Brining simply means soaking your meat, fish or poultry for a specific time in salted water. Often recipes include spices, herbs, juices and sometimes vegetables to introduce more flavors into the product.
When gaining weight is actually great
Brining promotes a change in the structure of proteins in the muscle by osmosis, which is the flow of water across a barrier from a place with a higher water concentration. The whole point of brining is to add moisture to meat, poultry and fish. If you weigh the product before and after brining you’ll happily realize a weight gain, in some scenarios even 10%. When the brined product is cooked it will be juicier because there is additional moisture. If you weigh the brined product again after cooking you’ll realize a weight loss of 15-20% whereas non-brined foods lose + or - 30% of their weight, nearly twice as much as brined foods! So you see there is no reason not to brine.
(turkey in brine)
So what happens during brining?
Flavor
Salt in the brine plays a crucial role by helping with the retention of water. It locks the brine into the meat structure and hence makes the water less likely to evaporate during the cooking process. The result is more moist and flavorful meat, poultry and fish.
Texture
The salt modifies and softens the texture also. The salty liquid reacts with the muscle proteins and hence the brined food softens. It actually dissolves some proteins in the muscle fiber and the saline water gets trapped between these proteins when the meat cooks, as long as you don’t overcook the meat, which would cause this structure to tighten and squeeze out the trapped liquid.
The Whole Turkey or the Juicy Brined One?
For many years my whole turkey cooking experience - brined or not brined – was less than ideal. The problem is that the parts require different temperatures and times to cook: legs are just about done at around 160 – 165 degrees Fahrenheit and a turkey breast is perfectly moist at a temperature of 150 -155 degrees Fahrenheit. It means just about any turkey cooked whole is more or less under or over cooked resulting in dry “matter”. Unless your secret gravy recipe comes to help and smothers the whole spiel with homemade goodness it’s going to be a dry turkey, again.
(perfectly moist turkey)
Is the turkey hurting?
So last year in my restaurant I experimented with my Thanksgiving turnkey with a rather wacky technique. I put a heat resistant ice pack wrapper right on the turkey breast at a certain point during the cooking time which stopped the breast from cooking until the legs were done. To finish the turkey I gave it a few more minutes without the ice pack in the hot oven to get everything to a servable temperature and voila – this actually worked quite well - but not with 15 birds. So these days I cook brined turkey breast and legs separately. This method is simple to execute and brought back the same satisfied faces year after year. That said I’m a briner.
Brining Tips
- Always brine foods in the refrigerator in cool liquid (+-40 degrees Fahrenheit). If temperature is too high add ice cubes.
- Some brining recipes include sugar - this balances the saltiness but technically has no effect on the brined food.
- Soft textured foods such as shrimp or fish filets need only a short brining time - 30 minutes is plentiful. Apply the rule of thumb one hour per pound of meat and poultry for brining times.
- Kosher-style salt is a reliable brining ingredient. You can brine with sea salt, which is a lot more expensive though.
- Food should be totally immersed in the brine – this way the cooked food will taste equally flavorful.
- Adding spices, herbs or vegetables to brines seems wasteful to me and I would rather add them later on in the cooking process where they can better shine.
It takes only two minutes of your time to dissolve some salt in water for the following brine recipe.
(brined, shredded turkey in carrots juice)
Basic brine for fish, meat and poultry
1 cup Kosher-style salt
1-gallon water
- In a bowl combine salt and water then mix with a wire whisk until the salt has dissolved.
Chef’s Note: Depending on the mood or occasion, I add either apple juice, orange juice, vanilla extract, beer or something seasonal and fun to the above recipe.
