When I first heard of brining a chicken I thought it was a long and involved process. Something messy and complicated that would take hours. This thought couldn’t have been further from the truth. If you enjoy cooking preparing a brine is an easy way to add flavor and moister to your meats. This is also an easy way to impress someone with a rather basic dinner that packs tons of flavor.
What you will need:
– Choice of meat (boneless chick breasts or cuts of pork take well to brine)
– Shallow non-leaching dish (like a glass pie dish or casserole dish)
– Salt – 4 tablespoons (any kind will do, I use Kosher salt)
– Water – 4 cups
– Citrus, herbs, and/or spices (for example I just made a chicken brine with lemon wheels, fresh basil leaves and whole black peppercorns)
Take 4 cups of water and dissolve 4 tables spoons of salt. This will make your basic brine. Then you add whatever flavors you like. Herbs, citrus, and spices make for simple and quick additions. The key to adding ingredients is to make them big pieces, you won’t be cooking these ingredients along with the meat after you brine them.
After you have your brine with your herbs and spices pour it in your non-leaching dish. Take your meat and put it in. You want to make sure the meat is fully submerged. Now, you can leave the meat in the brine for 15 minutes to 4 hours. If you choose to do 15 minutes then you can leave the mixture out. If you would like to have it brine any longer it must be refrigerated and covered (I would use plastic wrap and not foil wrap because the metal may leach into the brine). When you are ready to cook just take the meat out of the brine, dry it, and discard the brine. That is all you have to do to add a ton of flavor to your meals. I hope you enjoyed this tip.
– MK