Hi all,

Most recipes and videos I have seen online start with a yogurt based marinade for the chicken. The chicken is then “seared”, removed from the pan, rest of sauce built up and chicken returned to finish cooking.

My issue here is that you cannot really sear wet stuff in a pan. So that chicken, covered in yogurt marinade will not really sear (even if you shake off the excess). You basically get a braising conditions in the pan. This probably DOES work in a grill as the marinade simply drips into the coals and burns but not in a pan.

So the question is:

  • Wouldn’t it be better to dry rub the chicken so it could be seared and simply use the yogurt (and rest of wet ingredients for the marinade) as a deglazing liquid afterwards?
  • Jhex@lemmy.worldOP
    1·
    8 days ago

    This is why I am asking… I have a pretty solid recipe and last I made it, the whole searing issue hit me so I wrote alternative instructions the made more sense to actual get a sear.

    I will try it tomorrow unless a comment here convinces me it’s a bad idea.

    For example, you are correct in that I may end up with crispy meat which I don’t think it’s a great idea for this dish. However, I can always stop searing before a full crust forms, just some nice fondant. I believe the entire point is just to reduce some of those flavours so the sauce is more complex.

    On that note, I always sear beef when I do stew, the entire sear/crust/fondant just melts into the sauce so the meat is never crispy in the end but the sauce is nicer for it.

    Thanks for your feedback. Whatever I decide for tomorrow, I will post feedback here after the fact

    • __Lost__@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      2·
      8 days ago

      Yeah, you’re right about searing beef for stew, so this might end up the same. I think it would depend on how much you cook the chicken on its own compared to how long it cooks in the sauce. Like if you completely cook the chicken then add it to the sauce, you will definitely have crispier chicken. Like chicken in mole sauce. If you just get it a bit brown but still raw inside, you’ll probably have softer meat which will be closer to the ideal for this dish. I’m not really sure where the correct cut over point is, but I’m curious. Please post any results you get, this is exactly the kind of thing I tend to mess around with when reading recipes.