Topic: Brined Roast Chicken

[GillE]

A lot of Americans  seem to be very keen on brining their meat before cooking it, especially turkey before Thanksgiving Day.  So I decided to try the technique with chicken and see what happened .

I tried to follow this recipe:

Make up a brine with:
4 l water
225g salt
120g sugar
25g tarragon
25g parsley
2 bay leaves
1 *head* garlic halved horizontally to open the cloves
1 onion, sliced
2 lemons halved
30g black peppercorns, lightly crushed.

heat the brine, almost to the boil stirring to dissolve the salt and sugar.
Take the brine off the heat and allow to cool to room temp.
Then put it in the fridge.
When ready, put the chicken in the brine, and weight the bird (with a plate for example) to make sure its completely immersed.
Brine a 1kg bird for up to 6 hours, a 2kg bird for up to 12 hours.
Then rinse it, pat it dry, and put it uncovered on a rack in the fridge for 3 to 24 hours.
Roast in a hot oven (230C?) 'til done (71C internal meat temp) and allow to rest.

However, I must confess to having varied the recipe by cooking the chicken as soon as it had been dried, then loosening the skin from the breasts and sliding a couple of knobs of butter in so that some internal basting took place. I cooked it for 1 hour 40 minutes (20 minutes per pound, plus 20 minutes) and I also basted the bird very frequently as it roasted.

The result?  As succulent a roast chicken as I've ever had in my life!  It was so tender that when I tried to pull a leg back to make carving easier, it came off in my hand.  There was no saltiness from the brine, just beautifully sweet meat.

[Clive]

I can't get past that 225g of salt thingy Gill.   

[Simon]

That would probably kill Rik outright! 

[GillE]

Standard brining requires that 2 ounces of salt should be dissolved in each pint of water, so 225g (roughly 8 ounces) is by no means excessive in half a gallon of water.  Don't forget, the meat does not absorb any of the salt - the salt is there to draw moisture out of the meat.  After cooking, the meat still had to be seasoned to taste.

[Clive]

Oh right.  That's very interesting.  I might give that a try when Mrs Clive is out.   

[Rik]

Congrats on the 34000, Clive. 

[Simon]

I'm catching him up, though!   

  Clive! 

[Clive]

<Looks over shoulder> 

[Serenity]

It's not about the quantity boys... it's all about the quality 

[Rik]

So you say now... 

[Serenity]

So you say now... 

So say I always 

[Rik]