I just cooked this for 3 today for lunch and threw in some corn kernels and finally asparagus spears with the pan sauce. It came our well, but there were some challenges along the way.

Firstly after 3 minutes either side, the chicken was beautifully browned but still did not feel cooked in the middle (these were thick chicken breasts) but I had smoking oil! I’m using a DeBuyer carbon steel fry pan, very heavy, with extra light olive oil, which apparently has a high smoke point, on maximum burn on my largest burner. No butter - I’m dairy free - but this shouldn’t make a difference. If anything, I should have more leeway with the oil.

So when the oil started to smoke, I threw in some hot water/stock I had for emergency, and put a cover on, which would have helped cook the chicken through, then I removed it from the pan and threw it in the oven to keep warm and maybe give it a few more degrees to finish cooking.

It came out looking and tasting great, but I think I was lucky - could have gone either way - and I’m a bit worried that maybe I’m cooking on too high heat as I know smoking oils are a no no! The pan sauce came out well but again I’m concerned that the smoked oil would have ended up in the sauce.

I think for future I will lower the heat and start the pan sauce with the chicken - as suggested by you - that seems like to safe bet to both prevent smoking oil and cook the chick right through.

Thanks for the tips and teaching us the fundamentals for this type of cooking!

Thank you again for answering my cooking question before I asked it. Although I consider myself a pretty good creative cook, I always seem to overcook the chicken, whether I’m following a recipe or, ahem, “winging” it.

I’m going to try your “brown for under a minute” and then simmer with rest of ingredients and liquid, lowering as I go.

If my chicken finally comes out right, I’ll let you know.

Thanks!

Dina