Request for Jenise's Poultry brine

Some time ago Jenise talked about an ? apple cider ? apple juice brine for chicken ? turkey . Could not find a specific post. Could you please post again ?


Thanks

It's not the same brine recipe, but I brined a turkey last year using Emeril Lagasse's recipe I downloaded from FoodTV.com. It was quite good.

[Jenise]

Christina, what I do is substitute apple juice for the sugar component in a typical brine and add white wine as well. I have no recipe, I just eyeball it and it depends on what tail ends of things I have around. But basically, for a typical 3-4 pound chicken, I'd be needing about 1 quart of brine. In a saucepan I'd place 1 cup water, 1 cup apple juice and 1 cup white wine. I'd heat it and add salt and sugar (probably 2 heaping T salt and 1 of sugar) until I had a potent, balanced blend, then I'd had a good handful of fresh herb sprigs--sage, parsley and thyme at a minimum. I'd bruise the sage leaves as they went into the pot so they'd give more flavor. I'd then move that mixture to a chicken roaster with a handful of ice to cool it down, place the chicken inside breast side down, adjust the liquids if I had to to make sure the chick was mostly covered and let it soak for 8-12 hours. A chicken started between 6 and 8 a.m. is PERFECTLY brined by dinner time. To roast, I usually butterfly and bake spread on a cookie rack at 350 for about an hour and 20 minutes.

The result is a really flavorful chicken that doesn't taste manipulated, it just tastes bgigger and better. And it's never dry.

[Jenise]

It's not the same brine recipe, but I brined a turkey last year using Emeril Lagasse's recipe I downloaded from FoodTV.com. It was quite good.

Robert, haven't looked at Emeril's recipe but he's certainly a great cook. Glad you're another fan of brining. There was a woman who wandered through our midst here some time ago who claimed she cooked birds both brined and not and she didn't think brining made any difference at all. Hard to believe, from where I sit.

Many thanks. I want to try to rotisserie a brined bird and vaguely remembered a much earlier post.

I like the idea of apple juice in the brine Jenise! I am definitely going to try that...thanks for sharing!

[Jenise]

Very tasty, Maria, and it ensures a beautifully browned skin.

Jenise, I first brined a turkey breast 3 years ago for Thanksgiving dinner with my In-Laws, and everyone agreed it was the moistest turkey they had ever had. And while it was a little more involved than your brine, it was still quite easy.

I am brining a turkey breast again this Thanksgiving, and am going to add a tablespoon or so of smashed juniper berries to the brine.

While out in Oklahoma's panhandle region recently, I noticed the juniper berries were ripe on the shrubs, so on our Black Mesa hike, I collected about a pint of the aromatic blue fruit.

So hopefully, there will be that extra kick in flavor from the juniper, and I will reduce the salt based on Peter's calculator, so I may actually be able to use the drippings this year to produce an edible gravy for the bird. (last year's was tasty, but WAY too salty once reduced!)

There was a woman who wandered through our midst here some time ago who claimed she cooked birds both brined and not and she didn't think brining made any difference at all. Hard to believe, from where I sit.

Jenise, I read recently that kosher and prebasted birds do not need to be brined because much salt is used in their processing. It seems that the brine process cannot work if the salt level is similar between the liquid and the bird. It's the imbalance that causes the migration of flavors into the bird in the first place.

I am a huge fan of brining, and not just poultry. Works great on pork, too.