Dinner conversation, and how to brine a chicken.

Just had my paternal unit, his very wonderful lady friend and spouse’s parents over for dinner to break in the new kitchen. Must say, things went well. Champagne helps, as does hours of politically incorrect discussion of post-doctoral fellows, their various countries of origin, and peer-reviewed shortcuts resulting in ethics refresher courses.

Anyway, it was a blast. Of course, the champagne helped. Spouse brined a chicken, which is a very simple process that people never fail to be impressed by. It is done as follows:

Take one chicken. Mix up in a pot one gallon of water, one scant cup of salt, one half cup of sugar, a couple of bay leaves and a few peppercorns. Add chicken to pot, having first removed the giblets (unless you’re into that kind of thing). Add water, if necessary, to cover up the chicken. Let the whole shebang set overnight in the fridge. Wring it out, dry it off , smear with some spices and pepper, and bake for about 1.5 hours at 375-ish. Totally tasty through and through, and not at all dry.

He tried to do this to Cornish hens once. Results were tiny, sad, desperately salty birds. We’ll try it with a turkey as soon as we have a big enough bucket that wasn’t recently full of Mr. Clean.