I think we all agree that freshly cooked meat tastes the best, and reheated offerings are often disappointing. Well these last few weeks I have been exploring the use of the sandwich press as a device to freshly cook meat in my work's kitchen.
The meat I have been cooking is lean chicken thighs. This is the way it works....
At home, I prepare the thigh meat. If the thigh is not well trimmed of fat, take the time to trim (so that you don't have to wear the fat yourself). While you have a knife there, try to make the thigh even in thickness, adding a few extra slits in the thick sections to fully open out the thigh.
Lay an individual thigh out on Glad bake (or alfoil).
Season the meat lightly with Masterfoods Morrocan seasoning (I tried another variety recently and it was not even close in flavour).
Wrap it up - I tend to use the 'fish and chipper' wrapping technique where you start at one corner, fold in the edges and then roll. Imagine the size of your work's sandwich press and try to get a parcel of that size.
I then put the parcel in a plastic luchbox or baggy for the trip to work. Chicken left at room temperature, particularly after it has been handled, can be a microbial mine field, so keep the chicken cool during the trip and at work and cook it that day.
To cook the parcel, first warm up the press and put on any exhaust fans. Place the parcel in the press and put on a timer for 5 minutes (I use a timer on my iPad) but if the parcel is thick, I go up to 7 minutes.
When the timer goes off, turn off the press and transfer the parcel to a plate. You can leave the meat for a few minutes at this stage or eat straight away. Check that the sandwich press is still clean.
The meat will be swimming in its juices when cooked and although this juice is tasty, this will be high in fat, so keep consumption of these juices to a minimum. I tend to eat the meat while still on the paper and in its juice and then wrap the whole lot up when I am finished and pop the excess in the bin.
A cooked lunch at work in under 10 minutes with very little mess. Very nice.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Since writing this entry I do it a little differently now. I cut the thigh into pieces. Obvious I know, but there are two good reasons to do this. First, it means it is easier to disect out the fat and second, it is easier to eat on the go. The drawback is that you are creating more surfaces, so minimise the delay in cooking and eating to avoid microbial build up.
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