paulraphael

thanks for the recipe. i'm sure it works although it's not what i'm going for ... i try to make my ice creams with no more than 2 eggs per quart, since I don't like the custard flavors. This makes textures more challenging, because eggs add so much viscosity and emulsifying power. also, that recipe looks like it tops the charts in fat content! I had really good luck with my most recent variation. I cut the butter in half, but still got decent brown butter flavor with 1.5g added milk solids which i browned with the butter. I'll post to recipe gullet if anyone's interested.

The real question is, to what temperature did you cook both breasts? White meat dries out because it gets overcooked; brining, in addition to pumping extra water into the meat, gives it some additional resistance to overcooking. But after preparing dozens of chickens both with and without brine, and with the breast meat cooked to the correct temperature (close to 20 degrees lower than what the FDA recommends) I can say that I prefer unbrined. The brined white meat is still a bit juicier, but the extra juices taste like salt, not like chicken (or turkey). Even when brining is done carefully, and the results aren't objectionably salty, there's still the impression that the natural flavor of the bird has been diluted. The real trick is cooking the breasts properly. Deconstructing the bird is one solution. Protecting the breasts from heat during a portion of the cooking process is another. Chilling the breasts before cooking is yet another. I prefer portecting the breasts, using methods based on barding. This year's turkey had the breasts covered with bacon and foil for half the cooking time. After resting, breast meat was 145 to 150 degrees, dark meat was 160 to 165.

I did a 14lb bird tonight without stuffing and poached for 90 minutes ... didn't change the time at all. I find it easiest to time the poach (even if your chosen time is a bit arbitrary) and then worry about getting the bird cooked perfectly during the roasting stage. Tonight's bird was the best i've ever done. part of it was starting with a much nicer bird, but i also think i've been able to tweak the technique over the years. I dry salted the bird and let it sit covered in the fridge overnight (about 18 hours). I used a probe thermometer to keep the poaching liquid low and steady ... between 160 and 165 degrees. After poaching I dried the bird, and infused garlic into some melted butter. I painted the liquid butter over the surface of the bird, and rubbed the garlic into the breast under the skin. I covered the the breast with diagonally criss-crossing strips of bacon, and covered that with a tripple layer of foil. After 20 minutes I pulled off the foil and bacon. After 30 minutes, i rotated the pan so the legs faced teh front. At 45 minutes a probe between the breast and thigh read just over 150. i pulled the bird out and rested for 45 minutes.

kosher salt is less dense than table salt, so you want to use a greater volume, not a lower one.

here's an update: appetizers will be spiced commice pear wrapped with bacon and marrinated portobello wrapped with bacon, served skewered on toothpicks. corn chowder with porccini mushrooms poached and roasted turkey with duck and maitake mushroom brown sauce french farm style stuffing with apples and raisins cereriac and fennel puree cranberry grand marnier sauce peter reinhart's outrageous cornbread brussel sprouts with truffle butter chocolate marquise with pear and ginger sauce dark pumpkin tart with brown butter cognac ice cream so far all i've made is the tart dough and truffle butter. time to get to work!

Yeah, I'm trying to keep the milkfat down around 15%. The problem might just be that butter fat makes for a much less stable emulsion. I'll see if the cornstarch or anything else helps stabilize it, but I may be barking up the wrong tree.

I think there are better solutions that the one McGee proposes (you don't have to overcook the breast; you can protect it by barding, for example). But I agree with him on brining. The science supports him. You can brine for less time, or in a weaker solution, but then you're really just doing surface seasoning. To get the real benefits of brining, which necessarily come with the real drawbacks, it takes a long time for big bird.

oh, so you didn't see the method on recipegullet? it's really simple to melt the chocolate with the liquid (wine) and then just incorporate the solid butter as fast as it will emulsify. i haven't done it with that low a proportion of chocolate to liquid, but i think it would work, especially if you add the chocolate a bit at a time as it melts. did you find that the wine flavor held up well enough?

What recipe did you end up using, and how did they taste?

Yeah, I actually do brown some of the dry milk. I put it in with the butter as it browns. I didn't realize other people figured this out too! The only brown butter ice cream recipe I've looked at is from Michael Laiskonis, who adapted his from Michel Bras. It's not too far off from what I do, but with a major exception: he uses 6 yolks per quart, and I use 2. It's possible that that overdose of emulsifying protein helps keep the butter smooth. But I'm trying to do it without all the yolks. Laiskonis says the cornstarch helps with the extra fat from the butter, so my first experiment may be to use more of it.

That's a bigger one than I've done by a few pounds. I've found a 20qt pot to work well for a 16lb bird, so maybe you need 25qt? It will be great to have around for stock making any time of year you're not poaching turkeys. I'd estimate that cooking time will increase in rough proportion to the weight of the bird. So for a 21lb bird, expect it to be about a third longer than the times I give. I'd time the poaching, and then base the cooking on observation. A remote probe thermometer is your best friend with a turkey, unless you've coked enough of them to a good sense of when they're done. Also, really keep an eye on the poaching liquid temperature. You want it to be below a simmer. Like, maybe a bubble wandering to the surface and popping once in a while. I added some edits to the recipe online, since people are actually going to be following it ... I don't want to get thrown off the island for ruining everyone's holiday! In that spirit, I offer one more suggestion: if observed reality clashes with what the recipe tells you, trust your senses and your instincts, not me.

