Effects of cooking methods on chicken breast?

Question

Hi, i did an experiment on the effects of different cooking methods on protein food and i chose chicken breast. i chose steaming, baking and stir-frying for the experiment. please note that all factors are constant before cooking(weight of chicken, time of each cooking method). the problem now is after each cooking methods, i had to weigh the cooked chicken breast. but instead of weighing them first, i tasted the chicken, and now the weight aren't accurate. i need your help and tell me which cooking method will cause the chicken breast to decrease its weigh the most and the least. i need to know it in sequence for these 3 cooking methods i've chose (steaming, baking, stir-frying)


to those chefs, really need your help.

Answer 1

Depends how you're doing it. Straight baking will remove the most moisture, steaming the least, stir fry in between.

But if you pan sear it before baking, then it seals in the juices, and it won't dry out.

Also I haven't often heard of steamed chicken.

But mostly it depends on the quality of chicken. Chicken is often injected with added water to increase the weight. Higher quality chicken will have less water, and thus lose less and shrink less. I had a bad problem with this recently because my roommate bought some cheap frozen chicken and after it cooked it was half the size because it had that much water in it. It wasn't really fit for cooking, it was really sad.

So buy good chicken and you won't have to worry too much about it. Another thing, if you bake it with the skin and bone on the chicken will again lose less moisture, and have the most flavour. You don't have to eat the skin, you can take it off after it's done.

So try taking a chicken breast with bone and skin on, you can make a pocket just under the skin and put spices and butter and such in there, which will give it a good taste throughout, even after the skin is removed.

But yeah, skin is definitely in if you want juicy chicken.

Answer 2

The Archimedes Principle will work in this situation since ultimately you are trying to establish density
Get a small biscuit cutter, punch out a plug from each breast.
Trim so they are all the same volume
Place a specific amount of water in a clear measuring cup
Add one plug of chicken and measure how far the water rises
The breast w/ the most water in it will cause the greatest increase in water level.
The worst that could happen is that you get extra credit for being so danged creative.

Answer 3

The quickest and most convienient way for you to cook a lot of chicken at a time would be in the oven. If you use the Foreman grill it'll take a while, and you'll have to keep an eye on it. Just pop them in the oven on a baking sheet or pyrex pan. Cook at 350 for 20-30 minutes,

Answer 4

Bakign: lose most weight
Stir-fry: lost some weight
steaming: lose least weight, b/c water is going back into the flesh.

Answer 5

I'd redo the experiment, and this time, weigh the chicken before you taste it.