to brine or not to brine? that is a question.

to brine or not to brine? that is a question

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Let’s be honest. Turkey doesn’t taste like much. Okay, I expect some hate here. I didn’t say I don’t like turkey. In fact, I love it but let’s be honest, like a lot of pasta and most tofu, turkey is a delivery system for better tasting stuff, like gravy and cranberry sauce. If you don’t cook it right, turkey is a gamey, dry-ass bird with no flavor. I feel like there are two methods: dry-brining/basting, or brining.

That time I didn’t get all the giblets out of the turkey.

Dry brine or basting method. I believe Ina Garten is a dry brine method person, which essentially means you season the shit out of the bird and cavity and cook it, un-stuffed. My mother always stuffs the bird. She seasons the bird lightly, stuffs the bird and bastes it over the time it cooks to hold in moisture. The dry brine method virtually ensures you will not end up with a dry bird because it’s not stuffed so you don’t cook it within an inch of its life to ensure the stuffing and inner turkey is cooked. The basting method is tricky. If you get busy on Thanksgiving day, drinking wine and chatting, you could miss a basting window and end up with that dry-ass bird. However, when you do it right, not only is the bird beautifully moist, but that stuffing tastes amazing because it’s soaked up all the bird juices while cooking. There is nothing like it. 

My version of this method: pull the skin of the bird up, and shove a ton of butter mixed with diced garlic under the skin. Then rub softened (not melted) butter all over the skins and season with salt, pepper, garlic and rosemary. Stuff the cavity of the bird (recipe below), tie the legs and tuck the wings. Tent with aluminum foil until about 45 minutes out and then remove the foil to let the bird brown. This method has always worked for me. 

Turkey in brine, in a cooler, in the garage.

Brine method. Because turkey is such a dry bird, combined with the fact that you usually need to cook it so long, a lot of folks brine their turkeys. My understanding is that this is for two reasons. 1) The water/salt bath adds a ton of moisture to the bird. So even though you lose a lot of moisture in the cooking, you’ve added more through the brine process. So the hope is that you add so much moisture, you have a moist bird when you’re done. 2) You add an acid to the brine which breaks down the fiber of the meat, making for a more tender meat.  

One year, when we bought a ridiculously expensive, farm raised turkey, I thought, maybe I should try this method. It was the first year of COVID, the first year we were eating alone as a family, so I figured I’d give it a try. 

Disaster. 

The bird was ok, but certainly not worth the $60 we paid for it and certainly not worth the 3 hours my husband spent in line waiting for it even though we pre-ordered a month prior. Next, I did the brine all wrong. I took a cooler, added the turkey, and just put all the ingredients in the cold water and let the bird sit overnight. Ok, it was fine, but not what I would have hoped or expected and certainly not better than my previous basting method.

Tenting the turkey before it goes in the oven. We also had so much stuffing, I cooked some in a crock.

The second try was a success. My friend gave me her recipe, but after a lot more research, I made sure I cooked the brine on the stove to steep it. I then let it fully cool in the stock pan. Once cooled, I added the brine to the cooler with the turkey and continued to add cold water until the bird was nearly covered. Because the bird was enormous and feeding our group of 10, it was too big for complete submersion, so I flipped it every few hours to get maximum flavor infusion. 

When we were ready to cook the bird, we took it out of the brine, rinsed it, patted it dry, and put it in the pan. I stuffed the bird, still rubbed it down with butter (old habits die hard), tied the legs, tucked the wings, and shoved its ass in the oven, tented with foil until the last 45 minutes. Then remove the foil and let it brown up.

What emerged was a blissfully moist, flavorful bird, with a deliciously flavorful stuffing. 

Pan drippings were used to make a wonderful gravy. 

RECIPES

Brine

• 1 gallon of water 

• 1 cup of kosher salt

• 1 Orange cut into slices or a lemon  (or apple juice, apple cider, orange juice, or other acid)

• Seasoning - rosemary, peppercorns, garlic (just crack it no need to do more), thyme, bay leaves, etc.

• Some people add brown sugar. I don’t, but it sounds really good. 

Bird done! So, so good!

Fill a stock pan with water, add salt, orange slides, seasonings. Cook until it boils. Turn heat down but let it have a rolling boil for at least ten minutes. Shut off and let it cool completely. Don’t be impatient. If you don’t let it cool completely, you will start cooking the bird when you pour the water on it. Not good! 

Pour the water into a cooler with the thawed bird (not frozen!). Add more ice and water until the bird is covered. If the bird is so damn big you can’t cover it, just turn it in the water every few hours to give it equal time.. We live in a cold climate, so we left the cooler in the garage ensuring it stayed cold.

Leave it in the water overnight. 

Take it out just prior to cooking it. Rinse it, Pat it dry. Throw out the brine. DON’T be Homer Simpson. 

Stuffing

• Loaf of white bread

• Loaf of what bread

• Boiling water

• Celery, diced 

• Small onion, diced.

• Apple, diced large

• Bell's Seasoning to your taste (which is rosemary, oregano, sage, ginger, marjoram, thyme, and pepper)

Let both breads sit out in separate bowls out of their packaging for a few hours or all day. You want them to be dry/stale.

Once the bread is ready, tear it into chunks and put it into one large bowl. Add diced celery and onion. Add Bell’s seasoning.

Poor boiling water into bowl, mixing in between additions. You want the mixture to come together and be moist, but not dripping wet.. Mix in apple chunks. Either stuff the turkey with the stuffing, or you can put it in a baking dish and cook it with the turkey.

Gravy

• Pan drippings and scrapings, trying to avoid grease as much as possible (don’t kill yourself, it’s fine if grease gets in). 

• Flour and water in a ratio of 3 parts water to 2 parts flour. Shaken or whisked together to get rid of lumps. 

• Gravy Master, to taste

• Salt and pepper, to taste

Add to the drippings but strain into a pan through a sieve. Add Gravy Master to pan over medium heat.  Stir in flour/water mixture a bit at a time, letting the mixture get to a rolling boil. It will thicken with the heat and the flour/water mixture. Keep adding flour/water mixture to thicken, but give it time in between to heat up and thicken.