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marinated Turkey Recipes marinade

Into the Briny Deep

by Paul DeLuca on February 11, 2010 · Comments (3)

in cooking techniques, every day meals, food & drink, holidays, recipes

Rub your temples, immerse yourself in thought, and marinate on this: The best way to impart amazing flavor to your food is to do stuff to it before you cook it. The list of stuff you can do includes three of the most common methods to boost flavor: marinating, rubs, and brining. While you can marinate with a brine, you can’t brine with a marinade. If that rubs you the wrong way, break out your spices and rub that confusion into submission. Capisce?
Let Me Marinade You

Most of us have marinated food before cooking at one time or another, usually in the refrigerator, and your local supermarket likely contains many varieties from which to choose. In recent years many salad dressing makers have branched out into the marinade category after realizing that their dressings were being used as marinades.

In addition to imparting flavor, most marinades claim to tenderize as well. And while most marinades contain some acid ingredients–usually vinegar, wine, or citrus juice–that can dissolve proteins, they don’t do much beyond the surface of the food. (Most wet and dry tenderizers are based on enzymes of the papaya and are grandchildren of the late 1940’s commercial tenderizers that used papaya enzyme.) They do help add salty, sweet, acidic, and spicy flavors which contribute very well to overall enjoyment.
Rub-A-Dub-Dub

Rubs get flavors onto meats quickly. Meats with lots of surface area like flank steak, chicken breasts, and tuna steaks are good candidates. Rubs are fast and don’t add much rep time when cooking, so if you get a little last minute inspiration, you can use a pre-packaged rub or mix up one of your own if you have the right spices handy.

Rubs, as the name implies, are not simply sprinkled on top like seasonings. They’re meant to be worked into the meat thoroughly. Remember the scrub you used to get from mom after playing in the mud? You’ve got to get into all those nooks and crannies if your rub is going to do its job. Because most commercial rubs contain salt, your initial application of a rub, when left to rest for a few minutes, will pull moisture to the surface, enabling you to apply a second, third, or fourth layer.

Rubs are food-specific in flavor and texture; you wouldn’t use the same rub on chicken as you would on pork or tuna. Take a look at some commercial rubs to get ideas for what to include in your homemade versions. As always, your palate may vary.
Brine, Women, and Song

In I’m Just Here for the Food: Version 2.0, Alton Brown nails it: “Had Shakespeare chosen to reach for a culinary metaphor in his love sonnets, brining would have been the one. Brining is a wonderful thing because it’s invisible. You brine a piece of meat, cook it, cut it, serve it, and everybody tastes it and exclaims in disbelief, “Man, this is great meat. You’re a genius!” Learn to brine pork and poultry and soon you’ll be clearing room on your mantle for that Nobel Prize in cooking.” My mantle awaits.

Brines are mostly salt and sugar dissolved in water. Add a few herbs and spices and you’ve got a magic elixir that will amaze your taste buds and change the way you cook forever.

The effectiveness of brines is simple, really. Chemistry tells us that osmotic forces enable water to flow with relative ease throughout meat. Salt a steak before cooking and you’ll see how it pulls water from the cells to the surface. Because the cells in the meat are always seeking balance, the salt on the surface needs to be balanced with the salt inside, so water is pumped out. We can use that to our advantage to pump water in, too. If our brine is on the salty side(about 5% solution), the cells will seek to balance the salt content on the inside and will pull the salty water into the interior of the meat. The result is nicely seasoned meat that is also plump full of water. And because other flavorings are water-soluble (sugar, herbs, and spices), they’ll tag along with our salt water to add even more flavor. The salt solution traps water and flavorings in the meat and retains it during cooking resulting in juicier meats that are also harder to overcook.
The Basic Brine

I’ve used several brines with great effectiveness. A basic all-purpose brine recommended by Michael Ruhlman and Brian Polcyn in Charcuterie consists of the following:

* 1 gallon/4 liters of water
* 1 cup/225 grams of kosher salt
* 1/2 cup/125 grams of sugar
* Optional seasonings – Aromatic vegetables, roughly chopped; garlic and peppercorns; standard herbs such as parsley, thyme, rosemary, chives, bay leaf.

