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A Lemony, Gingery Roast Turkey for Something New on Thanksgiving - Food52
I brine whether it is scientifically justifiable or not, because, well, it is a religious matter,” cookbo ok editor Rux Martin told Kim Severson for The New York Times earlier this week.
For the uninitiated, brining essentially involves submerging your meat in a salty solution for several hours, during which the salt water will penetrate into the meat via a process called osmosis. (Takes you back to fifth-grade science now, doesn’t it?) Not only does this season the meat all the way through, but the salt in the water will loosen up some of the protein molecules in the meat as well, resulting in much juicier, plumper flesh post-cooking.
My all-time favorite food-science guru—J. Kenji López-Alt of Food Lab fame—did some extensive tests on brining, and found that it reduces the amount of moisture loss in poultry by up to 40%. This means that after roasting, a turkey that’s been brined can be nearly twice as moist as a regular, non-brined turkey, which for me is reason enough to adhere to the method, out-of-fashion as it may be according to Severson’s latest report.
I brine whether it is scientifically justifiable or not, because, well, it is a religious matter,” cookbo ok editor Rux Martin told Kim Severson for The New York Times earlier this week.
For the uninitiated, brining essentially involves submerging your meat in a salty solution for several hours, during which the salt water will penetrate into the meat via a process called osmosis. (Takes you back to fifth-grade science now, doesn’t it?) Not only does this season the meat all the way through, but the salt in the water will loosen up some of the protein molecules in the meat as well, resulting in much juicier, plumper flesh post-cooking.
My all-time favorite food-science guru—J. Kenji López-Alt of Food Lab fame—did some extensive tests on brining, and found that it reduces the amount of moisture loss in poultry by up to 40%. This means that after roasting, a turkey that’s been brined can be nearly twice as moist as a regular, non-brined turkey, which for me is reason enough to adhere to the method, out-of-fashion as it may be according to Severson’s latest report.