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Had a couple of chicken legs w/thighs, so wanted to try something out ....

1. Trimmed off the loose skin/fat and removed the thigh bone. Makes for a nicer eating experience.
2. Brined in 5% solution for a few hours. I'm gonna try a flavoured brined one time too.
3. Rinsed, patted dry, and re-bagged
4. Sous Vide @ 65 C (bath temp) for 2 hours
5. Remove, pat dry
6. Deep fry in 220 C oil for 4 min. Note this is very hot, so be very careful and use a high-smoke point oil. It will be violent.
7. Sprinkle with pepper and cayenne

This is loosely adapted from Modernist Cuisine. The result is ultra-crispy, extremely juicy and tender chicken. I will be doing this again.

Paul, talk to me about your brine. How do you figure 5 percent solution? I am making a brine and it improves the chicken, but I end up with a lack of salt because I'm so worried about over salting. And that seems to never be happening. I follow, sort of, a guide CI put out years ago but we have probably started using less salt as time went by. I think we are doing a 6 tablespoons per liter and 3 tablespoons of sugar for our standard brine. We use this on both chicken and pork (usually bone in pork chops). The chicken ends up on the grill but the pork chops get vac packed and cooked in water for a couple of hours about 145F - 150F. That temperature will drop a bit when my PID controller shows up, but the slow cooker's low setting runs about there so that's what we've been using.

I look forward to doing your recipe posts in the near future. But share a bit of the brine with me, please.

And I love the idea that you deep fry it at the end. Woohoo!

Steve

Paul,

Sounds excellent.

I tried something a little like it...I brined in a traditional buttermilk mixture, then cooked sous vide (in the brine), and finally fried at high temperature. Probably the best fried chicken I've ever had. I love combining traditional and sous vide techniques!

Amy

Strictly by weight, which also makes it very easy. So, 50g salt for 1kg water. In this case, I brined in a bag, so I put the bag in a bowl (for stability), put it all on a scale, tare, poured water in the bag till the amount looked right, took 5% of that weight, tare, put in salt, mix. For flavoured brine you would usually heat, so I would put the pot in the scale in that case.

Typical ratios seem to be in the 5-7% range, with the top end being about 10%. I *think* saturation is around 37%, but even 10% can be a chore to get dissolved at room temp. Plus it can get a little salty. I almost always use about 5%. Rinsing post brine can make a big difference in saltiness.

This is all from my (relatively limited compared to pro's) experience and reading, so take it with a grain of salt

Thanks, we will check to see what we've been doing and adjust according to guide. We do rinse off whatever we brine.

Further to the brining: I have had good/interesting results using Kikkoman Soy Sauce for brining. In Canada, in the 1.89 liter liter from Costco, it is 38% sodium so I have been diluting it with water at various concentrations: 1:1, 1:2, !:3, etc. I prefer a less salty brine and have been most pleased with 1:4 left overnight and then rinsed & dried before cooking. My next experiment will be to substitute my home-made chicken broth (no salt in it) for the water; however, this seems a little cannibalistic - - -

I don't see Kikkoman here often but the place is awash in Silver Swan (local soy sauce the Filipinos much prefer) and a number of Korean soy sauces. That is an interesting approach and I will give that a try. Thanks for the idea!

Just to clarify my math: 1 cup of 38% Kikkoman plus 1 cup of water produces a 19% solution and a total volume of 2 cups. 2 more cups of water produces a total volume of 4 cups at 9.5% solution; at this dilution we have a 1:3 ratio. 1 more cup of water gives a 1:4 dilution at 7.2% with a total volume of 5 cups. I said I prefer a mild saltiness and I use this overnight in a refrigerator followed by a rinse. I use this for turkye and chicken. The white and dark meats are moist, which is what I am aiming for with all of these shenanigans... Also, I am just playing around with different combinations; I don't intend this to be a final solution (no real pun intended).

Also, I am really looking forward to playing with my favorite pork rib recipes and this brine.

Could chili be far behind

Well that "turkey" comment surely perked up my ears. I've been drafted to provide one of the turkeys for the local US expat Thanksgiving Day meal. The one turkey I did in my current oven was an unmitigated disaster. But that was before I had the baking stone to even out the heat. Now I am not nearly so concerned with that aspect. And I have the primo roaster pan and rack for the bird this time, so I'm pretty well prepared.

But I brine *most* everything. Provided it is not pre-brined as some turkey are these days, I will take a shot at that. Thaw in the refrigerator for a few days, fill an ice chest with enough water to cover, add a couple of blue-ice containers to keep the chill on, and dilute with the appropriate amount of soy sauce, right? Let soak for 10 to 12 hours in the 4:1 ratio?

Steve

Note to Paul: Sorry this exchange has sort of drifted away from the sous vide cooking aspect. I have my finger on the PID order now and when it arrives, I will be trying it out. What oil do you use that you cook at 220C? I have been using Canola mostly. I saw some peanut oil for sale here a few months back and will head over tomorrow to see if they still have any left on the shelf. Things come and go here, sometimes to show up again shortly, sometimes not to be seen again for years.

No problem! Actually, I quite like flowing conversations, and this one is enlightening.