M&S style cooked chicken

Omega_1

Has anyone any tips as to how I can cook fresh Chicken legs/thighs that taste even remotely as delicious as the M&S 'ready cooked' chickens/thighs/drumsticks ?

bcl999

If if you look at the ingredients label on their ready-cooked chicken, there is sugar, dextrose, colouring - all sort of stuff which is probably not very good for you but does make it taste delicious as you say!

Omega_1

But I was always taught a LITTLE of what you fancy does you good !!!

Haffiana

You need to look at brining recipes on the internet. Most are American. Brining can use just salt, or salt and sugar and other flavourings, and it results in very tasty and juicy chicken. You need to make sure you use a fairly course or flakey salt if following American cup measurements because most recipes use that sort of salt. If you use standard fine salt, there is too much of it in the given volume, and your brine will be too salty. The brining time is also fairly important, but the recipes disagree so wildly about this that it probably isn't *that* important!

I sometimes make an American recipe called "Chicken Marbella" which marinades chicken in vinegar with salty ingredients such as olives and capers. (And prunes and garlic and oregano and...) This also creates a sort of brining effect if you marinade it for 24 hours or so, and the chicken is very juicy indeed, even chicken breast (which is mostly inedible normally because it is so dry in my opinion!). The recipe also uses an insane amount of sugar (albeit sprinkled on the top of the chicken, so it mostly caramelises and crisps the skin, but still an insane amount!) but is really worth trying because it is a great recipe quite apart from producing that curiously juicy chicken which is even better as cold leftovers.
Disclaimer - it is NOTHING like M&S chicken because it is intensely flavoured and has a sauce, but nevertheless it reminds me of it. Google will return hundreds of hits on the recipe - it really is a famous favourite over there.

dogstarheaven

i really love their Rotisserie BBQ Chicken and tend to buy the legs when on offer. i've tried to emulate the recipe out of what i thought would be the the right ingredients but didn't think it needed an awful lot of sugar in it.. i wouldn't know if dextrose is easily available nor in small amounts..

Omega_1

Thanks for contributions - agree the M&S Rotisserie style is truly delicious - wasn't aware they sold the legs etc seperately in this style though. Am working on the marinade/brining theory suggested but still open to alternatives if anyone has finally 'cracked' the recipe.

dogstarheaven

much prefer leg meat to breast as this is more tender and tastier (lots of ppl will testify to this!). sometimes, when the Dine for Two is on with the whole rotisserie bbq or sometimes the other flavour, then I'd make sure I choose the heaviest bird there is on the shelf. Last one was about a month ago, and it was £7.24 - can't rem. the weight, but it lasted a week's worth of meals for me (live on own) - so look out for that, Omega_1, it's really worth getting the whole chicken, and then the extras like the wine, it's value for money!

chesky369

Agree 100% Dogstar - I thought I was probably the only person who lives alone who also buys the largest chicken when I do the Dine In For £10. As you say, it does a whole lot of meals (plus boiling up the bones for stock). The offer is on at the moment but I only buy it when there's a whole chicken, so I'll be giving it a miss this time.