Brined Chicken

I used a recipe similar to this Mark Rhulman brined chicken recipe from this fantastic charcuterie book to make the most delicious and good-looking chicken I've ever made. Although there is one thing that really, really stinks about it - I'll never be able to make a un-brined chicken again. It's not that it's difficult to brine a chicken, throw the ingredients in a pot and simmer until everything is dissolved and let cool before dunking in your whole chicken or start with a small amount of water and simmer the ingredients and add a ton ice like they do in the recipe linked above.

See, easy right? It's just that it requires a bit of planning - you have to know the night before that you're having chicken for dinner the next day, no grabbing one on your way home from work. But luckily I have a feeling that planning ahead to have chicken for dinner won't be an issue when the results look like this:

And even better than the look of the chicken was the taste. Soaking in the salty/sweet/herby water leaves the meat seasoned all the way through. It's a taste I could never achieve just by seasoning the outside. Oh and if you have time after you pull the chicken out of the brine leave it uncovered in your fridge to really let the chicken skin dry out - then you'll have crispy chicken skin, what's better than that?