The best part of the entire meal was the salmon. Simple, stand alone salmon. A tiny twist on the traditional lemon became orange instead. I sprinkled a SUPER coarse grind of black pepper with my 2 1/2 foot tall grinder, and then a sprinkle of cayenne because I can't get enough of the spice- and it's good for you (this link leaves out the fact that spicy peppers can help reduce indigestion by overstimulating your pain receptors).
But back to the salmon and why it was so good: Brining. I am going to refer to this book often, because it has helped me improve my cooking sooooo much: Whats a Cook To Do?
The link above is to the nice, big illustrated version (which can help to get the point across). This one is smaller, cheaper, and has the same information in it: What's a Cook to Do?
Get it, read it, read it again, then lend it to a friend and bother them til they give it back to you so you can use it as a reference manual. Every time you open this book, you will find something you missed or forgot. Get it.
So brining. Do it to all your meats. Always. OK, I am sure there are some instances where you do not want to brine, but I do not know of any. Never ever eat chicken breast without brining it, because chicken breast generally sucks.
What does it do? It adds moisture and flavor to every meat. How does it do that? Through osmosis. Basically, a salty water outside of the meat allowed to sit next to the meat wants to find it's way inside the meat. When the salt finds it's way in, it brings moisture and possibly other flavor components with it, and bonding on a molecular level to the meat. This means you actually have to try to dry out your meat through over cooking, instead of just missing that tiny window of time that meats have to be perfectly cooked.
1) Simply put, you take a 5% solution of salt, sugar, and water (or just salt and water in a pinch or when sweetness is not desirable) and let your meat sit in it. Adding sugar to your food will make it caramelize and burn more readily, so beware.
- Fish and shrimp: DO NOT EXCEED 1 HOUR, there will be something wrong with it if you do. I have not had success with using anything besides water for seafood. Fresh herbs or vegetables will probably work well.
- Beef and pork: 1/2 hour to 3 hours.
- Chicken and turkey: 3 hours or more. I have brined a turkey in orange juice for 3 days and it was excellent (it looked like gelatin before it was cooked, all jiggly and opaque).
The salmon was brined for 1/2 hour and was perfect.
2) If you are going to cut, flatten, hammer, or otherwise process your meat before cooking, do so before you brine because the meat will swell, soften, and become unwieldy when the brining is finished.
3) Which brings me to the third part of brining. You do not have to use just water. Instead, use a juice, a soda pop, wine, beer, hard liquor, add fresh herbs, vegetables, or sauce to the liquid. I did a green chicken once that was great. Take a few handfuls of fresh jalapeños, orange juice, lots of garlic and sea salt all in a blender til smooth, then brining the chicken in the solution for a few days. MMmmmmmm, spicy garlicky goodness...
4) The last part about brining, you do not need a whole lot of the solution. For the fish, i just poked a hole in the top of the store bought shrink wrap, added a 2 teaspoons of salt, then filled the package with water for 1/2 hour. Super simple and it made all the difference in the world. For other things not so conveniently packaged, use ziplock bags and squeeze out all the air to minimize the amount of fluid you need to use. For big carcasses like a whole turkey, you are out of luck and will either be forced to cut it up, use a large amount of liquid, or try filling the chest cavity with a balloon.
Drop some pictures of your own food porn or correct me, because I know I am wrong on something I said here!
"Elzar was seduced by the dark side of cooking. Cilantro. Mango salsa. Raspberry vinaigrette" - Helmut Spargle
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