mixture and leave to marinate for at least half an hour, fry the chicken in a little oil until it have become opaque white all over.
At this point you can set the chicken aside, ready to use in any dish as you would raw chicken. The meat obviously will still be raw in the center and will require extra cooking but this will done as part of the finished dish preparation.
You can marinate the chicken over night but do not fry it until you are ready to prepare the full dish, you don't want to have half cooked chicken hanging about and making people poorly!
Whilst traditionally used with chopped chicken breast (as it needs a lot of help to stay juicy) this can be used with other meats and is particularly useful when using turkey, another one for drying out!
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