It really depends on the texture you are looking for in your finished product. If you want a chunky chicken salad then bake your chicken breasts seasoned or not, I season mine, and then cube them. If you want something a little more exciting pan grill the breasts to the point of a little char and then dice. If you want your chicken to be flavorless and get all of your flavor from the mix you are tossing your chicken into, boil it or put it in a slow cooker if you are cooking up a big batch.
It all really comes down to how you like to eat your chicken salad, and more importantly how pretty you want it to look in your serving method, because a cajun blackened chicken salad sandwich can look down right homely. I say try them all until you fall in love with one temporarily and when that has lost its passion try a different version.
Also as a side note if I am preparing it for me and not for someone else, so it doesn't have to be all white and pretty, I use thighs instead of breasts since they are more forgiving and generally cheaper. If I am not just breaking down a whole chicken and using the leftovers.
I have to admit that I haven't tried a lot of free-form jerky experiments so take what I say with a grain of salt. (see what I did there?)
Jerky is a double action meat preservation method. You soak the meat with way too much salt and then dehydrate it. Bacteria don't stand a chance. As Alton says in that episode "Club med becomes club dead". Not one of his best puns but it gets the point across.
Salt (or soy sauce, same thing) isn't required for the drying process but it is important for long term preservation. I have seen recipes that try to reduce it but I would never leave it out altogether. I would expect a reduced salt recipe to not have the longevity that most jerky has- If stored in an air tight container it will last nearly forever.
The non-salt ingredients don't really matter as long as they won't oxidize or pick up bad flavors during dehydration. The type of sugar also doesn't matter- although the recipes I prefer don't include any.
I honestly don't know about viscosity- I would expect it to need enough liquid to carry the salt into the meat. That would take some experimenting.
It is very important that there be as little fat as possible. The leaner the meat the better and don't add any to the marinade. Fats will go rancid quite quickly when exposed to so much air.
Lastly- I think I've posted this recipe before as the answer to some other question but it bears repeating. This family recipe is my favorite by far and I use it as a starting point for any experimenting:
Auntie Fern's Beef Jerky
- 3 lbs. deer meat or beef, sliced thin
- 1 T salt
- 1 tsp garlic powder
- 1 tsp onion powder
- 1 T pepper (I like coarse ground)
- 1/4 c. soy sauce
- 1/3 c. Worcestershire sauce
- 1/3 c. liquid smoke (hickory flavor)
Combine and marinade 12 hours. Drain. Dry.
Best Answer
Freeze the breasts, then use a mandoline to make even slices. (If you have access to a deli slicer with its rotary blade, that would be even faster; however, a mandoline slicer is more typical in a home kitchen.)
The freezing keeps the relatively small pieces of meat stable so they will slice more evenly. Frozen breasts slice more evenly even by hand in my experience.