People who love chicken often cook it in many ways because chicken can be boiled, grilled, baked, and the most popular one is to fried it. Many fast restaurant offers fried chicken as their main menu. I will not say that these ways are forbidden because it is possible a common cooking methods in your family but i can assure you that when you cook your chicken these ways, you may lost the essential nutrients that you should not be lost.
A Poach Chicken is a better serving than the other ways because it can simmer gently in the liquid. Not many people know this facts. By poaching a chicken the meat will not lose any important nutrients your body need. In other hand, when you boil or fried it the essential mineral, vitamin, and protein will be gradually regulating.
Furthermore, by poaching a chicken the meat will be softer and more succulent. That’s why people who already know this are prefer to poach it rather than cook it in the other ways. You can also use seasonings while you poaching the meat. It can make your cook tastier. Your family will love it more.
Beside the good taste you will be given good benefits as well. As i mention above, because the nutrients is protected you will have extra health benefits. Those benefits are as listed below.
- Boost Metabolism
A poached chicken may contain higher B vitamins. These group of vitamins have an important role to boost body metabolism. Therefore, phosphorus also presented as one of important minerals in the chicken. This mineral also have an important role to optimizing body metabolism.
- Protect Immune System
The vitamin B Complex that contained in the poached chicken have a unique ability to back up your immune system
A researcher Lars Kjer-Nielsen of the University of Melbourne said that humans are unable to make vitamin B and obtain it mostly from diet. Because bacteria can synthesize vitamin B, our immune system uses this as a point of difference to recognize infection.
- Increase Red Blood Cells
Another function of B vitamins is to increase red blood cell production. The National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute state that to produce healthy red blood cells people need enough B vitamins intakes. Your body need a certain amount of red blood cells to function normally. Lack of red blood cells can drive to anemia symptoms such as feel dizzy, tired, weak, or even headache.
- Lower Stroke Risk
Apparently B vitamin often linked to a lower stroke risk incidents. There have been trials of this research shown that B vitamin can lower risk of stroke incident by 7 percent.
- Prevent Cardiovascular Disease
In poach chicken an essential mineral can help you to avoid cardiovascular disease. The B vitamin also have the ability to lowering levels of homocysteine. It’s an amino acid in your blood that believed can cause cardiovascular disease by promoting blood clots and damaging the inner linings of your arteries.
- Prevent Cell Damage
The essential minerals and vitamin in the poached chicken can be used by the body to prevent cell damage. They may also help the counteract effect of cell damage. The Selenium can help prevent oxidative damage to cells.
- Strengthen Teeth
Phosphorus is known to aid in dental care. It is needed to optimize teeth strength. For children, phosphorus need to form hard structure of teeth during its growth.
- Strengthen Nails
The minerals also important for nails growth. We usually never think that in fact, nails have more useful purposes than only to be decorated. Nails also can help us to grip things stronger, to protect our skin below it, to scracth, and more. Another fact we do not know is we can know how our health condition by looking at our nails. The color of our nails can change pale if we’re occurring malnutrition.
- Improve Bones Health
As we know that bones need mineral such as calcium and phosphorus to keep its strength. For actives people they may need more intakes of these mineral.Good thing that actually phosphorus can naturally occurring in the chicken and when you poach your chicken the phosphorus may not be lost by the heat.
- Lowering Free Radical
Lowering free radical is one of benefits of selenium. Selenium which have an active role as an antioxidant can help prevent free radicals and may reduce the risk of skin cancer.
How to Poach Chicken?
You will need a right method to poach chicken to ensure your chicken is cooked enough. To get started you will need these ingredients:
- 1 pound skinless chicken pieces
- 2 cups of water or broth, or as you needed. If you use broth, make sure that it’s fat free and low sodium.
- 2 teaspoons of spices and herbs, you can pick any spices and herb to match your taste such as onion, garlic, rosemary, ginger, salt, and more
- A large pan
Step 1:
Add about 2 cups of water or broth into a large pan. Leave it until boil then turn down the heat. Wait the liquid to starts simmering gently.
Step 2:
Put the chicken pieces in the pan until it’s covered completely in the liquid. The part which do not fully cover will become dry and tasteless. And remember to not overcrowding them. Then add 2 teaspoons of the spices and herbs.
Step 3:
Cook it until you see no pink color in the meat by covering it partially with a lid. If the pink color in gone your meat might have been fully cooked. But if you see any oozing blood, cook further.
Step 4:
You can serve it with the broth in a plate or a bowl and enjoy your meal.
Poached chicken can be your alternative to gain more benefits. By using a broth to cook your poached chicken and add some spices and herb, you will have more flavor and health benefits. You can serve your poached chicken as your new soup recipe, or just serve it with salad, rice, or pasta. It’s delicious, tender, and succulent. You will get addicted.