Smoked chicken

That is the easiest dish to cook! And there’s nothing more delicious!
We need to «color» somehow our everyday routine food. So first I made up my mind to figure out what is the best way to salt chicken.
These two tallowy Spanish chickens were treated in different ways.
Half of the dressed chicken with a net on the leg — passed through humid salting in pickle (salt, pepper, brown sugar). Another half part with a string — was salted in a dry way (same ingredients).
The chickens were salted for 15 hours, then rinsed with water and dried in a restaurant fridge with a powerful ventilator (yep, I got one at home).


And the whole chicken was cooked a bit in water. I prepared some kind of broth: 3 l of water, 3 tablespoons of salt, garlic bulb horizontally cut by half, whole pepper (I use 5 peppers mixture) — fistful; 5 bay leaves, a bit of dry herbs to flavor — the quantity is not strict.
I cook this broth about 4 minutes and after that put down the chicken into it, obligatorily into a boiling water over high heat so that it could boil again soon. It took 10 minutes not more. Later the chicken should be dried, not only with table-napkins but also it should dry outside under ventilator. After that the product can be put into Bradley.
Not to spoil the experiment the time of smoking was followed on thermometer. It’s enough for poultry to warm up to 75−80C. I stopped at 72C because I leave the chicken to «mature"/cool down in a smoke house.
Total time of smoking was 2 hours under 75−105C. The sawdust used — apple tree.
Finally to finish the chemical processes the product should be kept for 3 hours refrigerated.
For the third time I come to the conclusion that there is hardly a difference between humid and dry salting (net and string on chicken legs). The only thing to keep in mind is you don’t need to move a product in pickle, though the preparation of pickle itself is a fuss.
So both chicken parts were tasteful and juicy.
As for the whole precooked chicken, it was characterized by brighter flavor (I added whatever could be found in kitchen) and obviously it was much juicier.
The color and structure of the chicken were still preserved even the third day. The skin was not tightened and didn’t lose its brightness. Though I don’t use nitrite additives (don't know why, try to persuade me to use them), it’s probably due to a good drying.

1 Comment

  1. Михаил says

    Пробовал по вашему рецепту. Разве что я тузлуком приятной на мой вкус солености обкалывал курочку медицинским шприцом. а снаружи натер солью и чесноком и оставил все на ночь в холодильнике. утром же как вы и рекомендовали отварил в бульоне 4мин, на сушку с последующим копчением при 90С 1,5 часа. Все кто пробывал, просто начинали стонать от насыщенного вкусами и безумно сочного мяса!

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