How To Brine A Chicken

Hi there, I am Matt from the Underground Cookery School and today, I am going to do a video cookery lesson for you. Hi, videojug cookery lovers, what we are going to do today is brine some chicken. It is a very simple process, all you need are equal quantities of sugar, water and salt.

So you take the water to begin with, and I am also going to add the sugar, give that a good mix - and the salt as well. Now, that is going to take a few more minutes to dissolve. I am actually going to add a little bit more water, because that is not quite as liquid as I want it to be.

Now, when I say equal quantities, what I mean is start off with equal quantities, and just work towards the mixture which I am about to show you. A purist may argue that if you are making a brine you shouldn't add sugar, but I am not a purist. Now, what is going to happen is we are going to leave this for about 2 or 3 minutes until all the sugar and the salt dissolves into the water.

Now, we've got our brine prepared, it is really straight forward, all you need to do is get the cut you're working with, in this case chicken, and give it a good soak. Now again, I am only just doing this because I think I should, but what I want to do is just cover the ingredients with water, it's not going to make a huge difference, just so that it is submerged. All I am going to do now is cover it with clean film, and that goes straight into the fridge.

You can leave that for as long as you like, obviously the longer you leave it in, the nicer it is going to be, but I reckon a day ought to do it. That is how to brine chicken.