Tengrain’s Little Cooking School: Brine and the Bird
As we are at the start of the holiday cooking season, it is time to open up Tengrain’s Little Cooking School, which is a sort of on-again, off-again recurring feature. It all started when a Scissorhead had to take care of his ill wife and three kids, and did not know anything about how to cook, and was panicked.
Not to panic you further, but if you are planning on brining your bird, you better start today. (And as always, it is far better to roast two small turkeys than it is to roast Birdzilla. Trust me on this.)
Everyone brines now, and so me telling you about why you want to take your turkey and dunk it in seasoned water for a few days probably is a bit of overkill. You want to do this. The problem with the modern bird is that we’ve morphed him into being a big flavorless critter. Brining returns some flavor and if you do it right, you can introduce some new flavors.
Ingredients:
- Some crumbled bay leaves
- Some dried chilies (you need some zip)
- Some crushed juniper berries (or some other aromatic ingredient. You could use what I think of as being the renaissance spices: cinnamon sticks, allspice, cardamon… whatever your taste palate takes you.)
- 7 Tablespoons of sugar (this adds to the flavor, but will also help things brown when roasting)
- 3 Tablespoons (or more) of salt -
- water
Make it:
- Put all the ingredients in a non-reactive stockpot, add about 7 cups of water and bring it to a full boil. You want this to be non-reactive because you will end up brining the turkey in the pot, and aluminum will definitely give your turkey a metallic taste.
- Turn off the heat and let it stand for 10 minutes (or longer)
- Add an equal amount of ice water to bring it to room temperature, and add the bird.
- Top off with as much water as you need to keep the bird submerged. I usually put some cheesecloth over the top, so if the turkey floats, the cheesecloth with keep it basted.
- Put the whole thing in the fridge until Wednesday night, at which time you will remove the bird from the brine, rinse it off, and dry it with towels. You will then put it on a tray of some sort and return it, uncovered to the fridge to let it dry for a day. This will give you crisp skin, instead of the rubbery skin that brining often brings you.
But wait! There’s more!
The point of this exercise is to season the bird and make it more moist — which helps to insure that you don’t have a dried-out thanksgiving turkey. Don’t be afraid of the salt, you can even add more if you think you need to, but if you are on a salt-restricted diet, you probably don’t want to brine at all.
The three tips that follow are things I do to the bird before I brine it, and always before I roast it. If you don’t want to chance it on your Thanksgiving turkey, give it a bash some other time when it doesn’t count, and I think you will be amazed by what a difference it makes.
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A trick I learned from Saint Julia: cut out the back of the turkey before you roast it. This will easily speed your your cooking time by almost half, and it is part of the turkey no one really clamors for. You can make stock with it ahead of time, too.
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Another trick from Saint Julia: remove the wishbone before roasting. This will make your carving insanely easier. You might even dare to carve at the table again.
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A last trick from Saint Julia: chop off the tips of the drumsticks. This is a great one: you know the tendons that make carving and eating the drumsticks impossible? By cutting off the knob at the end of the drumsticks, they have nothing to attach to. So… when you roast the turkey, they be become these stiff things sticking out of the end of the drumsticks, and you can tug them out with a pair of needle nose pliers. It might look a little weird, but you can put those frills on the ends of the drumsticks and no one will know, and everyone will be amazed at your table carving skills.
The down-side of brining:
- It is exceedingly difficult to make a gravy with the pan juices from a brined bird, they almost always are too salty. But, with a moist, well-seasoned bird, you might not even notice the missing gravy…
- It takes up a lot of room in your fridge, and if you only have the one big stock pot, well, it is out of commission until Wednesday night.
You are absolutely right about the downside – no drippings to make gravy. To me, there is no point in having T-day without gravy. We did a brined bird last year and it was quite good – I got a pre-mix from a foo-foo grocery store and it turned out good, but I really missed the gravy. Especially since my speciality is the mashed taters, y’all.
I had never considered making two small turkeys and I wish I’d seen this great tip before I ordered my big one. NEXT time. Thanks, TG. (And Happy Thanksgiving, all you all!)
I have never bought anything larger than a 12 pound bird. I just don’t want to deal with the raw and the dried out that come with those behemoth birds that (men?) like to buy. Yeah, showing off is fun, but I’d rather have great eats. And it takes no more room (probably less) in the oven, and absolutely a lot less time to cook.
