Improve Chicken Breasts by Factor of 5!!!

What's an extremely easy way to substantially improve chicken breasts? 7% salt, 5% sugar. It's simple. Simple math. Get a scale if you don't have one. And try it. Now.

I'm talking about a brine. I feel kinda bad that I haven't discussed this too much; that I haven't yet given the brine the blog space it truly deserves. True, I've mentioned it, but I've never really delved into its mystic powers. But don't get too excited. This post isn't for that. Someday in the near future I will write a comprehensive post about brining in general, my favorite brines, and my favorite foods to apply the brine to. But today's just a lil post on chicken and how to elevate their status in your home kitchen.

Brining is osmosis and diffusion at the same time. I think. Everyone else, as in food scientists who I probably shouldn't be contradicting, just mentions osmosis, but after water leaves the low concentration of water in the meats cells, and flows into the high concentration in the brine, salt, diffuses into the meat, dissolving some of the meat's fibers thus creating more space for water which flows back into the meat,  making it juicier.

But why not bring some more flavor to the party? Bring sugar! He's oh so sweet. And if you want to make it a real banger, why not add some thyme, and lemon and peppercorns (if the water is infused with flavor as it enters the meat, it will bring that with it into the meat), and maybe instead of sugar bring honey--better flavor. Steep everything together (I squirt some lemon juice in and then just throw in the segment that I squeezed in), let cool (or use 1/2 of the weight of the water as ice and cool it down real fast after it has steeped) then put your breasts in for an hour or two. Now that's a party I wanna be invited to ;)

If you're in a rush, just use cool water and dissolve sugar and salt into it. Also 7% means 70 grams of salt for every 1000 grams of water. You can use ml to measure water but grams is more precise. Your chicken will be noticeably moister than if you hadn't used a brine.

Ok, that's all for today.  I'm off to make my cottage cheese.

Lunch

Chicken leg cooked sous vide at 176 degrees for 8 hours, then crisped up on the grill, and grilled white eggplant from Lancaster.

Grilled Corn Salad with curried, grilled chicken

Corn, garlic, red onion, lime juice, olive oil, avocado, feta cheese, tomato, parsley, basil

Sous Vide Chicken Breasts

As I mentioned early, I just sous vide two chicken breasts at 145 for a little over an hour. I cooked them with just salt, pepper and rosemary, but I could've added a hunk of butter, which is what a lot of chefs do.

After cooking I chilled the chicken breasts in an ice bath then refrigerated them. When I wanted a quick and delicious lunch, I just pulled a bag out, opened it, and cooked it over high heat for a few minutes to warm the chicken through and crisp the skin.

The chicken was extremely delicious. The crisp skin gave way to extreme moistness and tenderness, clearly due to the sous vide cooking. What's more, it was extremely convenient. I just left the bag in the fridge until I wanted some chicken then crisped it up for a few minutes. That my kind of fast food. Speaking of fast food....... TBC!

Chicken, Pizza

I went to bed really happy and satisfied with myself last night. I had bought a whole free range chicken from whole foods, broken it down, and saved the body for stock. I sous vide the breasts at 145 for an hour, and I salted the legs which I would confit in bacon fat the next day. I also had pizza dough proofing overnight in the fridge. I frikin love cooking.

My First Try at Fried Chicken

Using Alton Brown's Buttermilk-soaked fried chicken recipe, with quite awful results. It was my fault though, not Alton's. The chicken was extremely bland due to underseasonig, though it was crispy.