Food/prep people ahoy!

[mousme]

I've been hearing confusing things about brining one's food, especially poultry (something about conserving moisture in chicken).

Is this advisable? When should one brine one's food, if ever? What does it do? Stupid question of the day: doesn't it make the food taste awfully salty?

Buh?

Anyone? Bueller?

Comments

[joane.livejournal.com]

I've heard of Alton Brown using it as a cooking technique for turkeys, but never tried it; it's a same-weekend marinade-type thing, as I understand it. I've done pickles before, which is kind of a brine, but that's about all I know of for brining as storage technique.

[curtana.livejournal.com]

I've brined chicken once. I found it did keep it very moist, but the skin didn't ever crisp (boo). It did taste a little bit more salty than usual, but not unpleasantly so - basically just a "you won't need to put on any salt at the table" kind of salty.

[prolixfootle.livejournal.com]

I've brined my Christmas turkey for roasting. Kept it very most and not unpleasantly salty. The recipe I used was 1 cup of salt for every gallon of water. Keep it completely submereged for 24 to 36 hours in the Frigidaire. Got the technique here.

[mellybean71.livejournal.com]

Whoa. For a minute I thought "what is so much of my f-list doing on [the LJ cooking comm (I can *not* get the tag to work!)]" Then I realized it wasn't so. I think I need more sleep...

In any case, it's a great community and they might have more info. I, myself, have never brined poultry.

I have a great cookbook you might want to look at. It has a big section of meals you cook in an afternoon to freeze for later. It could easily give you a month's worth of food in a weekend and the dishes are fairly varied for all that they start from the same stuff.

eta: I *really* need my paid account back-- I had to delete this comment at least four times (sorry!) before I could get it written properly.

[owldaughter.livejournal.com]

I love brining. I do it both dry and wet. The idea behind it is that it helps keep the moisture locked in the meat, resulting in a more tender/moist cooked item. If you flavour the brine you get the added flavouring too. (Duh.)

Dry brining is the easiest thing ever. Take kosher salt, rub it all over your rinsed and patted-dry poultry. Refrigerate for a few hours. Rinse it off, pat dry again. Roast. To die for.

The wet brine is something I tend to use on cuts of meat as opposed to whole birdies. I usually use a brine of water, salt, brown sugar, and as many herbs as I can find hanging dry on my pot rack, plus a bay leaf or two. Heat the brine for a while, then pour it into a container and let it cool before dumping in your cut of meat. Refrigerate for as many hours as you like. I've done chicken breasts as well as pork tenderloin this way.

There are more coherent recipes out there, but these will be the basics of each. The salt doesn't really make it taste salty; like curtana says it adds flavour more than anything else.

I is buying youse my favourite cookbook for Formerly Christian Recycled Pagan Neo-Consumerist Winter Holiday Retail Festival.

Brining

[ankhorite.livejournal.com]

Me no cook (despite the icon).

Me ask my dearest savant_da_rat to look in on this issue when he comes home later this week.