Denise Landis has been testing recipes for The New York Times for more than 20 years. She is also the author of ?Dinner for Eight: 40 Great Dinner Party Menus for Friends and Family.? Here, she offers the case for steaming, rather than brining, your Thanksgiving turkey.
Jacques P?pin?s recipe for turkey that is first steamed, then roasted, may have you wondering how it compares to traditional methods of simply roasting, or of brining the bird before roasting.
In my 25 years as a professional recipe-tester, I have cooked many turkeys in the quest for the most flavorful, moist and succulent bird. My family won?t forget the year I tested recipes for four turkeys ? all of them brined ? in the weeks before Thanksgiving.
Brining requires submerging meat or fowl into a mixture of water and salt, which usually includes additional seasonings. It keeps the meat of a large bird moist during long exposure to dry heat; the salt and spices are intended to add a fillip of flavor. After a day or two of brining, the bird is drained, patted dry and roasted.
But brining ? so popular in the last several years ? is a big pain, frankly. The person who cooks the turkey is usually the one who is hosting Thanksgiving dinner. With the refrigerator full of wine and drinks, dips and appetizers and side dishes and all those ingredients for everything else, what host has room for a heavy vat of turkey and brine? If you use a brining bag, your turkey will not be completely submerged, so will require an occasional turn. And what if the bag is accidentally pierced?
I happen to like the natural flavor of turkey, and I like breast meat if it is not overcooked and dried out. Since I go to some trouble ? not to mention, expense ? of buying a natural unflavored, uninjected, un-self-basting bird, why would I want to bring it home and infuse it with salt, coriander, peppercorns, bay leaves, chili flakes, wine and/or lemon juice?
I called Eva Baughman, a fellow recipe-tester and a food photographer, to ask her thoughts on brining. To my surprise, she, too, rejects brining. ?I don?t like what it does to the texture of the meat,? she said. ?It can make it spongy.?
So while I have dutifully tested many a brined turkey (and cheerfully eaten them, too), my own holiday turkeys have been roasted unadulterated, brushed with melted butter and sage and draped with cheesecloth to catch the juices lovingly and frequently basted over it.
But no longer. Chef P?pin?s recipe allows a turkey to taste like itself in the best possible way, steamed mainly in its own juices. The small incisions at the joints help the bird to cook evenly without causing it to fall apart. The breast meat is as tender and moist and flavorful as any I?ve ever had. And roasting browns the bird and crisps the skin.
Your challenge may be to find a pot large enough in which to steam the bird. It must have a tightly-fitting lid. Foil will not do, because fastened to the rim of the pot it will allow moisture to drip down the outside and foil tucked into the pot won?t make a tight seal. If you don?t own a covered roasting pan or a very large stockpot, use (as I did) a large enameled canning pot, one of those inexpensive speckled blue-and-white ?granite ware? pots sold in hardware stores and online.
After the holidays, keep the pot for cooking lobsters or making jam, stash your knitting in it, or use it as a hatbox. But don?t give it away ? you?ll want it for your next turkey.
This post has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: November 13, 2012
An earlier version of this post misspelled the last name of a recipe tester. Her name is Eva Baughman, not Boughman.
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