The Daring Cooks’ 2012 Challenge: Brining & Roasting

It's Daring Cooks time again!

Audax of Audax Artifex was our November 2012 Daring Cooks' host. Audax has brought us into the world of brining and roasting, where we brined meat and vegetables and roasted them afterwards for a delicious meal!

So... brining wasn't something I'd ever done before. It's not something I'm really aware of many folk doing regularly in Scotland. And I have to say, that having done it once, I'll possibly not be rushing to do it again. It wasn't difficult, nor really time consuming, but I have to confess that I just didn't see or taste any notable difference in the meat.

Both brined and roasted!

I'm sure that is heresy to say that, and am feeling like I may unleash a torrent of objection (well, as much of a torrent as is possible amongst a handful of comments!). Perhaps I did it wrongly!

I brined a small chicken for 3 hrs in a brine solution to which I added garlic, ginger and some fruity cordial. After cooking I gave Mr E a bit and asked him hopefully what it tasted of, and he said... "Um, chicken?" "Anything else?" I asked hopefully "Not really - why what did you put int" he said. And after tasting it I agreed. It just tasted of roast chicken - a flavour I could have achieved without sacrificing a knob of ginger, 2 garlic cloves, salt and cordial (I'm not grudging the water though ;o)).

But it was still a good recipe to have tried - a new technique attempted if not mastered!

We ate it with satueed potatoes and stir fried Pak Choi with chilli sauce

And we did still have a delicious chicken dinner  - thanks Audax and the Daring Cooks for broadening my culinary horizons yet again.