Happy Thanksgiving eve everyone! People seem to enjoy when we talk about our turkey each season, since its preparation is heavily influenced by our garden and prior growing season!
Some of you might know nothing other than dried out, overcooked turkey. That’s not how we roll around here, our bird is treated with the utmost preparation and we can hardly contain ourselves from shaving bites off the moment it comes out of the oven. Our preps might be considered insidiously expensive these days, were it not for the fact that we grow almost everything we need for it!
We’re of the mindset that a brined bird is the only proper way to prepare a turkey. This, of course, also gives us an excuse to use up a ton of our preserved produce for the flavor base. We also generally prefer using a beer based brine for our primary liquids. What it adds in cost is more than made up for in amazing depth of flavor.
We start our brine with a classic mirepoix, as I’m heavily inspired by classic French cuisine. This base is also perfect match for our northern gardens, being all cold-climate friendly veggies like onion, carrot and celery. We don’t stop there, though, and throw in gourmet garlic, green onions and leek as we have them around. You can get funky with your choices of veg and fungus too, if you like. We hit it with some fresh citrus for acidity needs, typically oranges and lemon. From here, we add in water, salt, sugar and a bunch of spices and naturally, an entirely home grown bouquet garni!
This concentrate is then combined with a gallon of fine ale. While you certainly can use water instead, we find the beer adds a depth that is unmatched. There’s zero concern of any alcohol carryover with this, any that transfers over will completely evaporate in the oven. We often go for pale ales or lighter IPA’s here, with nut brown ales being our favorite type to use if we can find them.
Our minimum brine time is two days. Often, we plan a little less than ideally and our turkey is still partially frozen when we get to this point. This brine is great as it’ll help thaw that bird quickly, plus infuse it with some amazing fowl flavor goodness as it goes.
For food safety reasons, it’s important to keep things cool until cooking day. In more favorable climates, you can keep your turkey in the garage or even the early winter cool outdoors. That’s not possible for us extreme northerners, though, as anything outdoors will freeze solid. And fast!
There’s a lot of ways to prep a turkey, but that’s how we roll around here! We love to infuse our growing prowess and deep knowledge of cooking to make an irresistible flavor concoction for our classic Turkey day shenanigans! We hope you’re looking at a bit of time off, time with friends and family and whatever it is you choose to do for this classic holiday!