Combine all ingredients in a large pot and bring to a simmer, stirring until the salt and sugar are dissolved. Remove from the heat and allow to cool to room temperature, then refrigerate until chilled. Add your meat and refrigerate for 2 to 48 hours. More on times in a moment.

When brining a whole turkey, I added the following to the basic brine:

* about 1 oz/25 grams fresh tarragon
* about 1 oz/25 grams fresh parsley
* 2 bay leaves
* 1 head of garlic, halved horizontally
* 1 onion, sliced
* 3 T/30 grams black peppercorns, lightly crushed with the bottom of a sauté pan
* 2 lemons, halved

The roasted turkey was so juicy and flavorful it was hard to tell the white meat from the dark meat. It was even better the next day. I was floored by the difference brining made in the flavor, texture, and moisture that permeated the turkey. Even after resting for 30 minutes, the breast meat slices were dripping as I carved. I took some to my mom’s house and made everyone taste it. What can I say; I was excited!

For a pork roast, I used one of Alton’s brines:

* 1 quart vegetable stock
* 1/2 cup kosher salt
* 1/4 cup dark brown sugar
* 1 t black peppercorns
* 2 bay leaves
* 1 quart orange juice
* 2 quarts ice water

Bring 2 cups of the stock, salt, brown sugar, peppercorns, and bay leaves just to a boil, stirring to dissolve the salt and sugar. Add the remaining stock, the orange juice, and ice water. Allow to cool to below 40 degrees, then add the meat and brine for 8 to 48 hours.

The roast had just a hint of citrus flavor and was buttery in texture all the way through. I never tasted a pork roast like it. Like the turkey, the pork was extremely juicy and the flavors and textures were surprising with every bite.
Brining Times

Leave a piece of meat in a brine for too long and it will be too salty, so when in doubt, cut brining time short. Make sure you give the brine time to work and the brined meat time to rest before cooking or all your effort will be lost. Here, from Charcuterie, is a general guideline on brining times:

* Boneless chicken breasts (8 oz/225 grams): 2 hours
* Pork chops, 1 1/2 in/3.5 c thick: 2 hours
* A 2-pound/1-kilogram chicken: 4 to 6 hours
* A 3- to 4-pound/1.5- to 2-kilogram chicken: 8 to 12 hours
* A boneless turkey breast, 4 in/10 c thick: 12 to 18 hours
* A 4-pound/2-kilogram pork loin: 12 hours
* A 10- to 15-pound/4- to 7-kilogram turkey: 24 hours
* A turkey over 15 pounds/7 kilograms: 24 to 36 hours
* Fish: 1 hour for thin fillets, 6 to 8 hours for fillets or steaks 1 in/2.5 c thick or more

Some general brining tips:

1. Make sure you have a container or pot large enough to completely submerge the meat you want to brine. You don’t want it too large, or you’ll have to increase the volume of brining mixture to make up for the volume of the pot. In most cases you shouldn’t have to more than double the recipe.
2. Brine well in advance so you can allow the meat to rest after brining, for anywhere from 2 to 24 hours.
3. Never rinse off a marinade or brine. Simply pat dry and cook as desired.
4. Timing is critical, both in brine time and cooking temperature. Remember to allow for carry-over.
5. Allow the meat to rest 15 to 30 minutes before serving to allow the flavors and juices to continue to do their magic.
6. It will be so good you’ll want to keep it all to yourself. Be nice; share.

WHY stand we gazing on the sparkling Brine,
with wonder smit by its transparency,
And all-enraptured with its purity?
Because the unstained, the clear, the crystalline,
Have ever in them something of benign;
Whether in gem, in water, or in sky,
A sleeping infant’s brow, or wakeful eye
Of a young maiden, only not divine.
Scarcely the hand forbears to dip its palm
For beverage drawn as from a mountain-well;
Temptation centres in the liquid Calm;
Our daily raiment seems no obstacle
To instantaneous plunging in, deep Sea!
And revelling in long embrace with thee.
~William Wordsworth – 1833

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