Monday I made the Perfectly Poached Chicken Breasts recipe from J. Kenji Lopez-Alt’s The Wok.

His technique is to put skin-on, bone-in chicken breasts in cold water and slowly bring the water to a bare simmer. Once simmering, the pan gets covered and the heat goes down to low. The breasts simmer until reaching a temperature of 150°F.

In a long introduction to the recipe Kenji explains his preference for 150°F-cooked white meat as being juicy and tender but also having a “cooked” texture. And to achieve the same bacteria-killing effect as cooking to 165°F for less than 2 seconds, he says you can hold at 150°F for 2.8 minutes. But the increase in temperature to 150°F is also killing bacteria, even if more slowly. That’s the gist of how Kenji explains safe chicken cooked to 150°F.

Kenji instructs to add scallions and ginger slices in the water, too. Though I didn’t notice any effect on the chicken flavor from that.

Kenji says to expect to hit 150°F after about 25 minutes. It took me about 35 minutes, but my breasts may have been larger than the 1–1.5 lb breasts called for in the recipe. They were large enough to keep the lid from fully closing on the top of the wok. I’ll probably split the breasts down the breast bone if that happens next time.

After they hit temperature, they’re cooled in an ice bath. Not only does this curb carryover cooking, but Kenji says it “firms” the skin and makes for easier slicing.

It was very easy, and the chicken was, indeed, very juicy. Poached chicken is often bland and rubbery. This at least was not rubbery even if it was still bland. I served with the Fragrant Scallion-Ginger Oil for flavor. As far as chicken goes, it was meh. As far as poached chicken goes, it might have been the best I’ve had.

I am cooking my way through J. Kenji Lopez-Alt’s The Wok cookbook. Read more about it.