Tis the season for us to unpack all the holiday crazy that comes with the post-Halloween holiday adventure. Thanksgiving and Christmas. Cooking, planning, setting up, and a lot of decking of the halls!

So we start with Thanksgiving. Weeks ago we took advantage of the 50% discount deal at our local supermarket and made room for the frozen Turkey in our basement fridge. Then we slowly accumulated all the other ingredients to our “feeding an army for two people” style of Thanksgiving. On that Monday, November 23rd. I caught a little video from a television and network cooking personality, Mr. Alton Brown. He recommended that people could defrost and brine a turkey at the same time. So I had a frozen Turkey in my freezer and I had never brined a Turkey before and didn’t know how it would turn out. Following Mr. Browns advice, I hauled out the twenty-pound bird and found that my biggest stock pot fit it like a glove. The directions couldn’t have been more direct and simple. Strip the Turkey of it’s webbing and plastic wrap, then put a cup of Kosher Salt in the vessel along with 2L of hot tap water in the vessel and stir until the salt is dissolved. Then add 4L more cold water to the vessel and then put the turkey in. I put it so that the main cavity was pointed up at me, so as I added more water (water to fill all the way around the turkey) it wasn’t going into the cavity, so I poured into the cavity until the entire bird was submerged. Then I wrapped the top in plastic wrap and put it in the basement, behind locked doors. No refrigeration required! As the turkey defrosted itself, it also brined itself. When I temped out the bird two days later it was at about 45 degrees and then I stowed it in the fridge until we were ready to cook it. When I was set, I poured the water off and then rinsed it with fresh cold tap water, all the cavities and everything. Then I put it in the roasting pan.

The oven was set at 350 degrees, however, it was running hot for about twenty minutes, so the first shot was at about 400 degrees. I knew something wasn’t right because the turkey was making a lot of snap, crackle, and pop noises. When I checked the temperature I noticed the temperature disparity and corrected the dial, which brought the oven back into calibration.

There were two competing schools of thought during the cooking process. The first one was that I had accidentally turned our turkey into Lot’s Turkey, a solid pillar of salt. The other school was “it defrosted and it didn’t amount to crap.” and that the salt was pretty much just a silly affectation. I held out hope, mostly because of the sage words of Mr. Brown, whom I trust when it comes to food preparation and cooking.

We were a little taken aback when the temperature probe indicated that every part of the turkey had reached about 170 degrees, it was well and truly done. I asked, “How much juice is in the pan?” and the answer was “Not very much, if any. Only what it was basted with.” We had made enough of our own with the basting juices made with turkey broth concentrate and sauteeing the neck. I let the turkey settle for about ten minutes and then carved into it.

The meat was so moist and juicy that it fell apart as I carved into it. The entire dinner was spent marvelling at just how amazing it all was and how we’ll never do a turkey any other way than this. So simple, a saltwater bath for three days changes so much about a turkey! And just like Mr. Brown promised, the brine really shines for leftovers. The turkey is usually tough and dry as cardboard by the time its leftovers, but with the brined turkey it is nearly as amazing each time we take little out of the fridge for dinner it’s still amazing!

I can’t understand why everyone doesn’t brine their turkey. We’ll brine ours from now on, fresh and leftovers are just the tip of how amazing this is. The turkey probably was fully thawed in a little over a day! The three days just added to the brine’s power to make the bird juicy and amazingly flavorful.

Just for the record, the turkey wasn’t related to Lot at all, it wasn’t salty. It was amazing.