And a bit of black pepper (but no salt).
I love green bean/mushroom soup/crispy onion casserole, although not enough to actually make it myself, so I have to wait for a potluck or a Lutheran funeral. If you make it your self, you run the risk of having to eat it for three days, and the LD50 for that stuff is two servings. I have recessive Okie genes on my mother’s side, which also accounts for a fondness for biscuits and gravy.
Speaking of green bean dishes, one of the best - and simplest - I’ve ever had was fresh young green beans braised in some tomato sauce with a hint of garlic. I think it was a Greek recipe. Yummy it was.
I’d like those green beans! Biscuits and gravy! Mmmmmmm!
Maybe I should just stay home that day, fix something I like, and enjoy it all by myself.
Mashed my sweet potatoes with orange juice, a tiny smidge of butter and a few spices (ginger, coriander, cardamom) and sprinkled chopped pecans on top before reheating. Yummy and healthy both!
Also I bought a fresh, lean turkey with nothing injected into it. Stuffed it, and roasted it gently under foil until the last half hour, and let it rest when it was done while I did the last minute thing with the veggies. Result was moist, tender and tasty. No salt, brine or trans-fat/salt/MSG laden mystery injection for me.
We also had roast beets and beet greens in a garlic vinagrette, brussel sprouts with chestnuts and pearl onions baked with cranberries (cook 1 1/2 lbs in water till you can slip off skins, brown gently in 2 tsp butter/olive oil, add 1 c cranberries and 1/4 c sugar stir for a moment, add 1/2 c. good broth or stock, put in uncovered casserole dish and bake in 400 degree oven for about 30 minutes – to die for).
I expect to be living off leftovers for the rest of the week!
Brining must be one of those things that hasn’t hit Michigan yet. We still eat them raw. With feathers.
And just because I know everyone cares, we followed up on Saturday with a big Indian meal cooked by my lovely wife for my side of the family. Some had never tried Indian food before. So now, I’m doubley stuffed.
And to my great delight, I’ve infected my wife with a new meme. She now refers to Gulab](http://www.theasiannews.co.uk/recipes/s/180/180516_gulab_jaman_milk_balls_in_syrup.html%22%3EGulab) Jaman’s as Gom](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gom_Jabbar%22%3EGom) Jabbar’s, mainly because I’ve spent a few years calling them that and now she can’t help herself.
Ain’t I a stinker.
Where the fear has gone, there will be nothing.
Only I will remain.
(hm. I had to look at that a few times before I saw you hadn’t said “my wife from my side of the family”. Well then.)
hi-five Indian food is awesome. Every month or two my family goes out to this awesome Indian place on Devon, and my mom sends my brothers and I to get nan and such all the time.
I first brined a turkey last year and did it again this year. I put NO salt in the water. Just carrots, onion, stuff like rosemary, parsley, sage, etc.
Since last year’s juicy turkey, I am now the family turkey cooker.
I’d never put a bunch of salt in the brine, yuck.
Hmm, I’m thinking maybe we have a difference of definitions.
brine n. Water saturated with or containing large amounts of a salt, especially sodium chloride.
Salt water used for preserving and pickling foods.
tr.v. brined, brin·ing, brines
To immerse, preserve, or pickle in salt water.
You marinated your turkey in vegetable broth, but I’m not sure you “brined” it. However, I don’t know what the “cooking” definition of brining is.
In order for the soaking solution to go into the tissues of the turkey, it has to contain more salt than the fluid already in the turkey. Hence, a brine is heavily salted. The solution will flow from the area of high concentration to low, i.e., into the turkey.
That’s how brining causes a moist turkey. It overloads the turkey cells with fluid–at least the surface ones, which don’t dry out as fast and thus the interior doesn’t either.
Soaking a turkey in a solution that has LESS salt than the turkey should actually dehydrate it, causing it to be drier than it would had you not soaked it at all.
Meat that has been frozen loses moisture rapidly because the cellular integrity has been broken up by the freeze-thaw action. It becomes very dry as it roasts. It is able to take up brine faster for the same reason. Brining helps a frozen turkey appear to be juicy.
Turkeys that have never been frozen, or which have been frozen carefully, tend to remain moist longer.
The purpose to oiling the surface of the bird is to prevent moisture loss. Stuffing it can help prevent moisture loss if the stuffing itself is moist. However, if the stuffing is dry it sucks moisture out of the bird, making it even drier.
I don’t know about the salt thing. All I know is the turkey soaked in this mess of herbs and vegs is very moist. (I’m no cook, in fact this is practically the only time I do cook) The recipe was in an insert in the news paper last year and I decided to try the thing. I just checked the recipe and there is 1/2 cup of salt, (which I forgot) but considering the amount of water and other stuff, it’s not really salty, and the turkey isn’t salty at all when cooked.
Here’s the brine recipe I used-
Brine turkey
to make brine:
1 small onion, diced
1 stalk celery diced
1 medium carrot, diced
3 garlic cloves, sliced
3 bay leaves
1 Tablespoon black peppercorns
3 sprigs each of rosemary, thyme and sage
6 sprigs Italian parsley( I used regular parsley)
1/2 cup iodized salt
3 gallons of cold water
I totally understand the science behind Lamby’s post.
That being said, I have been cooking the trad Thanksgiving feast for more years than I can remember. I have never had a dry turkey.
Repeat: Never.
I cover my turkey with foil for the entire “roasting” time, except for the last 45 minutes to one hour. (Reynold’s makes Extra Heavy Duty Foil this year! Yay!)
I have cooked it with stuffing inside, or with just veggies inside (preferred)
I have always used frozen turky, thawed.
The white meat is tender and juicy!
Now, back to those sweet potato recipes!!!
M
Marshmellows, yes or no?
Marshmallows yes. Essential.
No! Marshmallows are for cads and rapscallions.
I will dine on the marshmallows only out of consideration for my host.
I’m on the fence. We brined this year and yes, I personally found it too salty. We brined but roasted, not the hot oil like the nutjob on TV. I say that because he rigged up this outrageous stepladder with a siren just to lower the thing in the oil…Whatta chicken.
It definitely infuses whatever flavors you add to the brine. We used Knudsen spiced Apple Cider (yummy stuff btw, heated) and various herbs. We bought a fancy organicy expensive turkey, and I personally had misgivings about soaking it in salt. i bet it would have had a very nice flavor without.
I do think that the larger turkeys tend to dry out, even with the soaked cheesecloth or foil protector, making the breast meat uninteresting.
What was weird was that the brined turkey didn’t upset my stomach. Every year I put up with that later on. The next day, I went elsewhere and had leftover non-brined turkey and I got the usual indigestion… I can’t explain it, but somehow it mattered…
Brining, is by its very definition, briney… salty,… so I don’t see how it could not raise the saltiness of the meat… though, I suppose the salt might stay on the ouside while the moisture seeps in? Maybe?
I’m with you Dixie…I use the foil trick too, but usually after the skin on the breast has already browned, rather than at the beginning. No dry birds.
Then again, I almost always stuff an onion and some other stuff in the bird, and I’m sure the escaping steam from the veggies releasing their juice helps keep things moist. Overcooking probably dries things out too. At least those are my guesses.
I’ve injected the turkey, I’ve not injected it, I’ve roasted it with bacon covering the breast, rubbed in salt and herbs, cut little holes for whole cloves of garlic…just never comes out dry.
Oh. That makes more sense then. Guess I was thrown by the ‘brine’ aspect. I would call this ‘marinating in stock’, though I think I would not use so much salt. (and I’m a confirmed salt-a-holic)