Fine as Brine

The need to preserve our food was the spark that inspired cooks to try new approaches to flavoring. Pickles, chutneys, cured meats, cheese, wine, marinades, and brines all came from the need to stretch out the life of a food item for a few more meals. The temperature controled days we live in are a far cry from those days. Now we demand the freshest ingredients, when we want it. But luckily the flavor revolutionists of the past's good ideas are still with us. One case in point: Brining

A brine is salt disolved in water. Other ingredients can be added like vinegar, wine, sugar, and spices. Today in class we got a bag full of chicken legs and placed them in a brine for about an hour or so. The brine denaturalizes the meat, meaning the salt in the water allows the brine to penetrate the cell walls and fill them with the flavored water. So when you cook the chicken it is moist and perfectly seasoned all the way through. It is really a great way to cook meats that tend to dry out, like chicken and pork chops.

After brining the chicken we coated the drumsticks with flour and then let it sit for about thirty minutes, or until it got gummy. Then we coated it again. I repeated this process three times. Then we deep fried it, throwing all the chicken in at once and just letting it go. And it was the most perfect fried chicken, the chicken you wished mom used to make.