Tea Brined Roaster ♥ Cooking with Tea, Recipe Redux Challenge - May 2014

When I have the time I always brine my whole chickens, especially the ones that will be grilled.  This month's Recipe Redux Challenge was to cook with tea. Now I thought about using loose tea to smoke the bird but the weather would not cooperate and the last two weeks have been wet ones. In order to post this recipe on it's designated day, I had to use pictures from a tea marinaded roaster I cooked a few weeks ago.

Why use tea in my brine? Well, I saw a Tyler's Ultimate show on Food Network about the BEST fried chicken and the secret was brining the meat in sweet tea. Since I do not like making fried chicken I will take the brine recipe and use it with a roasting chicken.

When I can't get to the butcher I always buy an Empire Kosher Chicken at my supermarket. When you buy Kosher, the chicken is already salt brined so omit the salt from this brine recipe. If you buy a regular bird, do not omit the salt, or just forget about what you just read.....lol

I thought my 4C Light Low Calorie Green Tea Iced Tea Mix would be a great option for the sweet tea. It already is sweetened with Splenda. I will add fresh lemon juice to the mix along with the proper amount of salt to make the brine.

Sweet Tea Brined Roasted Chicken
serves 4

* 3 pound Organic Chicken
* 1 gallon water
* 1 1/2 scoops pre-sweetened green tea mix
* 1 scoop (from the tea) table salt
* 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

Mix everything in a plastic brining container and stir to dissolve tea and salt. Brine for 24 hours.

Heat oven to 375F while letting the chicken come to room temperature. Rub unsalted butter all over both sides of the chicken, place 1/2 an onion in the cavity and salt & pepper the skin. I did not want to add too many aromatics to the dish because I wanted to make sure the flavor of the brine shined through.
Roast for 90 minutes or until an instant read thermometer reads 165 in the breast.

Simple but sweet and you definitly can taste the sweet tea in the meat. As far as how a granulated sugar  brine would effect a glucose reading, I have no idea, but to not take any chances, the tea with Splenda can only be better.

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