helps keep juices in, and tenderness and juiciness go hand
in hand. I've tried this both ways, and the difference is
significant. (When you cook chicken with the skin on,
approximately half the fat from the skin is absorbed into
the meat; if calories and cholesterol are very important to
you, you might want to remove the skin before cooking even
if it means a less tender result.)
_When microwaving any chicken product, cover with a
loose tent of waxed paper to prevent drying.
_Some authorities feel strongly that you should not
salt the chicken before cooking because salt draws the
juices out during cooking and toughens the meat. In my
experience, there is a detectable difference in tenderness
between salting before cooking and salting afterwards; the
chicken that I salted afterwards was slightly more tender.
Still, I would guess that most people, myself included,
wouldn't notice a big difference unless they were
specifically paying attention to it. The difference
doesn't jump out at you as it does with overcooking or
freezer burn.
_Fry or roast breast pieces rather than microwaving
them if tenderness is a top priority for you. Microwaving
is significantly faster, but there's a greater risk of
toughness when you microwave breast meat. Breast meat is
fairly dry to begin with, and you don't have a whole lot of
latitude between overcooking and undercooking. With breast
meat, there's a trade-off between the speed of microwaving
and the reliability of frying or roasting.