I see them here all the time, too. They ARE more expensive, as is any chicken part is that’s cut off from a whole chicken. (Which costs less per pound than breast, thighs, wings, etc.). I also see thin flat slices of chicken (and turkey breast) ready to use in a recipe, and that costs more per pound, too.
The price and availability of chicken parts is kind of arbitrary. Right now my local grocer carries all pre-packaged chicken parts from Perdue and the like. The tenders are usually less than the boneless, skinless whole breasts. The thin sliced chicken breasts are the most expensive. Previously when they butchered the chicken inhouse, the tenders were usually still attached to the boneless breasts and cost more to buy them seperately. For groceries that sell the pre-packaged stuff, what they carry is usually based on previous sales, so if they aren’t carrying them, just ask for them and they can include some in the next order. I would cynically expect them to cost more if you do that.
I certainly understand the value of convenience, but slicing a whole boneless breast into fingers is pretty easy to do.
As another note on the OP, pounding is the way to get uniform thickness after butterflying. It also breaks up the fiber in the meat maintaining an even texture after cooking. Parts of the meat can be denser than others. Chicken is pretty tender anyway, but the difference in density can be apparent after cooking.
My complaint is that the whole chickens are huge. Properly made fried chicken needs a small chicken, a fryer, which used to be much smaller, allowing the chicken to fry faster. The last chicken I saw sold as a fryer weighed over 2 lbs. I can go to the butcher and ask for small pieces for frying and get something reasonable sized, but overpriced.
There is no such thing as sealing in juices.
Not much more to add on why to even out the thickness of a piece of meat. You can get a good char on the outside (or brown when breaded and fried) without burning the outside waiting for the inside to cook.
You might try a hybrid method with a bigger chicken. I shallow fry for color and taste, then finish in a 400 degree oven, pulling out the pieces as they hit the right temperature.
What I came in to say. HOWEVER: if you use a breading on the flattened chicken, a moister product will usually result. Unless you fry it to death.
The myth gets distributed to another generation when a TV celebrity chef repeats that falsehood (I’m looking at you, Pat Neely). Alton should have stormed the set and beat him to death with a rolling pin.
In fairness, I heard that meme since I was a wee bairn (I’m 65 now) and thought it was common knowledge. I don’t think I was truly educated about it until the last decade or so.
The ‘sealing’ thing would bother me more if had any effect on the way I cook. So it doesn’t seal in the juices, okay, but still no harm done.
I am a little tired of hearing about the Maillard reaction though. This is America, we call it browning.
Try a farmer’s market. I formerly raised chickens and I refused to grow the hybrid monsters that have taken over. I bet you could find someone local to you that does the same.
Of course no harm done: the real flavor we associate with meats is from the browned bits. Browning can actually be the result of either the Maillard reaction or caramelization, or a combination of both. Visually, they’re pretty much the same thing, but are different processes that I’m not even going to attempt to explain.
That’s what I get at the butcher shop. It’s a high end place, and I’m a little wary about the lower end places that have great deals on all sorts of meats. There’s a large chicken farm nearby, but they grow the frankenchickens there.
Gotta love regional wierdnesses at grocery stores. I’ll bet you also have no problems finding “Pick of the chick” cut-up chickens that feature no backs and possibly no wing tips. I like those for making soup as all those little vertebrae are no fun in soup, but stores around here never seem to have them. No big deal - I prefer dark meat anyway.
And of course, I keep forgetting that stores sell frozen chicken parts.
Heck, I LIKE having the wing tips and backbones, they make great soup. However, I will use a wire mesh strainer on the broth, to catch the bones and the meat that’s been boiled to death, and the vegetable trimmings. Then I add in the meat and vegetables that I want in the finished soup.
The last time I made a roast chicken, my husband was very upset that the giblets weren’t included. He LIKES the liver and gizzard, and sometimes the heart, too.
Mmmm, lizards and gizzards. I haven’t seen a Pioneer Chicken in ages, don’t even know if they still exist, but their bucket of lizards and gizzards was a fabulous treat.
I don’t like liver from any animal, but I’m willing to buy it, and I’ll even try to cook it, for my husband and the cats. The cats think that chicken liver is even better than the rest of the chicken.
If you can’t find small fryers in your 'hood, try Cornish game hens. There’s nothing “Cornish” nor “game” about them. They’re just young chickens.
They’re all white meat, and they are huge these days also. Which makes them about the right size for a fryer, which were supposed to be young chickens also. They’re sporadically available around here.
It might be more expedient to buy frozen chicken parts. Or have those gone steroidal as well?
They have big bags of those at BJs. I haven’t tried them. I prefer fresh. But it’s not that big of a deal. I’ll go down to the butcher shop and get what I need. It’s not that big of a deal, this thread just reminded me that I haven’t made fried chicken in a while, and it’s about time to do it. I’d probably do it more often if I saw the chickens I wanted at the grocery. I don’t eat that much chicken anymore, I’m somewhat sensitive to it, but I’m suspecting it’s some of the mutagens they feed them. But fried chicken is one of those perfectly designed foods when done right.
I have a cookbook called Southern Cooking that tells how to properly prepare fried chicken. I’ve been meaning to give it a try, but it’s a two-day process, what with the brining and the buttermilk soak. It sounds terrific, though.