Does anyone have experience making this? I've been working on getting brown butter flavor into a cognac/vanilla ice cream, and am having a couple of issues. The first is a very slight graininess, which could either be butterfat or clumps of browned milk solids themselves (I strain the mix through a chinois, but it's not the finest chinois in the world). The other is that butterfat seems to congeal on the spoon when you eat it, leaving a gummy coating. Flavor and everything else are excellent. My method now is to replace 2/3 or the cream with milk and melted browned butter. I add some dried milk solids to the butter to boost the browned flavors. The ice cream is emulsified and stabilized with egg yolks (2 per quart) and a bit of gelatin and cornstarch. I suppose another option is to skip the butter and try to reduce and brown a bunch of cream. Thoughts?

I haven't tried any of these yet, but based on what I've seen the Beaterblade might be the best one.

Sad to hear you have problems with them at Grand Central market. I've gotten the most consistently good seafood there of anyplace in the city (there are lots of places I haven't tried, though, so this is from limited experience).

I agree with your feelings on this. I think my solution would be to experiment with one flavor at a time. Pick ginger or bacon or green tea or wasabi or thai chilis or whatever. Really start tasting them. Investigate how they've been used in traditional foods. And think about how they might form some marriage with what you already know. This isn't about gratuitous fusion, or adopting someone else's style, it's about letting your own style and tradition expand in a particular direction. If you're in a hury you can start by stealing a bunch of recipes that you like, maybe from p*ong, or god knows where else. Little by little, one flavor at a time, make them your own. Just a thought.

Sean, do you sell retail? Or through any NYC retailers that you recommend?

Well, there aren't different rules at home; there are no rules. It's not a regulated environment. Short of murder, or manufacturing crack, you do just about anything you want in your kitchen! I find the results of this difference educational. There are estimates that between 60% and 90% of all cases of foodborne illness in the U.S. come from food cooked at home. Unfortunately it's a vague set of figures, because most cases aren't reported (most may not even be identified as foodborne). But at any rate, it challenges the common assumption that food poisoning is confined to filthy restaurants. Given all this, I'm happy to learn from what they do in the commercial environment. And as I said before, I'm thrilled that my rags and sponges don't stink anymore.

If you're worried about the dangers of using sanitizing chemicals around food (vs. the dangers of pathogens), why does it matter if you're cooking for 5 or for 500?

Well, as much as I love Alton, I think he's been wrong about a fair number of things. And when it comes to definitions, the issue is less righ or wrong, but how universally useful they are. If half the things called broth don't fit your definition of broth, then your definition may have outlived its usefulness. If it was ever useful in the first place! The only kind of broth I've had that's lacking gelatin is canned broth, like the Swansons you mention (and which tastes to me like salt water with a bit of poultry extract). for soup bases I've often used low sodium commercial broths, like the organic Pacific products that whole foods sells. These likewise have no gelatin, but they don't taste like brine (still too salty to reduce for sauces, though) and they have genuine chicken flavor. Every homemade broth I've had was at least gelatinous enough to set up when cold.

I agree with Sean. Keep in mind that the shellfish toxins he mentions are poisons, not pathogens. They're not affected by cooking. So the issue isn't raw or cooked; it's 100% about trusting your purveyor. Also agreed that Wholefoods is not a trusted seafood purveyor. I like the produce and the deli counters, but that's some of the sorriest looking fish I ever lay my eyes on.

You could be right. Though I think it's worth noticing that health departments across the country seem to have unanimously come to the opposite conclusion.

Not surprising if an approach that works well on $20/lb meat and $60/lb meat isn't ideal on $6/lb meat. I've paid more than that for cat food!

You can also presalt and leave it covered in the fridge, if it doesn't need any additional drying. Or leave it covered for a few hours, uncovered or a few. I do it either way, depending on the chicken. With the fresh killed birds I've had, it didn't seem necessary. I may try it at some point to see.

But how do you know what illnesses are from food and what aren't? And what about illnesses of your guests that appear 12 hours, 48 hours, a week after their meal? It's a big assumption to make. At any rate, the real benefit for me is non-stinky, non-contaminated sponges and towels. Sanitized cutting boards are a fringe benefit. As far as safety, the chemicals in question have been used for ages in restaurants. They also exist in much stronger concentrations in many household disinfecting cleaners, especially ones made for use on food surfaces. I suppose there's a chance we'll learn they're harmful someday, but we already know that they're less harmful than lysteria!

I'm planning to pre salt the bird this year, so if you can postpone your thanksgiving 24 hours, I'll tell you all about it Really, I think the most important thing is to pony up and get a really good turkey. All the hoops people jump through with seasonings and brines are really just attempts to compensate for the shortcomings of factory birds. If you get a well raised, free range bird, all you really have to do is cook it well (don't overcook the breasts). Easier said than done, but it doesn't take a genius. Presalting is probably unnecessary, but it's a much better option than brining, unless you're convinced you're going to overcook the bejeezus out of the bird. A brined an overcooked bird won't dry out as much. If you have a very fresh, air-dried bird you won't need to dry it with an open salt rub. It may be ok, but I'm not sure what the benefit would be. I plan to salt the bird and leave it wrapped in the fridge, and for no longer than 24 hours. People have these amazing schemes of brining for 48 hours and then air drying for 24, or whatever ... but don't stop and think that they're adding days of age to a meat that does not benefit from aging. If possible, I want to serve a bird who was walking around merrily a day ago. It will taste better. You won't HAVE to do too much stuff to it. edit: oh yeah ... i plan to use about 1/2 tsp salt per lb., concentrating more on the thick parts. this is what I use on chickens. if it seems like too much for the turkey, i'll use less. i don't think precision is to important.