Finally got around to giving brining a go... Apologies — started off so well, but get a bit carried away when it was ready and totally forget to take any pics of the end result! Roughly followed Markys recipe (salt, sugar combo dissolved in a little hot water first, before adding the rest of the water and some white wine, aromatics from cumin seeds, coriander seeds, cardamon pods, black peppercorns and bay leaves — I dry toasted these but didnt grind, deciding to leave them whole), popped in an organic, free-range chicken (about 1.2 kilo) and covered the whole lot with clingfilm overnight and most the next day. Decided I would Butterfly the bird for a quicker roast and saved the bones, neck skin and any viscera to go into a pan to make the stock for the gravy — a la giblet stylee — using some of the brining liquor to boil this down for about an hour or so, before straining and reducing further. Then seasoned the whole thing up spreading a coating of Nandos bottled sauce (it was left-over open bottle I wanted to use up so thought, why not?!), before sprinkling some smoked sea salt, home-made BBQ seasoning mix and finishing up with some dried Marjoram and Oregano. This was laid on a trivet of thickly sliced, brown onion (skins on), 3 smashed up cloves of garlic and the tops of a couple of carrots and a parsnip that was being roasted to accompany the bird in lieu of spuds, and a few sprigs of fresh thyme. Instead of the usual roasties, I decided on a couple of dariole moulds of potato Dauphinoise — rich and creamy, with garlic and butter, each layer well-seasoned with salt and black pepper. The bird took about 45 minutes on high before taking out to rest, giving the roast nips and Dauphinoise time to finish and allow me to make the gravy from the stock made earlier, blitzing the roasted trivet veg, deglazing the caramelised golden goodies scraped from the bottom of the pan with some white wine and a splash of dry sherry. Strained through a fine sieve and richened with a little butter whisked through after it had come to the boil, and all served with some steamed tenderstem broccoli and carrots poached in butter with fresh thyme leaves (the poaching liquor from which also gets added to the gravy mix). Suffice to say the chicken done this way was amazing — the brining ensured it was not just moist and succulent (Beer Butt technique does this well enough, and adds some lovely flavour from the beer), but also the texture was a revelation. Nice one, Marky! To finish the meal off, I made a pear crumble with some salted, caramel cashew praline shards, served with double cream... contentment all round!
Posted on: Tue, 28 Oct 2014 15:16:49 +0000