Regards,
Tengrain
I’ve been wanting to try brining for a while, but haven’t yet – what a rube, eh? Anyway, thanks for the tips, which made enough sense to stay with me for at least a year!
Next year I’ll brine, perhaps – this time I’m doing a turkey breast in a Dutch oven on top of a wood stove, with added strangenesses like bacon and chipotles.
Wish me luck!
That sounds teriffic, Runt – we expect to hear a full report. And by the way: chipotles and turkey totally work. And what would a club sandwich be without bacon? You are onto something, Jedi Master!
Regards,
TG
I find that a medium sized cooler, specifically tasked for brining, works better than a pot. As long as you keep the brine iced down, and leave the cooler in a dark cool place where no sunlight will get at it, you can brine that bird for as long as you like. Even two small birds will fit nicely!
Yeah, I know people who do this, Tommy — I’m just goosey about the plastic being food-safe quality. That said, scrub it really, really well both before and after.
Regards
TG
I used to find it difficult to buy a turkey that only weighs 12-14 lbs – definition of eternity: two people and one turkey! This year there were more than enough to chose from – guess your “two small turkey” concept is catching on!
I’m brining my (small, 11 pound) turkey today, using bay leaves, lots of rosemary and garlic in the brine. I lost my mind the other day and got my Christmas present, a Bradley Smoker. I’ll be smoking the turkey Thursday. I got the smoker so I could cold smoke my bacon that I’ve been curing and I have some plans to try to make hams from feral hogs here in South Texas. I knew I’d need a smoker for that. I also want to try my hand at making pastrami. This smoker is the shiznit so far. I smoked some beef ribs Saturday night and they were wonderful. Smoked bacon Sunday morning and then a chicken Sunday night. This is a food toy I am gonna have a lot of fun with.
The turkey is going to be great too. I also got some turkey necks to roast along with the giblets so that I can still have some good gravy. My food downfall is the stuffing and the mashed potatoes with gravy. Gotta have that gravy.
Tengrain,
Turkeys under 12 pounds are mostly bone. The cusp seems to be at about fifteen pounds. I used to like a 25-pound pterodactyl-sized turkey, but they are too much to keep in the refrigerator prior to cooking, and a real problem to maneuver about when removing them from an oven. The smaller birds fit into my Necco electric roaster nicely.
“Felicitous compliments of the gorging season to you, sir. Peace on Earth, and fat tums to all men.”–Black Adder’s Christmas Carol
Abo Gato – Yeah, I have a smoker too, but for some reason, I don’t like smoked turkey. But damn, pulled pork!
John – I saw a guy at Whole Foods a couple of years ago, and I kid you not: he ordered a 40 pounder. I stood slack-jawed as I watched them try to put this frozen thing in his cart, and haul it to the cash register. It was, of course, the night before Thanksgiving, too. I’m guessing it might be thawed out about now.
Regards,
TG
I’m a big fan of cutting the bird up prior to cooking. It cooks faster, and it’s easier to control for the different cooking times of the different parts. Because I’m cutting the bird up anyway, it’s ok to get a bigger bird. I just put some uncooked bird into the freezer for later use.
Zen -
That’s a catering trick, too: if you cut it up first (remove the back as I suggested, but also remove the legs) and then start roasting the legs earlier than the breast, it can all come out of the oven at the same time. Nothing is raw and nothing is overdone.
Without the back, the turkey roasts a lot faster. You can mound the stuffing up on the roasting pan under the rib cage, too — and the whole thing transfers easily to the serving platter, if you are determined to carve in front of your guests. I lean the legs up against the breast and no one thinks anything of it: it looks exactly the same.
Rgds,
Tengrain
can you make a ham?
DC, I don’t know if you can make a ham or not, but I am damn sure gonna try it. We were in NYC a week or so ago and got to taste an Iberico ham at the Grand Central Market…..they were selling it for 99.99 a pound. I have never tasted anything like that in my life….it was ham butter…..melted in your mouth. The story on those is that they are pigs in Spain who eat nothing but acorns. There are these wild pigs here and the ranchers want them shot. I know they aren’t going to have the acorn diet going on like in Spain, but hey, who knows? If I can come up with something half as good as that, it will be the best ham anyone I know has ever eaten. I figure it’s worth a shot.
I’ve bought another share of a pork, and the last of the current is the shank end of a leg that (though small) is saying prosciutto to me.
Rgds,
TG