27 December 2013

Brining the turkey

I always brine a turkey when I am smoking it. This year we brined and then roasted in the oven. I am now convinced that brining is one of the keys to a great turkey.

What was interesting was that we cooked this turkey a day before Christmas in order to free up the oven for other things, and it was just to cold to enjoy smoking it outside.

This was a 20 lb turkey that was brined for 48 hrs. There are several good recipes online, ours was simple with 2 gallons of water, a couple of cups each of salt and brown sugar, and some sloshes of worcestershire sauce, soy sauce, and a couple of oranges.

On Christmas day, we looked online for advice on how to properly reheat day old turkey and keep the flavor. Found some good advice from the New York Times (finally) and followed it. They suggested focusing on the big meaty chunks of the turkey and not try to reheat the whole thing. Good thinking. Got four big chunks of the turkey, two breast halves and the two leg/thigh pieces. Turkey was nice and moist and while not exactly the same as usual, it was very close.

The brining kept the turkey moist and with a full rich turkey taste. It is several days later and the turkey is still almost as good as on day one.

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