Brining With A Difference

I’m a big believer in brining meat in order to add flavour but also tenderness. Yes I hear all the time if you buy quality meat you shouldn’t have to BUT it is too late once it is ruined so why risk it.

This time I’m trying something different. I watched one of the Traeger Chefs brine their turkey with mayonnaise infused with sea salt and pepper and he explained how the salt in the mayonnaise enters the bird to keep moisture in the meat whilst when cooking the fat in the mayonnaise rendering over the turkey keeps the bird tender whilst adding flavour…..let’s see if I can emulate this!

I defrosted the turkey in the fridge with the wrapper off to dry the skin out and once defrosted I put some mayonnaise in a bowl, added a tablespoon of sea salt, a healthy grinding of black pepper and mixed until fully incorporated. I then took the turkey out of the fridge and coated it with the mayo mix covering all the bird with en even coating including the inside the cavities.

The bird was then put into a foil tray uncovered and then back in the fridge to brine overnight ready to be smoked on the Traeger Ironwood 650 in the morning.