Brining is a fancy word for something very simple, it means to soak meat in salt water before cooking. How did I learn how to brine? Google! (^_^) Although, it started with something I heard my husband say over christmas when his father decided to put down a young bull to celebrate.
There was so much meat! Even after giving away a lot of it there was simply too much left to fit in our fridge. It was also late, I don’t think anyone was interested in staying up late to boil it. So my husband instructed that the meat be soaked in salt water till morning, we would figure out what to do with it then. I asked him about it and he said it was a way to preserve it.
I remembered that conversation recently and decided to Google it. I found out it is called “to brine” or “brining.” I also learned that it prevents some meats from becoming dry and tough from cooking, and enhances flavour.
I also saw a few recipes where spices were added to the brine so that it doubled as a marinade. So I decided to try it on some pork ribs.
Ingredients for my brine/marinade:
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1 tablespoon salt
1 tablespoon ginger powder
2 pinches of cayenne pepper
water
Stir the brining liquid so that the ingredients dissolve as much as possible before adding the meat. I soaked the ribs for 2 hours.
I finished cooking them in the oven and added a couple of other flavours…
Cover with foil and bake in the oven for about 45 min at 180°C to 200°C
Husband Rating:
They were very tender. Flavour was good but milder than I thought it would be. I think I added too much water for the brine. 2 hours was the minimum recommended time for brining in the articles I read, next time I’ll leave it over night in the fridge.
Have you ever done any brining before?
Hi Aika,
this recipe is so inviting to try…I love that you have your herbs growing on your balcony, I’m inspired :-)…my experience with brining has been with chicken that I then deep fried…I put the chicken in the brine in the a.m. or latest at around 1 p.m. to allow maximum brining time. my brine was simply water which I mixed with apple juice (two thirds water, one third juice) and a generous amount of salt, I guess about 1 and a half to 2 tbs. The juice idea was my twist on the original recipe I saw on a tv show where they used apple cider (I found it too sour, the juice adds a sweet note I preferred). Come cooking time I drained the kuku, seasoned (you can freestyle here) then breaded it with a mix of wheat (white) and yellow maizemeal (I think white maizemeal should work just as well). Thereafter fried it in a deep pan with hot veggie oil…taking the usual precautions (adjust temp accordingly, turning to brown evenly etc etc). I got compliments so…:-)
i will look to try i’m a fanatic of pork but my biggest weakness is that i don’t know how to cook it. thank you for your work.