Monday, January 10, 2011

Is it all about the brine?

If there's somebody who could probably teach me how to cook lamb, it's Geoffrey Zakarian. His wife is one of my closest childhood friends, and she swears to me that his lamb dishes are out of this world. Fortunately for me, his cookbook has a recipe for Butter Basted Roasted Chicken.

Geoffrey's recipe and technique involves brining the chicken (submerging in water with dissolved sugar and salt) overnight with some star anise, peppercorn, dill seed, corriander seed, and bay leaves. Before cooking, the cavity is seasoned with celery salt, thyme, rosemary, lemon, and garlic and you place some pads of butter under the skin. Like last week, you sear the chicken before cooking. And when cooking, you take it out every 15 minutes (hopefully not burning your hand like I did) to baste it.



The result? Simply amazing. Peanut and I both commented at how flavorful this chicken was. And it tasted delicious when paired with roasted cherry tomatoes and steamed broccoli. Two Sundays down... ~50 to go! And during that time I will hopefully think of some more creative photo options... and how to properly truss a chicken!

No comments: