Brining Chicken: A Lost Art

Brining chicken is something that has almost been forgotten in our society today and Whevenever I have brought up the subject at different times, many look at me as if I have lost my mind. What are you talking about, they ask. Well, let me share this with you first.

After I retired from the restuarant business I started driving trucks. I cannot tell you how many chicken and turkey farms which I have been to. Today, in this society, we have this constant thought in our minds, "we gotta have it NOW!" It does not matter if it is food, tv, fast food, waiting in line, etc. It just permeates everything that is, and is, about our society today.

I am not wailing about society; I am just stating a fact. And thisalso applies to the raising of chickens today. Today our chickens are so rushed to the market and the stores that they do not have time to develop the flavors of yesteryear. However, it is a fact that brining poultry and pork can bring such a more juicy and delightful flavor to these products.

WHAT DOES BRINING CHICKEN DO?

Brining just simply forces water into the muscles of the chicken (or maybe pork) by a process known as osmosis or diffusion. This just causes the tissues to swell up and hold more water. In plain, simple language this just means that it will make the meat more tender, more moist, and depending on what you use in the brine, more flavorful. Because whatever spices or herbs or flavoring which you use to add to your brine will be carried deep into the meat of whatever it is you are brining.

We could really go into great depth here about how brining works. About all the chemical changes which take place and why. I mean we could really get technical, but what I think most people just really want to know is: how to brine chicken. It is that simple. With that said let me give you a good recipe for this.

First, let's start with a basic poultry brine recipe:

1 gallon cold water
3/4 cup kosher salt (Morton's kosher salt, blue box, tested and tried
for over 26 years in the restaurant business)
2/3 cup sugar
1 cut up lemon
1 bay leaf
peppercorns
3/4 cups soy sauce.

HOW TO DO IT

Bring half of the water to a boil with the sugar and salt in it. Stir it and make sure that the salt and sugar are dissolved. Remove from the heat and add your flavorings, whatever it is you have decided to use. This could be chopped onion, chopped garlic, peppercorns, thyme, parsley, tarragon, sage. You name it, if you like it, then you can use it. Say, about a tablespoon of whatever it is that you like. Then when you BBQ it, if you like it, great. Or you might decide next time to add more, or even less, depending upon your tatstes. And then, did I mention Garlic???

Add the remaining half gallon of water and let this cool completely. Refrigerate so that the water gets to below forty degrees. The reason I put that note in there about the blue box of Morton's is so that you would know that for anything I put in these posts come from tried and true recipes, etc. not something which we have just made up in our heads.

Add the chicken and totally submerse it under the water. You can add something weighty to make sure that the chicken stays under the water. Keep the brine and chicken cold duruing the brining process. You do not want to add ice. Now why, after all that work, would we want to dilute our good brine?

A whole chicken – up to 10 hours.
A half chicken – up to 6 hours.
Chicken breats – up to one hour.

And, of course, it goes without saying, always brine in a non-reactive container. Do not use copper, wood, or aluminum. After about, say, 6-10 hours for a whole chicken we can take it out and rinse it off very well. Pat it dry. Now we are ready to season it with our seasoning of choice. We will not be going into that for that is a completely different post.

So that is what brining chicken is all about. Once you try this and BBQ, or even bake it in the oven you won't want to go back to just taking the chicken out of the package and frying it up!

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