Poached chicken takes a little faith

Poaching chicken is one of our favorite tricks for producing a stash of moist meat that becomes a building block for a speedy dinner tonight, plus another dinner later on.

If you can boil water, you can poach chicken. The tricky part is to have a little faith in the method, as it does sound too easy to be true.

So here goes: Take a bunch of boneless, skinless chicken breasts, and put them in a soup pot. Add enough cold water to cover the chicken. Put a lid on the pot, and bring it to a rolling boil over high heat. This will take 5 minutes or so.

Now for the faith factor: As soon as the water boils vigorously, take the pot off the heat. Let it stand, covered, until the chicken is cooked through. This will take about 15 minutes.

The natural tendency is to doubt whether the chicken will get done. However, the water is plenty hot for the job, plus taking the pot off the heat is the secret to ending up with tender, moist meat. This works so long as you use boneless, skinless chicken breasts, which aren't so moist and tender if you boil the daylights out of them.

When we poach chicken, we usually do a lot of it because it's easy to freeze and defrost for meals later on. So poach a double batch of chicken (about 1½ pounds), and use half for today's Bowtie Pasta with Chicken, Grapes and Peas. Freeze the rest, and in a couple of weeks, we'll publish another great recipe for using your stash. For those who prefer an exact, step-by-step recipe for poaching chicken, visit our website at KitchenScoop.com.

Suggested menu: Bowtie Pasta Salad with Chicken, Grapes and Peas, assorted crackers and frozen yogurt, for dessert.

Write to Beverly Mills and Alicia Ross at Desperation Dinners, c/o United Media, 200 Madison Ave., New York, NY 10016, or send tellus@kitchenscoop.com. More at the Desperation Dinners website, kitchenscoop.com.