lucianus

If I do say so myself. I tried, for the first time, brining poultry and it was heavenly!

I bought a turkey breast (on the bone) yesterday at the S&S and figured it would be a good candidate for my first brining experiment. I forgot and left the breast in rather too long (10 hours rather than 6) but inspite of it being just a hair on the salty side, the meat was tender and succulent, very juicy and with a lovely pink color on the outer portions.

To make 2 qts of brine:

2 quarts water
1/2 c of kosher or sea salt (not iodized salt)
1/4 c sugar
herbs to taste (I used rosemary and tarragon)

The sugar is there to counteract the harshness of the salt, it doesn't actually add any sweetness but it keeps the meat from getting too firm. I cooked it in an open pan at 325 degrees for about 2 hours and then upped it to 350 to brown the skin a bit. I had the advantage that the piece of turkey that I bought had the pop up timer in it so it took out much of the guess work. Jdulac arrived home just as it was finished and we enjoy it and a dish of butternut squash for our dinner.

Yum!

Now I need to brine a whole turkey!