Pickle Brined Chicken Breasts
10 Comments
What's that, you ask? Some lurid bit of recipe testing gone terribly wrong? What's left after the liposuction? Last year's gefilte fish?
Um, no. Those are chicken breasts in pickle brine. In other words, a quick and easy solution to the problem of boring and overcooked boneless skinless cutlets. (Oh, that nasty sharding! Oh, that tasteless nothingness!)
I was going to blog a lovely Arabic rice pilaf today. It'll have to wait until next week. Instead, I'm giving props to Bruce for this one. Necessity is not the only mother of invention. Laziness bears children, too.
Last night, he made boneless skinless chicken breasts for dinner. In case you don't know, they are my least favorite food, period, hands down, no questions, get out of Dodge, pull out my teeth and call me gummy. I find them pointless. I whine in their very presence.
So he came up with a pretty ingenious solution. Mostly to shut me up. But also to make them better. Ready?
The next time you finish off a big jar of pickles, don't throw out the leavings. You know, the brine, stocked with vinegar, spices, sugar, and the rest. Instead, drop four boneless skinless chicken breasts in it, seal the jar again, and refrigerate for 1 to 3 hours.
Take them out of the brine, set them on a cutting board, and rub them with a little olive oil. No need for the fancy, expensive stuff. Just a flavorful, sturdy oil. Most of the fancier flavor profiles will be lost in the inferno to come.
Fire up the grill outside--or the grill pan indoors. Get it smoking hot. Up to 550F outside in a covered grill, or a good 10 minutes over medium-high heat inside. If you are indoors, turn on a vent or open a window. (And don't use a nonstick pan for this task. You're taking up to temperatures too hot for its surface.)
Set the chicken breasts on the grill grate directly over the heat or on the grill pan. Sear--which means, don't do anything: no poking, prodding, or pricking--for about 5 minutes on the grill, 6 minutes in the grill pan.
That lack of poking, etc., has nothing to do with letting the juices run out. Yes, a hole will cause some juice to leak. But not "the juices." It'd have to be a pretty big hole! Instead, you leave them alone so they'll get good grilling marks. Gotta make 'em pretty.
Turn them over and continue searing until an instant-read meat thermometer inserted into the center of one breast registers 165F, about 4 more minutes on the grill, maybe up to 6 more minutes in the grill pan. Look how plump they are--because of all that brining.
And that's it. Boneless skinless chicken breasts in leftover pickle brine. The children of laziness. And pretty darn clever at that.
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Reader Comments (10)
This is something completely new to me, thank you! My US friends often talk about brining, but it's not something that's regularly done over here. For those of us who don't eat a lot of pickles, will this work with homemade pickling solution - vinegar, sugar and spices brought to the boil and then cooled? Oh, by the way, laziness might breed children, but it sure as heck won't raise them. ;-)
Yep, Celia, you could do that with the homemade brine--although it's an extra step in what I thought was a ridiculously easy recipe. I think brining, in any form, is the only way to get boneless skinless chicken breasts to taste much like anything. (And laziness won't bring up the kids? Ha! Let me introduce you to some people in my family.)
OK, I did think that jar looked at first like something out of a horror movie! But what an ingenious idea! Chef Michael Symon uses pickle brine to do a quick brine of sushi-grade ahi. It's fab! ;)
We always brine our chicken since you suggested it to us a few years ago, but would have never dreamed of using pickle juice. Great idea and one we'll try. We've been using a brine recipe called Smokin' Okie Turkey Brine from a cookbook that came with Larry's smoker. It adds just the right flavor to the chicken with no additional seasoning needed. Oh, and I agree with the earlier comment about the jar looking like something out of a horror movie, or maybe a science lab?
Carolyn: Pickle brine on ahi?? Wow. I gotta try that. Sounds crazy-good--especially with some of that sticky sushi rice.
Suzie: I'd love to see that recipe for "Smokin' Okie Turkey Brine." Do you think you could drop the ingredients here in a comment for all to see?
This one was a jar of bread and butter pickles. Next time I'm going try using the juice from garlic dills. No sugar in that so it should make Mark even happier. Because the only thing he hates more than boneless skinless chicken breasts is sweet food for dinner.
Here are the ingredients for Smokin' Okie Turkey Brine. This makes a large amount, so I quarter the amounts when I'm making it to brine chicken. It keeps well in the refrigerator too.
1 gallon water
1 cup coarse kosher salt
3/4 cup soy sauce
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup honey
1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
4 tablespoons black pepper
3 - 4 tablespoons chopped garlic (sometimes I use more .... love garlic!)
1 teaspoon allspice
Wow. Great stuff, Suzie. I agree with the more garlic. And personally, I'd put about triple that amount of allspice in it--because I love it so much! Thanks so much for sharing this!
I tried this with Claussen pickle brine and the reviews were unanimous,AWESOME..thanks
So glad you liked it. Such an easy idea, eh? And so tasty to boot.
M.