There are several advantages of brine chicken. When you brine your chicken, you will avoid having a dry chicken but instead have a chicken with meat that is still moist. This is because when the chicken meat is sitting in the brine mixture, the absorption of water is slow. So with the more moisture from the beginning, the more moisture after cooking.
The next benefit you will get when you brine your chicken is having denatured proteins. And most especially, with brine liquid, the flavor of the meat is full even if you just use the basic salt and water combination. Plus if you use aromatics or citrus, these will infuse into the fibers of your chicken meat and give out that moist, soft and aromatic flavor.
There are several techniques to brine your chicken. The first to mention is the wet brine technique. This will result to a juicy chicken since wet brine add moisture to the chicken. You may not get a crispy chicken skin but there is also a solution to this. And this is by using kosher salt. Note that not all salt is equal in terms of flavor profiles, chemical structures, shapes, ability to dissolve and sizes and density. Using kosher salt with large crystals will help you get the right ratio of water to make the brine. Read about how to brine a chicken on this page.
You can also brine a chicken if you want to fry it. The procedure is the same in smoking or roasting the meat. The tip is to make sure that you pat the extra liquid thoroughly. This is because wet skin would cause problem when frying, like the flavor and juiciness of the meat will be locked within the meat.
One important tip when you brine chicken is to always use a non-reactive container. This means avoiding the use of copper, wood or aluminum. To brine a whole chicken would take around six to ten hours before you take it out and rinse it well. Then you are ready to season the meat with your choice seasoning.
Brine chicken has the simplicity in preparation and tasty result of the meat. This is proven that once you try this method, you would not want to go back to the ordinary method of frying your chicken meat. Click here for more details: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recipe.
