So I discovered brining Turkey and Chicken and I have not been able to stop. It really helps to make the meat tender and makes grilling easier that leaves your meat juicer and tasty..

So basically, a brine is simply salt solution with water. What the salt does is to soften your meat when soaked in the brine solution. You can use this opportunity to make it into a marinade i.e add other ingredients to it. So what happens is the meat soaks in water (mixed with the spices), while cooking the water is heated up and makes the meat have more juice in it. Also, it makes it cook faster.

This brine recipe is rich in spices, sweetness and heat. The perfect combination of a grilled BBQ Turkey. You can skip the sweetness or the reduce the spice to increase the sweetness, its all left to you and your preference.

The video below shows how I used brine for my turkey. I let it sit in the fridge for 3 days.

Ingredients

For the Brine

• 2 cups of Water
• 1 1/2 Tablespoon of Salt
• 1 tablespoon of Sugar
• 1 tablespoon of cooking butter
• 2 large Onions
• 2 cloves of Garlic
• Green chili
• 2 teaspoons of Curry powder
• 2 teaspoons of BBQ Tandoori spice mix (alternative is ordinary BBQ spice mix)
• 2 Seasoning cubes
• 1 teaspoon of Cumin
• 1 teaspoon of Thyme
• 1 tablespoon of Soy Sauce
• 2 tablespoons of Red Wine Vinegar

Grilling sauce

• 2 tablespoons of Butter
• Blend mix from of the Onions, garlic and chili from the brine.
• 2 tablespoons of Tandoori BBQ mix (alternative is ordinary BBQ spice mix)
• Ketchup and Brown sugar (optional, only if you want that extra BBQ taste)

Direction

For the Brine (please watch video above for reference)

1. Melt Butter in a sauce pan.
2. Saute the Onions, Chili and garlic in it for two minute or less
3. Add all the dry spices except Sugar.
4. Keep stirring so it doesn’t burn or stick to the bottom of the pot. We want all the spices to be released.
5. After about a two minutes, add your water.
6. Pour in your Sugar, Soy sauce, Red Wine vinegar. Keep stirring and turn off immediately it comes to a boil.
7. Let it cool till it is body temperature (when you dip your hand in it, it’s not hot). Make sure to taste to adjust your spices.
8. Pour into a container and cover with a cling film.
9. Store in the fridge from 6 hours to 3 days.

Grilling the Turkey

1. Take out the Turkey from the brine and place in a strainer. We want it dry.

2. Take out the the onions, chili and garlic, blend till smooth and keep aside. (Optional, grill them whole with the turkey, take it out then blend, it can be used in a sauce or BBQ marinade.)

3. In another bowl, mix melted butter with the Tandoori BBQ spice mix (You can add extra spices here if you want). Add some of the blended veggies to it, that’s your Marinade. Nothing is going to waste (well except the brine water, sorry)

4. Mix the Marinade with the Turkey and place on the baking tray with foil on it.

5. Grill in the oven for 1 hour at 160 degrees. Make sure you turn the Turkey every 15 minutes, Its a slow cook method. If you want to grill faster, Grill for 40 minutes at 185 degrees, flip every 20mins.

6. Your grilled Turkey is ready.

Note:

• Make sure you don’t leave the Brined turkey inside the fridge for too long, especially if you don’t have steady power supply.
• Do not put inside a freezer.
• You can store the remaining Onion, chili and garlic blend sauce in the freezer.