Butcher Block

It’s Brine Time

Maybe you’ve heard of the brine?  Some kind of salt and sugar laden bath associated with restaurant cookery, right? Perhaps you have some questions.  What is a brine, why should you make one and how does one go about making one?

A brine is a solution of salt in water.  Seawater is an example of a brine; the salt dissolved in seawater constitutes a brine of about 3.5% salt. 

Brining is an ancient technique to preserve foods which we still use today because it makes very tasty food.  Feta cheese is an example of a brined food you’ve probably had; most olives are brined as well. 

A brine can be very simple, or very complex. The most basic brine you can use in everyday cooking is as simple as this: 1 cup of salt in 1 gallon of water.  Just combine these two ingredients and bring to a boil.  Boiling the water will allow the salt to dissolve in the water.  (This principle accounts for your sugar sitting at the bottom of your glass of iced tea.)

Why should you brine?  Brining a piece of food (let’s say meat for an example) sets off a fairly complex chain of events, resulting in a juicy, seasoned final product. The quick explanation is that brining hydrates the cells of meat and this keeps it juicy and tender.  Chicken breasts are a great example of a product that benefits significantly from a quick brine.  Chicken breasts don’t have any internal fat or connective tissue so there is nothing in a chicken breast to keep it moist while it cooks.  Everyone has had a dry, overcooked chicken breast, so you know why brining sounds like a good idea.

Brining has great effects outside of a chicken breast.  Pork chops are fabulous when brined and whole turkeys take a brine very well.  Think of a brine as an insurance policy against overcooking.  For pork chops, try a brine made with 1 gallon of water, ½ cup of brown sugar and ½ cup of sugar. Consider throwing in some garlic, sage, peppercorns, coriander, ginger, soy sauce or orange zest.  Be creative with your brine; the flavors you put in will be nice subtle background notes in your finished product.

My poultry brine is very simple: 1 cup of salt and 1 gallon of water boiled with a half bunch each of rosemary, sage and thyme.  Immerse poultry and let it sit for 24 hours for chicken parts and 48 hours for whole turkeys or chickens.  Remove from the brine, pat dry and away you go.

A couple of quick notes.  Don’t reuse brine; the composition of the solution has changed after use and it won’t have the same effect.  Finally, make sure you cool the brine before you put raw products into it.  Pouring hot brine over raw meat will partially cook the outside of the meat, leaving you with an inconsistently cooked final product and, most importantly, creating an unsafe warm environment for bacteria to grow while it cools down.