Without Reservations

Beyond brine

We are off to a turbulent start as to season's greetings, with, on the one hand, the fabulously crazed Rev. Jerry Falwell demanding that everyone say "Merry Christmas!" (or else!) and, on the other, "Did you brine your turkey?" succeeding the inoffensively secular "Happy Thanksgiving" as the preferred way of wishing people a happy Thanksgiving.

Now that the holiday itself has come and gone, leaving in its wake the usual flotsam and jetsam of turkey bits, congealed mashed potatoes, half-eaten cranberry sauces, and other unidentified remains, it is perhaps an opportune moment to spill a trade secret or two. Some of the season's major feasts (including Festivus, for those so inclined) are still to be prepared and devoured, and while roast turkey does not dominate them as it does Thanksgiving, it remains a player – and, to judge from various postmortems one has participated in or overheard, a player whose preparation continues to cause anxiety.

Brining. This has been a vogue technique in the past few years and involves giving the bird a saline bath for a day or so before roasting. The logistics involve either a huge refrigerator or an ice chest big enough to hold the bird, and several gallons of brine that must first be heated to dissolve the salt and awaken the aromatics, then cooled so as not to cook the bird prematurely. The result is supposed to be crisp skin and juicy, flavorful meat. Last year I brined the turkey and did end up with a degree of the promised success, but the effort and mess were considerable, and the turkey, while decent, did not have people turning somersaults around the dining room table.

Salting, of course, is the key – but why not, I wondered, simply rub the bird the day before with kosher salt, along with some ground pepper and dried Provençal herbs, as one would a chicken? This seasoning took a few undramatic moments. On the morning of the great day, I let the bird come to room temperature while preheating the oven to a hot, though not scorching, 400 degrees Fahrenheit. In went the salted turkey (a fairly small one, weighing just under 11 pounds), breast-side up and legs to the rear, for about 35 minutes, until the skin had become richly bronzed. I then flipped it over so that for the next hour the back turned bronze while the breast, at the bottom of the sump, more or less, absorbed juice runoff. For the last 15 minutes: oven to 450 degrees and breast up again for a final crisping.

Result? Again, no somersaults, but a general consensus as to flavorful, moist meat and good skin. Thank goodness!

Paul Reidinger

paulr@sfbg.com