Hot, Moist, and Smokey. Brined Chicken Made Easy

   I grew up in a house without salt. I could list a whole lot of other spices too but just to be simple, salt was not used in my mother's cooking. Fran didn't do salt, she thought it was unhealthful along with carbonation (makes your insides explode) sugar (makes kids crazy) and any vegetable not cooked for over an hour. Even though Fran was of Italian ancestry, if you asked her about Al Dente she probably would have told you that was a guy she went to middle school with. With those standards, brining was obviously something I did not grow up with, and if brining was off the table don't even mention smoking.

   My father was a fireman. We didn't play with smoke around my house, or matches. I grew up with  a fireplace stuffed with red cellophane. A little wheel behind the cellophane made it look like a burning log when it was plugged in. But it was never plugged in lest the cellophane get too hot and burst into flames consuming our house and all of us. In reality, this had about as much of a chance of  happening as the light bulb in my Easy Bake Oven turning into the Hadron Collider. Which is why, just in case of that happening, they took the light bulb out of my Easy Bake Oven. After countless attempts at heatless baking with tiny tins of tiny cake batter I finally turned my Easy Bake Oven on its side and used it as a parking garage for my toy fire engine and rescue ambulance. Is it any wonder I grew up fascinated with fireplaces, hot stoves, the smell of woodsmoke and brining?
  
   If you have never brined meat or fish I highly recommend it.  Brining's an excellent way to cook something while still preserving moisture and adding flavor. It's great for lean meats such as turkey, chicken or pork. Brined meats and fish can be barbecued, roasted, poached and best of all smoked. Smoking can easily dry food out, which is why some people wrap lean meat in bacon before they smoke it (as if anyone needed an excuse to wrap anything in bacon.)  Brining can make bacon wrapping or barding unnecessary.

   When I tossed my CheeseFest a month ago I wanted to guarantee that the chicken I was going to smoke turned out tender and moist, so before smoking I gave it a deep soak in brine, and by brine I don't just mean salt and water. Brines are used to add flavor and that means nearly anything can be added to a brine, garlic, herbs, onion, even honey. If that's the flavor one is after by all means add it. Since I was planning a wide variety of flavors on the table for that particular feast I kept the brine simple. Consider this a jumping off point.

Brined Maple Smoked Chicken

Here's What You Need:

3 chicken breasts, boned
8 cups of water
2 cups ice water
1/2 cup kosher salt
2 Bay leaves
1 tsp black peppercorns
2 cinnamon sticks broken in pieces
1/4 cup maple syrup
A smoker

Here's What To Do:

Mix the water and kosher salt together in a large pot.
Toss in the bay leaves and peppercorns and cinnamon sticks.

Bring everything to a strong boil.
Once it's started boiling, take it off the heat and toss in 2 cups of ice water.
Let the brine cool off totally, then put it into the fridge.

It's important that the brine be below 40 degrees before you put anything into it.
Remember, the brine must be chilled below 40 degrees before adding in any meat and chicken must be at 165 degrees internal temp to be safe to eat.

Once the brine is chilled to below 40 degrees, add the chicken to the pot.
One way to do this to guarantee a correct safe temperature, is to make the brine the day before so it has enough time to chill.

If you are handling chicken or any food wash your hands thoroughly. I wash my hands like a raccoon whenever I cook.

Place a lid on the pot and pop it back in the fridge.
Leave the chicken in the brine for 1 and 1/2 hours.
Take your chicken out of the brine, and pat it dry with paper towels.
Place the chicken on a baking rack and let it air dry for a short while.

At this point you can do whatever you wish with the chicken and it will retain its moisture.
I decided to smoke the chicken over maple wood.

I have a Camerons Stovetop Smoker. As a matter of fact I have two of them and they are one of my favorite wedding gifts to give. They're compact and easy to use.
Put 2 Tbs of maple wood chips in the bottom of the smoker.

Brush the chicken breasts with 1/4 cup of pure maple syrup.

Place a foil lined tray onto to the wood chips. Lay the chicken on the tray.

Close the lid of the smoker except for a tiny bit left open.
Turn the heat up to medium high. When wisps of smoke start to come out of the gap in the lid, (a sign the wood is smoking) close the lid all the way.
Smoke the chicken for about 30 minutes.
Check the temperature with a meat thermometer. When it reads 165 degrees, it's done.

Wrap them in tinfoil and let them rest for about 5 minutes before slicing them.
I served this maple smoked chicken  with a whole buffet of cheeses, breads and salads. I let the guest make their own sandwiches.The chicken turned out smokey and moist with a taste of maple flavor.

   The great thing about this recipe is that it can be made ahead and packs up perfectly for cookouts, potlucks, and picnics. Coming up next Paneer Cheese is put to work with rainbow peppers from the organic Farmers Market.

Follow along on Twitter @kathygori

Fresh Wild Pacific Salmon....Smoke If You Got 'Em!

     Okay,  I know this is The Colors of Indian Cooking and usually  Indian food  is what you're  going to find around here, so then what is this big slab of smoked salmon doing on my blog? Well, it's all related to that CheeseFest I threw. Cheese is something I love, but not something I use in my cooking all that much since in the Indian kitchen cheese usually begins and ends with paneer or chenna, over and out. So I abandoned my familiar Indian recipes for a night and decided to get my Viking on, and I'm not talking about a premium price gas range... hell no. I'm talking about old school Vikings like these guys. Yeah, I watch that show... so what? Sorry, sorry,  that's just how I get after an episode of Vikings.
 

   I started out by planning on making Gravlax. A Finnish friend makes it for us fairly often. How hard can it be I thought. How hard is it be to turn fresh wild fish into a tasty snack? The Lady Vikings on Vikings do it all the time, why not me? What actually happened was  handling the raw fish, I more or less turned into this guy.



