Brine Baby Brine (One Pot Chicken)

This recipe has one of the shortest ingredient lists you can manage. Chicken, oil, salt, water. It's roast chicken that requires a little patience and some technique. It is delicious.
If you've never brined anything the concept is simple. Take the meat, stick it in salt bath, and wait. This chicken got to chill in my fridge overnight.

Brining is pretty much guaranteed to get you better flavor throughout the meat whenever you're willing to do the prep and wait.

The Alton technique being used to actually cook the bird was a new one to me. A multi-step dutch oven roast that starts with preheating the dutch oven along with regular oven. By heat I mean the oven is cranked to 550 F, which is as hot as a standard American kitchen oven goes. So you have a super hot cast iron pan that you dump the bird into. Seal it in both ovens. Wait 15 minutes, then take the lid off the dutch oven, baste the chicken in some of its own juices. Wait again this time with the dutch oven lid off, but the lid is still in the oven staying super hot. The third time you open open the regular oven it's to pull the bird out, then seal it into the dutch oven outside the regular oven again to finish cooking off of residual heat in the cast iron (there's plenty of heat to manage this). I would not ever do this recipe on a hot day. I could see doing it again on a frigid day.

The recommendation is to serve with it's juiced as a dip, it's good on it's own as well.

What you're left with is well seasoned, moist, roast chicken. The ingredient list is simple, the technique is kind of fussy but effective. Not recommended for anyone who fears working with hot pans.

Difficulty Level: Medium
Will It Get Made Again? If I want homemade chicken to shred for something this will probably be my go to recipe. I'm putting leftover chicken into sandwiches and pizza, but I could serve one of these to any group that wanted something simply prepared but good.