Thanksgiving Turkey with Salty Wahine

Enough for two, this Thanksgiving chicken was flavorful and juicy after a Salty Wahine bath. Daniel Lane photo

Salty Wahine Gourmet Hawaiian Sea Salts offers 11 varieties of handcrafted, gourmet Hawaiian sea salt blends, seasonings and rubs. They have just released their seasonal, Hawaiian Turkey Brine Seasoning for the holidays, and you can smell the goodness right through the packaging.

Incase you don’t know, brining any meat—chicken, pork, or turkey, yields exceptionally juicy and flavorful meat. You are basically giving your meat a long soak in a salty-sweet bath. Sometimes herbs and other flavorings are added, as with Salty Wahine’s. It’s a foolproof way to serve a golden, flavorful turkey, and it’s simple to do. It does require some planning though.

Make sure you have a container large enough to hold your turkey. A 5-gallon bucket works well, as does a cooler. You are going to have to keep the turkey cold while it brines. Most people I know can’t fit a 5-gallon bucket in their refrigerator. If you live in a area with snowy winters, you can store it overnight in the garage.

If you live in Hawaii, it’s a little tricky. On Kauai, we’re looking at a week of 80-degree weather. So that means a cooler will have to do. Now, I’m not one for storing food in non-food grade plastic, but I have done it for one day and lived to tell about it. So make sure you have a kitchen trash bag and some ice on hand.

Thaw your turkey in a dish or bowl in the refrigerator. If you have a large turkey, this could take up to three days. Like I said, this takes planning. But, after all, slow food is food made with love, and isn’t that what we’re after during the holidays? In my book, feeding and nourishing our loved ones with food that shows how much we care is the best way to be thankful.

Salty Wahine Hawaiian Turkey Brine Seasoning

The day before you want to cook your turkey, dissolve the brine in one gallon of boiling water and let it cool to room temperature. One, 4-ounce bag of Salty Wahine’s Hawaiian Turkey Brine Seasoning will brine five to eight pounds of turkey. Two are required for a turkey weighing between 10 and 16 pounds.

Remove the neck, liver and contents from inside the bird. When the liquid is cool, add it, along with another gallon of water and your bird to the kitchen trash bag, and tie it off. The turkey should be completely submerged in the brine. Put a layer of ice in the cooler, add the turkey, and cover it with ice. Make sure to set the turkey upright so the brine doesn’t spill out of the bag. You also don’t want to mix the ice with the brine because it will dilute the brine.

Leave it alone for 24 hours.

Take the turkey out of the brine and discard the brine. Set the turkey (in a bowl or on a plate) on the counter and let it come to room temperature for about an hour. It’s always good let your meat come to room temperature before cooking. This ensures everything will be cooked evenly, and your oven won’t have to work overtime warming things up.

Laura Cristobal, owner of Salty Wahine, includes recipes with her salt blends, and recommends the following:

Cut a stick of butter into eight pieces and put it under the turkey skin and inside the turkey. Rub a palm fill of Salty Wahine Hawaiian Rub, or your favorite seasoning, all over the inside and outside of the turkey. Place the turkey in a Reynolds turkey roasting bag and follow the directions that come with the roasting bag.

A huli huli chicken is self-basted.

I happen to have a huli huli machine, also known as a rotisserie. I’ve had one for about 10-years, and I love it. It doesn’t heat up the house—with 80-degree weather that’s a good thing—and it turns out perfectly golden chickens and turkeys. The fat drips and bastes the bird as it turns and the skin is crispy because it isn’t sitting in pan drippings as it cooks. Typically, you cook the bird 15 minutes per pound.

Since it’s just Dan and I, I splurged on a 5-pound organic chicken for $30 at Papaya’s Natural Foods and Cafe. After I brined it (using half a 4-ounce package), I put it directly in the rotisserie, without adding additional flavorings or fat. It was De Li Cous! It was juicy, and the meat had a light herbaceous taste. Next time I’ll use a full package for  a more pronounced herby flavor.

Any way you cook it, remember to save those bones, they make an excellent stock— especially for Turkey Bone Gumbo. I’ll post that recipe when you have plenty of Thanksgiving leftovers.

If you’ve never brined before, I highly recommend you give it a try. You can make your own brine, but the Salty Wahine Hawaiian Turkey Brine Seasoning is simple to use and combines three types of Hawaiian sea salt with sugar, orange peel, black, green and pink peppercorns, onion, garlic, basil and rosemary.

To learn more about Salty Wahine, read the Nov. 21 issue of MidWeek Kauai. In the meantime, Salty Wahine Gourmet Hawaiian Sea Salt Blends can be bought at the Saturday Kauai Community Market as well as the Wednesday Kauai Culinary Market at The Shops at Kukuiula in Poipu.

Our Thanksgiving chicken with breadfruit and taro gratin and sautéed corn. Daniel Lane photo

If you’re curious about brining and would like to see it done, you’re in luck. On Nov. 14 (tomorrow) at 5 p.m., Cristobal will do a cooking demonstration at the Kauai Culinary Market. You’ll be able to watch, ask questions, and eat what she makes afterwards. I’ve been to Cristobal’s cooking demonstrations before. She does them with her fiance David (they announced their marriage at their last cooking demonstration) and the two are funny together.

“We are doing a whole Thanksgiving dinner,” she told me. “We will demonstrate how to brine a turkey using our seasonal Hawaiian Turkey Brine Seasoning, and we are going to do a mashed potato dish, corn on the cob (with local corn), and a lilikoi cranberry sauce with my sister’s Lilikoi Sauce.” Cristobal’s sister is Lori Cardenas, owner of Aunty Lilikoi.