Adrian's Blog

Tag: oriental

  • Brined Turkey

    The best way to cook a turkey is to brine it first; brining results in a more tender, juicy turkey and also adds spice flavours to the meat. Don’t worry about a salty taste, and be careful with cooking time; a brined turkey cooks a little faster than a plain one.

    Our recipe is sufficient to brine a 5.5kg (12lb) turkey. Smaller birds can be brined in the same solution, but for larger turkeys you will need to scale up the amount of water and salt.

    The most important step is to find a suitable container; it needs to be big enough to contain the turkey in the brine, and fit into your fridge. We use a plastic storage container from Ikea, but any clean strong plastic or stainless steel container is OK.

    Ingredients

    • 5.5kg Turkey, giblets removed
    • 6 litres of cold water
    • 150g salt (use ordinary table salt, not the more expensive sea salt)
    • 1 large orange
    • 1 large onion, quartered
    • 2 tbsp black pepper corns, cracked
    • 1 tbsp sichuan peppercorns
    • 2 sticks of cinnamon bark
    • 8 star aniseed
    • 4 dried bay leaves1 tbsp goji berries
    • 200g sugar
    • 4 tbsp honey
    • 4 tsp five spice powder
    • 4 cloves of garlic, crushed with the flat of a knife
    • 5cm piece of fresh ginger, peeled and roughly chopped
    • A handful of fresh parsley, including stalks, roughly chopped

    for the glaze:

    • 75g butter
    • 3 tablespoons honey

    Method

    Pour the water into your container, add the salt, sugar and honey and stir to dissolve. Stir in the five spice powder. Place the turkey into the brine. Halve and squeeze the orange into the brine, drop in the squeezed shell and the onion quarters. Drop the rest of the spices, garlic, ginger and parsley into the brine around the turkey.

    You may find it better to break up the cinnamon bark into smaller pieces. Make sure that the turkey is submerged in the brine. Top up with cold water if not. You may
    need to put an upturned plate on the top of the turkey to weigh it down in the brine.

    If your container has a cover, put this on. Put your container onto the bottom
    shelf of your fridge, being careful to not slop the brine everywhere! Brine your turkey for up to two days before cooking, or at least overnight. Take the
    turkey out of the brine 2 hours before you need to start cooking, and wipe it dry with kitchen paper. make sure you have tipped the brine out of the cavity. Throw the brine away, it cannot be reused.

    Preheat your oven to 200 degrees Celsius / gas mark 6. Melt the butter and mix with the honey to make your marinade. Brush the turkey all over with the marinade, but remember you will need to brush more on during cooking. Cook for 2.5 hours for a 5.5kg (12lb) turkey. See the table below for other sizes. Note that the marinade will make the skin both dark and crispy.

    It is best to use a meat thermometer pushed into the thickest part of the meat; it should read a minimum of 75 degrees Celsius when the turkey is cooked. If you don’t have a thermometer, push a skewer or sharp knife into the thickest part of knee joint and make sure juices run clear; if not carry on cooking for another 20 minutes and try again. Cover with foil and rest the meat for up to one hour before
    carving.

    Cooking times:

    Weight of Turkey Cooking Time
    2.25kg/5lb 1 ½ hours
    4.5kg/10lb 2 hours
    5.5kg/12lb 2 ½ hours
    7.5kg/17lb 3 hours
    9kg/20lb 3 ½ hours

       

  • We have sold the shop

    Well, as the title of this post suggests, we (Ince Web Services Limited) have sold Oriental Food Shop.

    The new owners are Tai Fat C&C Limited, and the management team are Eric Lo and his wife Kan. Eric is the brother of Allen Lo, who runs the Tai Fat supermarket in Leicester.

    Here are answers to some of the questions this post may elicit.

    Why did you sell the shop?

    Because we have spent nine year building it to what it is now, and feel that it is time for us to move on to something new. It’s hard work, and whilst we love it, the shop has used up a lot of the time we would like to have spent with our family doing ordinary, family activities.

    Is there a transition period?

    Yes, we will be spending several weeks doing knowledge transfer, providing support and manpower until the new owners are confident and ready to go it alone.

    What about the staff?

    All staff are transferred under TUPE regulations and have continuity of employment rights. We’re going to miss working with them, obviously, but intend to stay in touch.

    What about the customers?

    There are some lovely customers who have supported us over the years and who it has been a pleasure to serve. We will miss them, but hope that they will find the same level of service from the new owners. We haven’t made a big announcement to customers, because the transition is intended to be gradual and seamless.

    What about the website?

    We retain ownership of the domains and website associated with orientalfoodshop.com but have no plans to continue selling on-line ourselves – we would really need the stock and warehouse we enjoyed before in order to make it profitable. If somebody makes an offer for the domains, we will consider it on its merits.

    What will you do next?

    Short term, take a holiday – we haven’t had one of those for many years. Longer term, a new business venture – we aren’t ready to say what that would be yet.