Brining your turkey, or salt brining any bird for that matter, is a no brainer. Preparing the brine takes minutes and a brined turkey (or brined chicken or brined game hen or brined pigeon or brined pheasant) has more flavor that is better balanced, and has a firmer, plumper texture. Also, salt brining your turkey makes for a juicier bird, every time, meaning it is better when you cook it right, and if the gods are not smiling on your oven today, it is more forgiving when you over-cook.

Sel Gris de l’Ile de NoirmoutierHow does brining work? Simple: a brine is a salt solution, and salt subtly denatures the proteins in the turkey, allowing them to hold more water, making for a juicier bird. Since you are bringing brine into the bird, make the brine of the finest stuff: sea salt and spring water.

So, rather than squeak around the kitchen like a church mouse, I just say it: This is the best turkey brining recipe in the world, bar none. Though there may be fancier brines, more complicated brines, or in the parlance of pun-insensitive management consultants, “more sophisticated brining solutions,” there is not a better way to brine than the old fashioned way. Use other turkey brining recipes as inspiration for elaboration on this recipe, but show your bird your love by sticking to the fundamentals.

My logic is simple: if salt is the key agent in a brine, a better salt will yield a better salt brine. Use the right salt for your turkey brining and you are vouchsafed something I once read (for real) on a fortune cookie: “eternal fun smart joy.” The right salt will contribute mineral complexity to the flavor of your bird, which in this day and age of large-scale farming, is possibly already mineral-deficient to begin with. From a flavor standpoint, this is not subtle.

Rule one to brining your turkey–and there is only one real rule. Never, NEVER use Kosher salt in your turkey brine. Kosher salt is 100% pure sodium chloride, though at times a touch of sodium ferrocyanide is added for good times. Pure sodium chloride in the form of kosher salt is a calamity that has befallen man far more grave than any wrought by Pandora or Eve. Kosher salt, whether dissolved in a brine or, worse yet, added directly to the food you put in your body, is the equivalent of using Velveeta in you fondue, or cream of mushroom soup in your beef Bourguignon. The refined sodium chloride that is Kosher salt has no correlative in your body or on your palate. That is why it tastes harsh, biting, and painfully sharp. Do NOT use Kosher salt. Lots of recipes call for Diamond brand Kosher salt, or Morton’s Kosher salt, and lots of people like to preach earnestly about the superiority of Diamond over Morton’s, or vice versa. To me, both Kosher salts are fine, if, and only if, you are koshering your meat–which is to say, extracting as much fluid from it as possible. If you are not koshering something, do not, ever, use Kosher salt.

So, back to brining your bird…

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Mark Bitterman :: Nov.19.2007 :: Brining, Cooking with Salt :: 1 Comment »