Match Set: Hardcore Baster and an Automotive Turkey
The Drive gets subcutaneous.
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Flavor injector. Meat syringe. Kitchen needle. Hypodermic Moistener. Somehow, at least as far as we know, these are not euphemisms. Rather, a flavor injector is a real kitchen tool that looks like an oversized, incredibly sinister syringe. Its victims are cuts of meat with a tendency towards dryness, and its medicines range from saline to herb broths, to that honest-to-God, Paula Deen ambrosia, melted butter. Worry that the breast of the bird—be it pigeon, pheasant, chicken, turkey or goose—will become parched long before the drumsticks cook through? You’ll need a meat syringe to inject a flavorful juice into the muscle, keeping it succulent.
Try this one. It’s made by Weston, vaunted Canadian food tools company, and looks like a Victorian surgical tool. The four-ounce capacity means it can handle adequate amounts of your savory marinade, while still fitting sweetly in your palm. Nickel-plated brass construction will provide years of happy injection, and the body disassembles for easy cleaning, should butter gum up the plunger as it gums your arteries.
Of course, you’ll need a turkey, too—something that lacks flavor beneath the skin. Remember the Plymouth Prowler? It looked like a space-age hot-rod and went like a stone-age cart. The looks, chopped, lowered, wheels open like an Indy racecar, were unimpeachable. But Chrysler only offered the car with a V6, leaving hot-rodders, who yearned for V8 rumble and torque, in the cold. This example already has skin burnished to a rich golden-orange: all you’ll need to do is slip the needle in and provide the internals of the beast with a flavor of your choice. We’d go with “Hemi.”
