Chicken breast balyk

Full recipe

This recipe has been discovered long ago and prepared dozens of times. It’s insanely simple and not expensive. Chicken breast balyk is an incredibly delicious diet dish. Such chicken is not ashamed to be served even at the festive table.

First you have to choose the right fillet. First of all, it should not be huge, as in this case, it can not spill or soak badly. Secondly, the chicken should be fresh, without unpleasant odors.

If there is no fillet in the shop, you can cut it out of chicken breast or the whole chicken and let the rest of it go to other dishes or broth.

Tip

The chicken fillet is washed well in running water. Be sure to cut all the extra fats, veins, cartilage. If this is not done at this stage, then it is not convenient to cut something in a finished balyk. And in the finished dish the fat layers will not have a very good taste.

Then we drain the extra water from the fillets so that it’s not in the puddle. You can also get a little soaked with a paper towel, but you do not have to wipe the chicken dry.

Put the fillet in a deep bowl and sprinkle salt from all sides. By the amount of salt – the fillet should be like in the breading. Two small fillets take about 3-4 tablespoons. Don’t worry, it won’t get super salty, but it shouldn’t stay raw. Also, if there’s not enough salt, our chicken fillet can just go bad.

Now we have to do the press. You can cover the fillet with a lid, a plate or just a food film, but to get the air in the container. Under the lid, the fillet doesn’t dry out and absorbs salt well. And then we press the chicken with a can of water or any other heavy object, which is placed in the fridge. We put the future balyk under the press in the fridge for two or three days. During this time, it is desirable to turn it over once, approximately in a day.

We take the fillet out of the fridge and wash it well with salt. We wipe dry with paper towels and sprinkle with spices to taste.

I always make one variant of spicy dry chicken, with red pepper, the second – with herbs. Black pepper in both variants. It’s a small variety.

At this stage, use your favorite variants of herbs and dry spices to give the meat taste and aroma. The only thing is that you do not need to use liquid spices, mustard, etc., as it is not a basturma, and in the end you will not feel all the tenderness of the chicken balyk.

Then we wrap the fillet in a rag or gauze, and put it in the fridge for another 2-3 days. Sometimes, make sure that the rag does not become wet, and periodically turn the fillets.

Another option is to wrap the rag with a thread and hang it in the fridge, then the balyk will come out a little drier. If desired, it can be dried at home and outside the fridge, in a well-ventilated room, such as a glassed balcony or bathroom with a hood.

That’ s all, the dried chicken balyk is ready. We take it out and eat it. You can store it in the same rag as you prepared it. If it gets wet, replace it with a dry one. You can eat such a balyk as you like: with bread, with side dish, in a salad or on your own as an appetizer.

Bon appetit! Don’t starve 😋.

P.S. In the Internet is also popular recipe how to make a balyk from chicken fillet at home using alcohol: vodka, brandy, cognac. It is also a wonderful variant, which is prepared a little bit according to another scenario, and we will talk about it in a separate post.