Although Peter Sagal and Carl Castle run a fine show, I've always thought of myself as a "Says You" kind of guy.

Besides, my answer is not a bluff.

I'm not so sure MTI is wrong at all. I don't know where kosher salt comes from or what makes it "kosher", but his other points are entirely correct. Try it on a steak; you'll notice a difference.

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Because if you cook it long enough to kill the salmonella that WILL get in the stuffing you will have overcooked the bird and it will be dry.

Stuffing is better pan fried with some of the pan drippins anyway.

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"He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." - Friedrich Nietzsche

You guys keep talking about taste difference and I agree that plain old unprocessed sea salt tastes better than the stuff in a container with a little girl and umbrella. I can't see a difference between plain sea salt and kosher salt. That is exactly why I use sea salt that I buy in bulk at the Food Bowl in Berkeley. I buy all my herbs and spices in bulk. I bag up a small bag of something for 60 cents that you pay about $3.75 for at the super market. I bought some arrow root and some other white powder herb the other day. Since the trip home is about 40 miles, I decided to hide the stuff under the seat of my 300TDT in case I got pulled over by the CHP for a tail light out or something. I figured it would save me a night in jail and embarrassment For the trooper when the lab came back with the results of his drug bust having a street value of 61 cents.

As far as salmonella goes, my mother has been stuffing turkeys for over 50 years without incident. I think that the deaths of some guests over the years shortly after Thanksgiving were purely coincidental. Seriously I think that if you wash and clean poultry and implements properly there should be no problem. Contamination causes the problems. As an example mayonaise is sppposed to be deadly if it is not kept above a certain cold storage temp once it is opened. I have a friend in her late 30s who has always kept her opened mayonaise in a kitchen cabinet. She never makes the mistakes people do of not washing hands, licking fingers, etc.

Peter

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...and salmonella is already present in a certain large percentage of poultry when you buy it. It doesn't matter how clean you are - if you don't get it up to 160 for several minutes, you won't kill it. To get your stuffing up to that temp, you will overcook the breast meat unless you preheat the stuffing before filling the bird.

Also note the old saying, "the dose makes the poison". Ingesting salmonella does not always mean an automatic illness - it's a function of how much and how well or poorly an individual can tolerate the dose.

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Kosher salt is traditionally made under the supervision/ approval of a rabbi in a custom that is designed to prevent contamination from other products. The primary goal is purity of the product. Since the primary purpose of the salt was to draw out excess blood from meat products and not to add flavors, the larger, sharper crystals, that have a less intense salt taste by weight is an appropriate product compared to sea salt, which would not be "kosher."

It's just harder for you to understand, thanks for the unprovoked attack.

This is my damn thread. Start saving what you want if anything at all before I destroy it.

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Tip

Turkeys are not just for Thanksgiving you know. I buy about a half dozen of the loss leader turkeys sold at 39 cents a pound just to get you in the store. I freeze them and cook one every couple of months to provide delicious and economical meals for a week. You can make them moist and juicy by adding a sort of turkey mirepois. A true French mirepois consists of onions, celery, and carrots. Cajun mirepois which is called the trinity consists of onions, celery, and bell peppers. I loosly stuff the turkey with carrots, onions, celery, and apples and oranges. Put the bird in a covered roaster, toss it in the oven and forget about it. It is so easy. When the bird is done, I pull it out, discard the vegetable, and remove the turkey. The amount ov juice in the pan is incredible. I pour this into a fry pan or saute pan and start the reduction process. You need to use a short sided pan so the steam doesn't keep condensing on the pan wall. I also do something my mother taught me. I dump in a can of Franco-American gravy. It taints the flavor of home made somewhat, but makes plenty of gravy for all those open faced hot turkey sandwiches. Anybody hungry Yet. Well it"s 0830 Sunday morn. I'm sitting here typing this and sipping a glass of Merlot from over the hill in the Napa Valley. I'm getting hungry, so I think I'll go fry some vidalia onions or whip up some latkes or something for breakfast before I go down to the shop and finish a sevice, front brakes, and a starter replacement on a client's 560SEC.Ciao.

Peter

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Hey Peter, it was sounding pretty good right up to that Franco-American part!

But look who's talking - I just finished a bacon/egg/cheese on a soggy croissant from the company cafeteria for breakfast...

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Thanks for the brine recipes. I'm trying them again this year.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.

Now that theday is over, did anyone brine and stuff? What were the results? I did the conventional oven bird with stuffing. In my opinion stuffing cooked in a pan next to the bird just doesn't compare to stuffing cooked in the bird, however, I must concede that the turkey wasn't anywhere near as moist as the cheap birds I cook year around with no stuffing. This was a fresh Norbest at $1.19 per pound. The ones in my freezer that are made in China or Taiwan or some where that I buy for less the $.50 per pound are juicier and better tasting. Maybe if I brine the bird I can have my stuffing too.

Peter

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As discussed before, it all depends on what you want to be the "star of the show" . . the bird or the stuffing/dressing. Without all that moisture absorbing bread, there's room in the bird for aromatics, like onion, garlic, carrots, apples, citrus, etc, which actually add moisture. Spooning a few pounds of bread in the cavity 1) promotes moisture loss since the dressing as acting as a big sponge; 2) increases the mass of the turkey, which increases coodking time and the risk of a dry bird; and 3) adds the potential, not the word potential, for improper cooking temp and contamination.

BTW, how many of you that roast do the High heat first and then lower the oven temp versus low and slow then finish with high heat to brown? I've always started the turkey at 500 degrees the first half hour to brown, the outside, then cap the breast area with foil, lower the oven to 350 degrees until the white meat hits 160 on the thermometer . . . perfect everytime, just really smoky when you pop the oven open after the first half hour.

"If you take cranberries and stew them like prunes, they taste more like rasberries than rhubarb does."

Groucho Marx

We didn't stuff, but we brined. At least wrt my style of conventional baking, the brined turkeys always turn out moister and more flavorful. The white meat especially is much better. This is the 2nd year in a row where I've done brined versus unbrined within a couple months of each other. The brined is always better. Others apparently do very well without brining, though.