【How 'All-Purpose Chicken Breast' Was Born】Behind the Scenes of Recipe Creation

All-purpose chicken breast is
chicken breast massaged with salt, potato starch, and rice oil.

I came up with the idea and named it.

By doing this,
the chicken breast becomes surprisingly moist and tender,
and since you can prepare and store it in advance,
cooking chicken breast dishes becomes incredibly easy.

How this all-purpose chicken breast came to be,
please let me tell you that story.

1. It started with a TV program

The trigger for coming up with all-purpose chicken breast
was a TV program.

It was a program hosted by Takeshi-san
called 'Minna no Katei no Igaku' (Everyone's Family Medicine).

I was in charge of the cooking segment on that program.
I think I did it for over 10 years,
and I truly learned so much,
for which I am still grateful today.

At one point, the program
asked me for recipes that would allow one to eat chicken breast for a week without getting tired of it.

That was the beginning.

2. Why chicken breast?

There was a researcher studying why migratory birds
can keep flying for such long periods,

and it seems that a component called imidazole dipeptide
has a fatigue-recovery effect,
and because it is abundant in muscles,
they can keep flying without getting tired.
That seems to be the case.

And,
among the ingredients familiar to us,
the one that contains a lot of imidazole dipeptide
is chicken breast.

By eating it repeatedly,
it seems you can become less prone to fatigue and also expect a fatigue-recovery effect.

Nowadays, the fatigue-recovery effect of imidazole dipeptide
has become well known,
but I believe 'Katei no Igaku' was likely the first to feature it on a TV program.

3. How to keep eating chicken breast for a week

Since the request was to be able to keep eating chicken breast for a week,
at first, I thought about coming up with 7 recipes
and making and eating them every day.

But when I actually tried testing them,
I realized that cooking chicken breast from scratch every day is tough.

Taking the chicken breast out of the pack every single day,
cutting it into bite-sized pieces, prepping it...
No, no, no, this isn't sustainable.

So, I thought about what to do.

Wouldn't it be better to prepare it in bulk,
and introduce a variety of dishes that can be made immediately
using that prepped chicken breast?

I proposed that instead.
What I came up with at that time was the all-purpose chicken breast.

(Actually, at that point, it didn't have a name,
and it wasn't until much later in 2021,
when I introduced it on NHK's 'Asa-Ichi', that I named it all-purpose chicken breast.)

4. Tips for deliciously eating dry chicken breast

Chicken breast is dry and not delicious
—that was the reputation at the time.

However,
when comparing the components of chicken thigh and chicken breast,
actually, chicken breast has a higher water content.

Yet, why does it become dry and tough when cooked?

In fact, the way the fibers run in thigh meat and breast meat is different;
thigh meat has a mesh-like structure,
so it can keep the umami and moisture inside even when heated,

but breast meat has fibers that run straight and parallel,
so when heated, it cannot retain them and they flow out.
That is why it becomes tough.

When I learned that,
potato starch!! It occurred to me immediately.

By rubbing in potato starch,
it enters between the fibers and keeps the moisture in.

At that time, if you rub in salt together,
salt also has a water-retention effect,
so it becomes even more delicious!

Salt and potato starch alone would have been fine, but
the reason I thought of rubbing in oil was

because oil has the effect of making the meat tender,
and by coating the surface with oil,
you can block out the air,
which can enhance the preservation effect.

Thus,
salt, potato starch, and oil
the method of rubbing these in was completed.

5. About chicken skin

For the versatile chicken breast, we remove the skin,
and there is a reason for that too.

First, since the skin does not contain imidazole dipeptide,
if you are eating it expecting a fatigue-recovery effect,
I thought it was not necessary.

Also, I feel that the skin of chicken breast
is a bit different in quality from the skin of chicken thigh,
and I don't think it has that much umami,
and since the way heat enters the skin and the meat is different,
removing the skin
makes cooking much easier,
so for the versatile chicken breast, we remove the skin.

However, there are ways to eat the skin deliciously as it is,
so I introduce that separately.

■ Chicken Skin Ponzu Recipe

6. Even cooking with diagonal slicing

Removing the skin of the chicken breast
and slicing it diagonally into bite-sized pieces
might seem troublesome at first glance.

If the effects of salt, potato starch, and oil are there,
couldn't it be left in large pieces? ...is what one might think.

No, no, that is not the case.

One of the reasons chicken breast becomes tough is overcooking.

When you cook it whole,
it inevitably takes a long time to cook,
and since chicken breast has both thick and thin parts,
if you try to cook the thick parts thoroughly,
the thin parts will inevitably become dry from overcooking.

That is why you should slice it at an angle!

By slicing it at an angle, the thickness becomes uniform,
and since it is about 1 to 2 centimeters thick,
it does not take long to cook.
Because you can cook it evenly in a short amount of time,
you can eat it moist and tender without any failures.

7. Storage Method

By removing the air from the bag
and tying the opening tightly,
it can be stored for 3 to 4 days.
(In reality, I store it for longer, but there is no problem.)

When freezing,
I recommend transferring it to a zipper bag
and freezing it flat.

For thawing,
natural thawing is fine,
and microwave thawing is also okay.

Once thawed,
if you give it a good massage through the bag once,
the released moisture will return to the meat,
and it will be in the same state as when it was freshly made.

Giving it a good massage once more,
don't forget this extra step.

8. About Oil

When I first thought of the Versatile Chicken Breast,
I was using olive oil,
but recently, due to the rising cost of olive oil,
I have been using rice oil.

This story is long, so I will save it for another time.

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So,
it got a bit long,
but I have tried explaining the Versatile Chicken Breast.

I would be happy if this is helpful to you.

Also,
if you could make the Versatile Chicken Breast,
I would be even happier,

and if you could enjoy eating it,
I would be even happier than that.

Please, by all means, try making it.

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■　How to make Versatile Chicken Breast recipe

■　Find Versatile Chicken Breast recipes in the table of contents