Thanksgiving Food Part II: Soaking the Capon in Cherry Tea

Last entry I discussed our choice of bird this year: a capon.

Today I immersed the bird into concentrated cherry tea.

Why cherry tea? Because it made sense last year, it worked and people loved it. Sometimes my cooking instincts jump out and give me an idea that is off the wall. About 90% of the time they work very well...we won't talk about the other 10%. Those suck.

For example, the first time I sat around watching Iron Chef (a Food Network show we obsessed over for about a year then got tired of), the idea popped into my mind to bread a meatloaf. Meatloaf often sucks. But there are ways to make a meatloaf wonderful. One is to marinate the hell out of it in something very flavorful. I have done that successfully. Another, which I picked up from a former landlady in Los Angeles, is to wrap the meatloaf in bacon. The bacon fat saturates the meatloaf and you KNOW (assuming you aren't Kosher or Hallal) that tastes good. I came up with the idea of breading the meatloaf as a way of making it moist and delicious. It works. And it was an inspiration that came out of nowhere while watching some really good chefs get creative.

Last year, as I was contemplating a horde descending on our house for Thanksgiving and feeling the need to do something notable, my taste instincts went into overdrive. I have a knack of being able to imagine how flavors will go together. And something about a particular tea blend we had seemed to go well with turkey...or other poultry. I extrapolated on the idea of brining a bird (soaking it in a flavorful, salty solution for a day to add flavor and moisture) and came up with the idea of "teaing" a bird.

I had no idea how it would work. I just instinctively knew that that particular tea would add a good flavor to the meat.

The tea in question, and it isn't the only tea I suspect would work, but it is the one that I KNOW works, was a black tea/cherry blend from Wissotzkt Tea company. It isn't sweet like some fruit based teas. It is a solid black tea with a distinct, but not overpowering, flavor of cherries. I imagined the combination of this tea with poutry having an almost smoky wood undertone which I thought would work.

So, a day prior to brining my bird last year, I soaked it in about triple strength Wissotzky Cherry tea. I poured the hot tea over the bird and then let it sit in the tea in the refrigerator. I used about as much triple strength tea as would cover a little over half the bird. Midway through I turned the bird to soak the other side. I knew my idea was probably working when I noticed that the side of the bird that had been soaked half a day in the tea had taken on a tea-colored tinge, indicating that it was soaking up the tea.

Ultimately, this tea soak was only the first of multiple layers of soaking, brining, dry rubs and glazes I used. But in the end there was a noticable, but subtle, almost woody tea/cherry flavor that infused the meat. The technique worked exactly the way I had imagined it would. It also seemed to add moistness. A couple of guests declared it the moistest turkey they had had and were excited this year when they heard I was planning on applying the tea technique to a capon this year. They may come for leftovers this year.

The bird is sitting in the same Wissotzky Cherry tea right now. I just turned the bird and it had taken on that beautiful tea-tinge I remember from last year.

Sometimes when I sip a tea I try to imagine what meat it would complement if soaked into it. I have some ideas...mint teas, spice teas...chicken, beef, lamb. But I haven't tried any of them. So far it has been the cherry tea with poultry that has been reliable. Someday I think I will get the right lamb and try a particular spice tea (Good Earth) or a particular mint tea (Wissotzky again) because I think both would work well with lamb, though yielding a very different result.

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