The chicken revolution

Hi Guys

We're back in Courier and with text formatting.

So, yesterday I enticed you with what lies in my refrigerator...BRINED CHICKEN

I apologise to those of you who know what I'm talking about at this point already, but this was a total revelation for me.

On Friday night my hubby and I went to the gym and decided to stop at the supermarket on our way home to by a whole roast chicken, which we split down the middle, each got a half and ate it with the skin taken off - dinner of champions!

They had some honey cured hot smoked salmon in vacuum packed packages, but they cost and arm and a leg so that got me thinking.

A year or two ago I bought a hot smoker for my husband for his birthday, but we've never really cooked anything tasty in it and it's been gathering dust for a while now.  On the way home it hit me like a ton of bricks - I have to cure what ever I put in there first for it to taste authentic.

The thought then left my mind and we got home and divided up the chicken and munched away, that evening I took a bite of the most delicious roast chicken I've ever tasted in my life, the meat was ultra juicy and somehow seemed seasoned, which is really strange for skinless chicken, since all the yumminess is lying in the bin on the discarded skins, then another ton of bricks stuck me - IT'S BRINED.

I started googling brined chicken and found a mass of brine recipes, for anything from fillets to whole chickens to even turkeys and I couldn't believe that no one has ever taught me this, I couldn't believe that anyone cooks chicken in ANY other way!

So then I started formulating my experimental brine from a few recipes I found on the Internet, and last night we ate the best chicken I have ever eaten in my life, honestly, I am a new person because of brine.

Brine for chicken

• 1.9 litres of water
• 1/2 cup of coarse salt
• one whole head of garlic, unpeeled, chopped up
• 1 tablespoon of black pepper (unground)
• 1 tablespoon of rosemary
• 6 bay leaves, crushed

Boil half of the water with the rest of the ingredients for about 10 minutes, add the rest of the water and let it cool in a large glass bowl.  Once cooled to about skin temperature you can add the chicken, the chicken needs to be submerged, if you need to make more brine, everything will need to be increased proportionally.  I used 4 breasts, bone in, skin on and brined them in this for 6 hours in the fridge.

Next is the most important part - take the chicken out of the brine and wash under running tap water and dry thoroughly using paper towel.  Now put it on a wire rack on a tray in the fridge and leave it for one to 2 hours to dry out.  Heat the oven to 200 degrees Celsius and roast the dry chicken for about 30 minutes. No seasoning, just like that.

If you follow these instructions you will have the most wonderful, seasoned, juicy chicken and I guarantee you will not want to ever make it in a different way.  I'm sure it will work just as well with breast fillets or whole chicken, obviously the fillets will need less time and the whole chicken more time in the brine.

I hope you enjoy this and change your life as much as it has mine, I really do feel like I've been living in the poultry dark ages!

Have a great evening

God bless

Janie B