MOROCCAN
CHICKEN

go straight to the recipe

In 2011, I was guest chef at a restaurant called 12 Chairs in Shanghai.  It was an exquisite small dining room with 12 chairs. As with all overseas guests, the hours were tough. The chef took sick the first day I was there, [not uncommon], and because of the size of the venue, ‘small’ there had been budget for sommelier but no sous for me…and no translator….FUCK!

My notepad, pencil and drawing skills were very useful. My five prep days were absolute hell, 16 -18 hour days the first couple were the worst and very lonely until the other kitchen staff realised they could learn something and fell in line behind me. The chef-owner had me put up all my dishes, “named the bone marrow brioche sex on a plate” and then said, “have fun, I’m going to Hong Kong while you are here.” Fuck!

The same owners had a chicken shop on one side, clever name “the Funky Chicken’…they cooked frozen French baguettes to perfection and filled them with chicken mayonnaise lettuce…the gratitude for something to eat may have made them taste better than they were. It was, however, very popular and busy with young, cool Shanghainese.

But, that is just part of the story and where I learned about the miracles of brining. They used the worst shittiest chickens I have ever seen…they had a massive tub probably 200L…the chicken cooker chef added one litre of each of the following…salt, sugar and white wine vinegar, half-filled the tub with water stirred it with a massive paddle until it was dissolved..then chucked in about fifty scrawny chickens and topped it to the brim with water…did it go in the coolroom overnight, bloody hell I can’t remember. What I do remember, dried off am and put into the rotisserie, how good they tasted an hour later was little short of a miracle.

We have excellent chicken here, but don’t be surprised that even the best chicken can benefit from brining.

AO 3 OCTOBER 202D