Cooking Chicken: Brining

Last week my brother and sister in law were over and we cooked 2 wonderful chickens. One thing we did was to brine the chicken first. This is something they reminded us that my mom used to do. I've been captivated by the benefits it has in cooking, keeping the meat juicy, firm and seasoned. I looked up how it works and I wanted to share what I found.

Brining is submerging a turkey or chicken in a solution of salt (sometimes sugar) and water. I'll get to the details next time. But let me get a little technical here because I find it interesting.

Brining works with diffusion and osmosis. When you soak the chicken there is a greater concentration of salt outside of the chicken than in the cells of the chicken. Diffusion means the salt will naturally flow from the area of greater concentration (the brine) to lesser concentration (the cells). There's also more water outside the chicken than inside, obviously, and the water will naturally flow from greater concentration to lesser too. This is called osmosis. Once inside the proteins begin to breakdown and interact and they capture and hold the moisture. Then when you begin cooking, the heat, forms a gel and a barrier that keeps much of the water form leaking out. Voila, you have a chicken that's better seasoned and more juicy.