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What's For Dinner? v.19.45: AI Chicken [1]

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Date: 2025-05-10

Well, the recipe isn’t really AI generated, but AI helped me build it. And as you will see, what I ended up “inventing” was something that there are tons of recipes for. But HOW I used the AI is the important thing here.

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It all began when I asked the AI to suggest different ways of cooking boneless skinless chicken breasts in a slow cooker. I had done it one way before, but I wanted to try something different. So the thing spit out a few suggestions, one of which was kind of similar to how I did it before. Then I said to the AI “I don’t want to have a lot of liquid remaining” because if I was going to add like rice to it, I didn’t want it to be as liquid as my previous tries. So it gave me some suggestions for a minimum of liquid. Something like a half cup only because frozen chicken breasts release a lot of liquid.

Then I had an idea. I of course wanted to add something to the chicken and I didn’t feel like rice. I had Israeli couscous, but then I thought about some noodles. And then I decided I didn’t want a standard broth type liquid that usually happens.

So I asked the AI how much liquid I should add if I wanted to add some cream and then cook pasta in that liquid.

And this is where AI can really help.

It is good at taking a given quantity and extrapolating amounts needed for certain things. Such as, “How much liquid to cook perfect rice without having to drain it or it scorching the pot?” How much easier to have the answer to the question you have without having to go down a rabbit hole of recipes, articles, blog posts, etc. When I made the curry using some AI help, I was mainly asking two questions: First I was asking how much liquid to use, and second, to design a curry blend. The amounts of the different spices made me shake my head like “are you sure to add this much”, but damned if it didn’t work and was perfect.

So here’s what I did, and I’ll point out what AI helped with each step of the way. First, I put my boneless skinless breasts in the slow cooker and added ¾ cup of water. The AI said this was a good amount so as to have the amount of sauce I wanted after everything was done. It also gave me some measurements for my seasonings—poultry seasoning, dried dill, and dried tarragon. I added the white pepper myself because it’s how I do. I also dotted with butter, as AI suggested. One thing that I DID do at the last minute was add a little Knorr’s Chicken Bouillon and some Butter Buds in the water before I added the chicken. I also added salt, but I eyeballed it instead of following the suggested measurement.

When I asked AI about garlic and shallot, it suggested adding it at different times. I added minced garlic and shallot after the chicken was done to let it cook in the broth for a while before the next step. I also added sliced mushrooms because I like them.

Concentrated chicken and butter flavor in only about 2 total cups of water.

So after the mushrooms were fully cooked, I added one of the main reasons I had AI help with the recipe: Heavy cream—a quart. And now you can start to see where what I thought “hey, this would be a really yummy thing I haven’t done yet” is going.

One thing a slow cooker is not is a stove. Even though it was on high, and the broth was simmering pretty good, when you put 4 cups of very cold cream into just barely over 2 cups of broth, it’s gonna cool it pretty good and it takes a WHILE to get things back up to temp. But it did, eventually, and I added the main reason AI helped me with this recipe. I added some “homestyle” wide egg noodles to cook in that combo of broth and cream. AI helped with calibrating the amount of water I put in at the start of cooking so that the noodles would be cooked, and the sauce would be at the amount and thickness of my liking.

One of the things that this dish was screaming for as I was working it out was cheese. The first AI suggestion was Gruyere, which of course. But then I was thinking about a smoked cheese cause that’s how I am. I gave AI the options of smoked Gruyere, smoked Gouda, and smoked Provolone. It talked about how all three flavors would work, and said the best recommendation would be smoked Gruyere. So in it went.

In it went and it got mixed up. The final thing I added was lemon zest and juice. I added it right after I mixed the cheese in and before I added the chicken back in. Adding it in last really kept that brightness and lemony thing that lemons do. And like I said, then I mixed in the chicken I had cut into chunks.

And then I find out there’s a million recipes for “creamy lemon chicken pasta” so I didn’t reinvent the wheel with my use of AI. But AI helped make that recipe my own.

So anyway, I will use AI to get inspirations on how to use ingredients, measurement ratios, and some stuff like that. And when you consider the coming spike in food prices, it’s important, when experimenting in the kitchen, to get things as close to right the first time, having a tool like AI can be a big help.

And as a final note, last week we were talking about discount stores in the comments. I pointed out that my Hainan chicken rice cost about $12 (chicken was on sale) and I had meals for a week. So for this one, I spent something like $8 for the chicken breasts if I recall—a BOGO offer for the packages—I never buy boneless skinless chicken breasts if they’re over $1.99 a pound unless there’s a BOGO situation, $2 for the mushrooms, $1 for the shallot, $1 for the garlic $2 for the lemons, and then I splurged and spent $4 on the noodles, $6 on the cream, and $5 on the cheese. So a week’s meals cost something like $30.

Tonight, I’m probably having a sandwich, as I’m singing in a concert tonight. I will be home late to rec and comment.

Tomorrow, the official “WFD” for my meal prep is going to be my Dublin coddle recipe. I’m using pork jowl instead of bacon, at $2.99 a pound, and sausage from my local Polish deli—about $24 in total. The most expensive produce will be the celery. So $35 will make meals for me for almost a week and a half.

And coming up next week, Polish cooking.

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