Braise at your own risk

The other night I decided to improvise a chicken khoresh and learned some important lessons.

The recipe:
1 whole chicken
1.5 or 2 pounds small turnips
2 small onions
1 tsp turmeric
1 tsp cardamom
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp coriander
2 cups chicken broth
1 small bunch parsley

Cut the chicken into ten parts. Chop the onions and saute them in olive oil. Add the chicken and saute until browned. Add turnips and coriander and broth; bring to a simmer. Simmer, covered, on low heat for 1 1/2 hours. Add the rest of the spices, the parsley, and salt and pepper to taste. Serve over rice.

Lessons learned:
1. Do not ever ever attempt to braise or stew chicken breast. It gets tough immediately and doesn't de-toughen at the same rate as the thighs and legs with further cooking. All the other meat in this dish was perfect, but the breasts were utterly blah. I know everyone else in the world loves to cook with chicken breast and they breed them with gigantic breasts now because that's what everyone wants, but I am frankly terrible with chicken breast, whether I'm frying it or grilling it or performing any of the accepted cooking methods. I frequently wreck it and this is no exception.

2. Turnips must always be peeled, no matter how tender and young and wonderful your local farmer claims they are. Do not believe him when he says they're so crisp and perfect that they don't even have to be peeled. It's not true.

3. If you don't want soup, use less water.