Having become addicted to Alton Brown this year, we decided to brine the turkey. We soaked it overnight in a vegatable stock based brine and shoved it in the oven stuffed with an apple, orange, onion, rosemary and a cinnamon stick.
Hmmm, very juicy and tender. I would highly recommend it.
I also made up a batch of sweet potatos with brown sugar, nutmeg and cinnamon. Sadly I just finished the last drop.
Time for another nap.
Brining totally rocks. I use Cook’s Illustrated recipe. I haven’t seen Alton’s brined turkey recipe, but I’ve noticed he does a lot of things very similiar to the way Cook’s does, so I’m sure they are close. It makes sense, since Alton and Cook’s both use a lot of science for the way they cook.
Delicious! 
Oh, we actually smoked our turkey, this year. The running joke was, “Oh, we’re smoking a turkey? Must be hard to keep it lit!”
I thought it was roaringly funny. Most of the others just sort of grinned uncomfortably.
Heh. Whenever we would smoke turkey, or fish, the running joke was, “how do you roll it?”
Oh, and thanks for the pic of Alton. He’s my geeky tv boyfriend.
Urgh! I think brining is a fantastic way to ruin a turkey. It ends up just too darned SALTY!
For holiday parties at work, there is always a brined turkey or two. Regardless of who cooked it, if you watch large groups eating it, about a quarter of the people will gag on the first bite and leave the rest untouched.
I’ve never ended up with a dry or tasteless turkey. I just buy good-quality turkeys (usually fresh or a good-quality frozen) instead of frozen-since-last-season cheap-o’s and roast them plain at a lowish heat, well-protected by foil if necessary. You can stuff them or stick whatever in them, but if you have a good turkey to begin with, you’ll end up with good results.
I’m curious, lambchop, just what is it about the brining that you don’t like? I think it makes the turkey just really juicy and flavorful.
Oops! I trimmed my post and deleted the “salt” part. I added it back.
It’s the salt. It’s juicy and flavorful, but only because it’s just plain SALTY. It wreaks havoc on people with heart failure and hypertension.
Most Americans associate salty with flavorful. If a food isn’t overly salted, they don’t like it.
My turkey is juicy and flavorful, too, but not because it’s salty.
FWIW, the smoked turkey was the tenderest I’ve eaten–and not at all salty. Lovely.
Ours didn’t taste salty at all. I wonder if there is ‘brining for juicy’ and ‘brining for salty’ recipes.
We used about a cup of kosher salt dissolved in a gallone of vegatable salt and a gallon of water.
Any recipe that called for a cup of salt would get the old heave-ho in my kitchen. I never salt food when I’m cooking, and as far as I’m concerned, that salt shaker on the table is just for decoration, of no more use than the centerpiece. I do not eschew salt for medical reasons, but rather just because I can taste it too easily and I don’t like a lot of it in my food. Everyone elses’s food always tastes too salty.
I lived on my own for about 4 years before I even owned a salt shaker. I only bought one then because it goes with my kitchen decor. I never use extra salt, and use it in cooking only sparingly. I just don’t like salt.
I know there are others who complain that brining is too salty, but as a salt-sensitive person myself, the brined turkey I have had doesn’t taste salty. I don’t know if it’s difference in technique or self-delusion 
I have a great recipe for sweet potatoes in which cinnamon is the “secret” ingredient ! you cook a syrupy glaze for the sweet potatoes, pour it on, bake them, then pop on some big fluffy marshmallows to toast at the last minute ~ yum!
I love cooking the Thanksgiving feast ~ my problem now is that with 5 grown men in the family, I barely have enough leftovers for dinner the following day!
going out to pick up a ham after work tonite ~ heehee
M 
I’ve been making a crumble with dark brown sugar, a little flour, and cinnamon so that it bakes into a lightly crispy topping. I may try your idea next time. I can’t make this too often, I’ll gobble it down.
Hmmm, ham. I usually insert cloves into a ham and baste with a burboun sauce. I can stand at the counter cutting off chunks of ham and just eat it there. Whoops, I’m drooling.
This is the way my grandmother does it, I think. It’s my favorite thing on the Thanksgiving table every year. Sweet potatoes are the noblest of vegetables!
Sweet potatoes are the finest of foods, for sure.
I need to bring something for the Christmas party on Dec 12. I’m thinking of a side-dish-dessert item. Specifically, baked sweet potatoes with a pecan-brown-sugar-streusel topping. I’m thinking of a cross between your traditional candied yams and good old Southern pecan pie.
Anybody have a recipe for this? Maybe with that pecan pie custard stuff around mashed sweet potatoes?
Not too sweet, but heavy on the pecans. I have several pounds in the fridge.
I may be thinking of sweet potato pie . . .
You could do a traditional whipped sweet potatoes (the kind that are usually topped with marshmallows) and put a pecan pie topping on it instead…either browning it in the oven (probably better, with pecans) or maybe bruléeing it.
My mom used to make the best candied sweet potatoes by boiling them, slicing them, and then sautéeing them in a mixture of butter and brown sugar…yum!
Redwolf
My dad makes a praline sweet potato recipe that you might like. I don’t have the recipe, but it has sweet potatoes, brown sugar, pecans, and coconut. The recipe is on the back of the Princella brand canned sweet potatoes.
A simple sweet potato baked in its skin with some butter is all I want. I believe Walden and I are gustatory brothers in this regard.
Yes, well, that’s all I want, too, but my coworkers are another story. Last time I brought something like simply baked sweet potatoes, they very politely left it in the kitchen, explaining that anyone who liked that sort of thing would know where to find it. (?)
No, I’m afraid I have to bring a culinary production, Nano. It has to look like “normal American food” – so as not to shock the taste buds, you see – but imply that I somehow went above and beyond the call of duty in making it.
Candied sweet potatoes fit the bill. I can satisfy my need to provide a glorious dish redolent of good nutrition by using fresh potatoes instead of canned, loading it with pecans, and using real butter instead of hydrogenated trans-fat.
I’m just glad I wasn’t elected to bring that green bean thing with the mucoid mushroom soup and canned onion doodles or those ghastly little sausages crock-potted in ketchup and Welches grape jelly. Brrrr!