OT To brine or not to brine ...

On Nov 13, 10:21*am, "Calif Bill" wrote:
"Ken Fortenberry" wrote in message

...

Charlie S. wrote:
Brine's okay, I guess, but I prefer my turkey fried. *Seals in the
flavor, and keeps the meat really moist.

That was really popular for awhile but it became less so after
a few garages and houses burned down. Nothing like a pile of ash
where your house used to be to put something of a damper on
Thanksgiving. ;-) And don't you have to buy expensive peanut oil
by the barrel to fry a turkey ? What do you do with the used oil ?

--
Ken Fortenberry

Filter the oil and reuse it. *I fry a couple turkeys a year, but only once
for Thanksgiving. *We went camping in Big Sur with the kids, was their
choice and hard to bake a turkey at a campground. *But frying does not give
any drippings for gravy.

For a change in dressing I like to go more toward the native American
side (Pueblo? Dineah? jJicarrilla?, B.J. Help us out here), using
coarse corn meal, preferably from red Indian corn, chilies,
chanterelles, oyster shrooms, or other mushrooms like the little ones
that grow under pines, ramps, pinon nuts, sometimes a few black
currents. i should really dig up a recipe.

The cornmeal/turkey combo gives an insight into what may have been a
more interesting pre-Colombian cuisine than imagination usually
allows. When I was a poor kid we would shoot and roast squirrels out
in the woods. Gets nice and crackly especially around the rib cage.
You get the same good "native" feeling. Particularly if you haven't
eaten for a while.:-))

Dave
Ya ta hey, any recipes for detonka hump out there? :-))

On Nov 13, 12:14*pm, DaveS wrote:

Another good altternative to turkey is halibut steak, baked hot and
short with a little olive oil, topped with Mrs Renfrew's green chile
sauce, (one of the 3 things that justify allowing Texas to stay in the
Union.) Simple and great. Served with red cabbage slaw, and yams in
sweet sauce. Tiny oyster or raw clams for starters, mixed greens, sour
dough bread, and a nice Northwest white or a wheat ale go well. Damn I
am hungry.

Dave

On Thu, 13 Nov 2008 08:59:41 -0600, Ken Fortenberry
wrote:

Charlie S. wrote:
Brine's okay, I guess, but I prefer my turkey fried. Seals in the
flavor, and keeps the meat really moist.

That was really popular for awhile but it became less so after
a few garages and houses burned down. Nothing like a pile of ash
where your house used to be to put something of a damper on
Thanksgiving. ;-) And don't you have to buy expensive peanut oil
by the barrel to fry a turkey ? What do you do with the used oil ?

1) I keep my fryer WAY away from the house, out in the yard, so no
danger of giving any business to the local VFD. :-)

2) Yes, but the good thing about peanut oil is, if you filter it and
put it back in the jug, you can store it in a cool place and use it
again for Christmas, July 4th, next Thanksgiving... whenever you
want. It will store for a LONG time IF you filter out all the turkey
bits. Plus you can do fish fries all summer. :-D Then again, if I use
it for frying fish, I replace it before I do another turkey. Don't
understand why the turkey taste doesn't permeate the oil but fish
does. :-(

"Charlie S." w5cds (at) arrl (dot) net wrote in message
...
On Thu, 13 Nov 2008 08:59:41 -0600, Ken Fortenberry
wrote:

Charlie S. wrote:
Brine's okay, I guess, but I prefer my turkey fried. Seals in the
flavor, and keeps the meat really moist.

That was really popular for awhile but it became less so after
a few garages and houses burned down. Nothing like a pile of ash
where your house used to be to put something of a damper on
Thanksgiving. ;-) And don't you have to buy expensive peanut oil
by the barrel to fry a turkey ? What do you do with the used oil ?

1) I keep my fryer WAY away from the house, out in the yard, so no
danger of giving any business to the local VFD. :-)

2) Yes, but the good thing about peanut oil is, if you filter it and
put it back in the jug, you can store it in a cool place and use it
again for Christmas, July 4th, next Thanksgiving... whenever you
want. It will store for a LONG time IF you filter out all the turkey
bits. Plus you can do fish fries all summer. :-D Then again, if I use
it for frying fish, I replace it before I do another turkey. Don't
understand why the turkey taste doesn't permeate the oil but fish
does. :-(

Twinkies also.

On Nov 12, 10:00*am, Ken Fortenberry
wrote:
I go back and forth on this one. On the one hand brining the
turkey does make the breast meat more juicy and tender but
on the other hand it waters down the taste. Harold McGee has
one of his occasional columns in the Dining section of today's
Times; *http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/12/dining/12curi.html
and he's a no-briner.

My latest method of attack on the holiday bird is flipping.
That's right, I flip the bird. ;-) I start it breast side
down in a 300 F oven for 30-45 minutes depending on size,
flip it one wing up and then the other wing up for about
20 minutes apiece, then increase the heat to 450 F flip it
breast side up and cook til done. The 450 degree oven browns
the bird nicely. Like McGee, I don't listen to that 160 F
nonsense. When the deepest part of the breast gets to 145
on the old thermal meter, that bird is done.

I've tried several different ways since we started getting
the free range, never frozen birds about 10 years ago, brine,
no brine, high heat fast, low heat slow, but flipping the
bird is the method I've finally settled on. I don't know how
it would work on the typical frozen Butterball but it works
out well on the birds we get.

--
Ken Fortenberry

Aru just using straight brine ( salt, water)? there are lots of good
brine recipies with things like lemon juice, apple juice,maple
flavoring etc. etc. I have a favorite that uses apple juice, some
lemon, and a bunch of spices. It's not around me at the moment but I
'll try to fnd it or something close on the net.. Cut the wing tips
off the turkey. It must be the way turkeys are plumbed but the brine
gets into more internal parts if you do. Do not brine in a metal
container.
I have smoked turkeys in smokers, roasted them, barbqued them and even
cooked one in a pit.
I now conceede to technology and roast the turkey in a plastic bag
with a pop out indicator. Fried turkey is Ok and it is the most
entertaining way to cook a turkey.

I've tried several different ways since we started getting
the free range, never frozen birds about 10 years ago, brine,
no brine, high heat fast, low heat slow, but flipping the
bird is the method I've finally settled on. I don't know how
it would work on the typical frozen Butterball but it works
out well on the birds we get.

I grew up working on a turkey ranch. We grew birds that would be
called "heritage turkeys" now. Primarily broad breasted bronze that
we delivered only to restaurants. In 1980, the ranch I worked on had
the "national turkey" that was spared by the president. This year,
I'm going back to my roots. I'm driving 75 miles each way to pick up
a turkey from a farm that grows bronze birds.
For prep, I'll brine it with this brine recipe (http://www.sfgate.com/
cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/11/22/FDGLVMG63C1.DTL). Seems like a
good recipe. The restaurants we delivered too all brined their
birds. I'll then do something slightly different, in that I'll cook
it, unstuffed, in a convection oven breast down in a rack. Breast
down forces the juices into the breast. Your bird is not a "pretty"
using the breast down and a convection, but the flavor should be
awesome.
Frank Reid