How to cook chicken

         How to cook chicken

          I am going to make a brine for my chicken so here I have one gallon of water into my cold water I'm going to add 1/3 cup of sea salt normally I use kosher salt or you could also use pickling salt but this is what I have right now so into the water it goes and now I'm going to add 1/2 cup of sugar here I have sugar cane like pure sugar cane sugar it's like a saccade Mirena you could also use brown sugar or white sugar so into the water that goes and my last ingredient I am using apple cider vinegar this is 1/4 cup of apple cider vinegar now when making a brine you can get super fancy and add other aromatics peppercorns lemon thyme I just do things simple salt water apple cider vinegar I'm going to dissolve everything mix it around until it dissolves and that's it but definitely you can add whatever aromatics and other flavors you want into your brine as you might know if you're a regular on my channel I just do things simple and convenient so now that everything is dissolved I'm pretty much going to be adding my chicken and I also want to add that if you're going to brine I make sure I brine my chicken with this amount of salt sugar ratio for at least 12 hours so here I have a 5 pound whole chicken and I'm just going to submerge it in my brine I'm going to place something heavy on top to make sure it stays submerged and I'm putting this in the fridge overnight .

               now if you have a question of how about if four hours six hours 8 hours something less I'm gonna be honest I don't know so for best results I just suggest you do it overnight so if you know you want chicken and you want to brine it just do it the night before so it's the next day and I'm ready to get things started this has been brining overnight roughly 12 to 13 hours so what I'm going to do is just remove everything discard the brine and I am going to rinse my chicken very well in cold water and I start making the chicken okay so my chicken is rinsed I'm patting it dry inside outside you want to work with dry skin because eventually I'm going to add some oil and seasonings and spices okay so my chicken is dry now I'm going to add oil all over the skin I'm actually using avocado oil I meant to use olive oil I grabbed the wrong bottle but this works use the oil you have on hand so once I all my chicken I am just going to season it to taste I'm using a chicken rub that I just put together it's basically Lowrey seasoning salt lemon pepper garlic and onion powder you could use salt and pepper you can use Cajun or Creole seasoning use what you like and do it to taste so let me just get this out of the way and I'm basically going to rub the oil and seasoning all over the chicken now you can use like baking or cooking twine but I basically use the extra skin under the legs poked a hole through it and put both of the legs through it and now I'm just locking the wings in place by folding it back as you can see I'm just folding it back and it keeps it in place and tighter and closer to  the body of the chicken again you can use twine and you know tie everything together but again I'm just using the technique that I'm used to it's convenient so now I'm going to place my chicken on top of carrots onion celery and a whole head of garlic split in half you do not have to do this but I like to create juices at the bottom because I like to make a gravy so again if you're roasting your chicken and you don't have onion carrot or you don't even want to do this you don't have to put it in a baking dish with a rack or no rack and just

             

                    

  in the oven but I like to do this because I do want to create a gravy out of the chicken juices that render from the chicken and I did this off-camera I forgot to do it well right now I'm adding a little more seasoning on the top but I'm also going to be adding two cups of water in this baking dish I do notice when I used this particular dish on 375 the veggies start to burn before any of the juices or fat renders from the chicken so this is why I like to add two cups of water so you might not have to do this if you use a different baking vessel I am cooking this in a preheated oven of 375 degrees Fahrenheit I'm cooking this 15 to 20 minutes per pound it's somewhere in between there and you want to make sure the internal temp reaches 165 up to 180 or until the juices run clear near the inner thigh and again 165 180 it's up for debate what the perfect internal temperature is so use your best judgement