SAUTÉED CUTLETS

SAUTÉING A BONELESS, SKINLESS CHICKEN BREAST sounds easy. But too often the chicken comes out only lightly colored and dry. Ideally, a sautéed chicken breast should have a nicely browned exterior and a tender, juicy interior.

Although there are several keys to sautéing boneless chicken breasts successfully, we found that one is paramount: There must be enough heat. Home cooks often shy away from the smoke and splatters that can accompany strong heat. But a thin, delicate food like boneless chicken must be cooked through quickly. Cooking over low or even moderate heat pushes the meat's moisture to the surface before any browning occurs, and, once the juices hit the exterior of the meat, it will not brown at all, unless it is cooked for a long, long time. Furthermore—and this is especially true for a lean piece of meat such as a chicken breast—these same juices provide the lion's share of moisture; expel them, and the result is a tough, leathery piece of meat rather than a tender, moist one.

There are other points to bear in mind. After you have trimmed excess fat from the cutlets and removed the tendons, rinse them quickly under cool water, then dry the meat thoroughly with paper towels; if the cutlets are wet, they will not brown. For the best flavor, we sprinkle salt and pepper generously on both sides of each cutlet.

We sautéed both floured and unfloured chicken cutlets to see if there would be any differences in taste, texture, or juiciness. We immediately noticed a more dramatic sizzle when the unfloured cutlet hit the pan. While both cutlets sizzled during cooking, the unfloured cutlet "spit" a bit more. The flour seems to provide a barrier between the fat in the pan and the moisture in the cutlet. The floured cutlet was also easier to turn and move in the pan; while neither version stuck to the skillet, the floured cutlet skated easily when we swirled it about.

When cooked, the floured cutlet displayed a consistently brown crust, almost resembling a skin. The uncoated breast was a spotty brown. Both breasts were equally moist, but the floured cutlet had a better mouthfeel with its contrasting crispy exterior and juicy, tender meat. The floured cutlet, reminiscent of fried chicken, was also more flavorful than its uncoated counterpart. Our advice: Flour those cutlets.

In our tests, we found that a 12-inch skillet can comfortably hold four chicken cutlets of about six ounces each (crowded meat will not brown well). Unless the bottom of the pan is reasonably heavy, the chicken will scorch. We tested nonstick and enamel-coated pans and found them perfectly acceptable, but we prefer bare metal—stainless steel or an alloy—as it seems to yield more intense color.

The best cooking medium for chicken cutlets is vegetable oil, which provides excellent browning and won't burn. In a concession to the reigning wisdom about health, we tried sautéing a batch of cutlets in just the sheerest film of oil. The results were disastrous. The oil burned, the outside of the chicken became dry and stringy, and the crust was very disappointing, nearly blackened in some spots and a strange yellowish color in others. For sautéed food to become crisp and uniformly brown, the entire surface must stay in contact with the fat. Meat has an irregular surface, so those parts not in contact with the cooking medium—in this case, the oil—are steamed by the moisture generated by the cooking meat and, therefore, will not brown. For this reason, you will need about two tablespoons of fat in the pan at the start.

Place the oil in the skillet and set the pan over high heat. (While everyone's stove is different, most home burners are quite weak. To get enough heat under the pan to brown the cutlets, you really need to set the burner on high.) Once the oil shimmers, quickly add the cutlets, with the tenderloin-side down, holding onto the tapered end as you lay each cutlet down flat.

Maintain the heat at the point where the fat remains at a fast sizzle but does not quite smoke. If you see more than just a wisp or two of smoke, immediately slide the pan off the burner, turn down the heat a bit, and wait a few seconds before returning the pan to the flame. Be advised that there will be some spattering.