   Getting fresh fish was the easy part here in Sonoma, a gravlax recipe was easy to find, the worms were another thing. Worms? Yes, you heard me correctly. Worms, as in parasites, as in you don't want to ingest these under any circumstances. There I was with 2 pounds of crazy expensive fresh salmon getting ready to cure it and Mr. X who was at our house told me a story about a friend who'd eaten raw salmon and  nearly died. Thank you Mr. Buzzkill. There I was with a party planned in 48 hours, 18 people on the way and the specter of my guests writhing on the floor being consumed by worms dancing before my eyes.

   I needed a fast fix for this problem.

   The first thing I did was go to Lord Google, and dang, Mr. X wasn't messing with me. Nearly all wild-caught salmon carry parasites and worms. The government rules on how to overcome this in fresh ocean-caught fish, believe me you don't want to know. Let me just say, I didn't have a commercial grade freezer and a couple of weeks to spare. I visited a few cooking websites where Swedes claimed they'd been eating this stuff for years and "Ha! They laugh at worms!" but I just couldn't take the chance (in a little while you'll see why that was a wise choice.) I'd also read that farmed  salmon don't have the ocean parasite risk so those can be cold-cured safely, but of course farmed fish, that's a whole other shall we say, kettle of fish.

   So, the one alternative I was left with was breaking out my trusty smoker. I bought a couple of Camerons Smokers a few years ago. They're great, affordable, and work on a stove top or a grill top. The problem is I always forget I have them. I cook with my clay so much that a lot of the time I forget about the other equipment I have in my house. But now that I've rediscovered my smokers (I have 2 ) I've been working them. I started with cured smoked salmon. It's simple and easy to prepare, but it does take at least 24 hours of curing before smoking, so keep that in mind.

Smoked Salmon

Here's What You Need:

2 lbs of fresh salmon (teeny tiny pin bones removed)
1 cup Kosher salt
1/2 cup of sugar
1/2 cup of dark brown sugar
1 Tbs crushed black peppercorns

Here's What To Do:

In a bowl mix together the sugars, salt and peppercorns. Set it aside.
Roll out a long piece of plastic wrap.
Wash your hands well.
Sprinkle 1/3 of the salt, sugar mixture on top of the plastic wrap.
Take your salmon and lay 1/2 of it out, skin side down on top of the salt and sugar mixture on top of the plastic wrap.
(If you have a vacuum sealer you don't need to do this, simply take the fish after you've applied the cure and place it in a vacuum sealer bag and vacuum  seal it.)

 

Run your (clean) hands over the fish and feel for tiny bones. These are the pin bones. When ever I clean fish, even if they've come to me already cleaned I go over them with a fine pair of boning tweezers. Okay, so they're just regular tweezers that I bought specially for this purpose but calling them boning tweezers makes it sound so much more official.

It can be a tedious process but better to take the time in the prep than having to give one of your guests the Heimlich maneuver.
Secondly, go worm hunting. Worms are killed by cooking, (parasites being invisible to the naked eye are not.)
I look for any tiny pinhole type marks, if I find one I go to work with my tweezers. Sure enough, I found a live worm.

This is not meant to gross anyone out, just to let you know that you should inspect and check fresh fish before cooking it.
Now that the fish is bone and worm free, sprinkle another 1/3 of the salt sugar pepper mixture onto the flesh side of one side of the salmon.
Rub it in well.

Put the second piece of salmon flesh side down on top of the other piece of salmon.

Rub the rest of the sugar and salt mixture into the skin side of the top piece of salmon.
If you're using plastic wrap, wrap the fish as tightly as you can in the plastic. You want it snug as a ...well, as a salmon in plastic wrap.
Place the plastic wrapped fish in a shallow pan or dish to catch the juices that are going to be draining out during the next 24 hours.
If you're using  a vacuum sealer place the salt and sugar covered fish in a vacuum bag and seal it tight.Vacuum sealing, you don't need to put the bag in a pan or bowl.

Put a phone book, or any heavy object on top of the fish. I used plastic wrapped bricks to weigh my salmon down.

Put your heavy object on your fish and let it sit in the fridge for 12 hours.
Turn your fish over, and weight it down for another 12 hours.
Take the fish out of the plastic wrap, unwrap it and rinse it in cold running water.

Pat it dry gently.

Place the salmon on a rack in a cool dry place (not the fridge) for 1 to 3 hours.
What this does is allow the pellicle to form on the fish. This is a dry tacky membrane that allows the smoke flavor to stick to the meat/fish and cure it.

Smoking The Fish:

I used  a Cameron stove-top smoker. Here's what I did.
Place 2 Tbs of alder wood chips in the bottom of the smoker.

Put a foil covered drip pan on top of the wood chips
Brush a grilling rack with olive oil and place the fish  pieces skin side down on top of it.
Smoke the fish until the thickest part registers about 150 degrees. This takes about 25 minutes in a medium heat. Check the fish with a meat thermometer after about 15 minutes or so. When it's at 150 degrees, it's done.

You can serve it hot or let it cool to room temperature, wrap it tightly in foil and store it in the fridge to be served later.
I made this the night before the party but it will keep in the fridge for up to 3 days.

   So there it is, great smoked salmon first time out of the box. I served it with a sour cream dill sauce and some thinly sliced dark pumpernickel bread. My smoker, which I've now rediscovered, has become one of my new favorite kitchen tools especially for large gatherings and any take along events. Smoked fish, meats and vegetables are great for salads, sandwiches and tail gate parties.

   Coming up next more fast and easy Summer party favorites. Follow along @kathygori