Kosher-Style Pork Cracklins

The interesting part of this recipe is that you brine the chicken with an orange juice brine.

This recipe requires you to juice about 8 medium oranges. If you don't have the proper tools, this can be a pain and take way too long! Fortunately for me, Jay shopped for brandy and an orange juicer while the chicken was in the brine. So the second part of the recipe requiring juice was much easier! I will be ready next time.

Fine cooking does such a great job of teaching you about the various ingredients and how to select them and prep them. I love it because I need the help. This was my first time deboning chicken breasts. I did okay. Perhaps the proper knife would have helped? It is just perfect how right in the ingredients list, fine cooking points you to another part of the magazine to help you with how to prep or select items if the ideal isn't available.

A lesson learned upon re-reading the recipe for this post: When a recipe tells you to add something to taste, make sure you do a taste before adding any of it. The dish seemed just a touch too salty. Yes it was sitting in a brine for awhile, but I also added regular chicken broth when it called for low-salt. I also seasoned to taste with a bit more salt before even checking the sauce for how it tasted at that point!

The orange-brandy sauce is a reduction, and my history with reductions has been spotty. This time I bravely reduced and added things and stirred and estimated doneness and I think it turned out great! That was a ++ to my confidence level in making reductions.

Because this was a brine, the chicken was nice and juicy, even the smallest chicken breast wasn't overcooked while waiting on the biggest chicken breast to finish.

This also made fantastic leftovers.

• Pan-roasted Chicken Breasts with Orange-Brandy Sauce (Fine Cooking 97 Feb/March 2009, p. 45)