The green bean recipe works great with ham hocks.

Substituting cauliflower for the green beans is a mistake.

-- CatherineJohnson - 27 Nov 2006

Do kosher turkeys taste saltier?

I think the turkey meat definitely tastes saltier, though Ed didn't.

Are kosher turkeys less dry when you cook them? (I guess I'm doubting it, since Ed says his mom cooked some Thanksgiving turkeys that were dry as cardboard.)

I don't mind cardboard.

-- CatherineJohnson - 27 Nov 2006

Did you have a kosher turkey? Kosher turkeys are already salted, so they shouldn't be brined.

-- RudbeckiaHirta - 25 Nov 2006

"Water flows out of the cells in the meat and salt flows in."

This is my problem.

-- CatherineJohnson - 25 Nov 2006

We did a quickie brine this year.

It was pretty good, though it was still saltier than I like.

We're going to try Red State Professor's brining recipe next year.

-- CatherineJohnson - 25 Nov 2006

I know!

This is the way it's supposed to work!

But it was awful!

-- CatherineJohnson - 21 Nov 2006

Brining works wonders, plus it allows you to give a little mini lesson on osmosis:

Brining meat (that is, putting meat into a salt-water solution) adds moisture to the meat through osmosis. Osmosis happens when water flows from a lower concentration of a solution to a higher concentration through a semipermeable membrane. In meat, this membrane is the plasma membrane that surrounds the individual cells. When meat is placed in a brine, the meat's cell fluids are less concentrated than the salt water in the brining solution. Water flows out of the cells in the meat and salt flows in. The salt then dissolves some of the fiber proteins, and the meat's cell fluids become more concentrated, thus drawing water back in. Brining adds salt and water to the cells so that when the meat is cooked and water is squeezed out, there is still water left in the cells because water was added before cooking.

-- KDeRosa - 21 Nov 2006

Thanksgiving

The green beans sound great.

Don't know what to think about the brined turkey, though.

My best friend back in L.A. tried a variant of this one year and it didn't work out.

Salt turkey.

blech


-- CatherineJohnson - 21 Nov 2006

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• Posted by: CatherineJohnson
• LogDate: Nov 20, 2006 @ 21:27

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