Re: Thanksgiving! Going NUTS!!!
my turkey from last year…
i mostly used Alton Brown’s recipe with a few minor changes. i’d posted the recipe on AD last year, but here it is again.
The secret to a moist, succulent turkey lies in a good long brine. You have to brine the bird for an hour per pound.
Ingredients for Brine:
Salt
Sugar
McCormick Roasting Rub - Cracked Peppercorn Herb
(If you cannot find this spice mix, use dried garlic, cracked black pepper, red chilly flakes, rosemary leaves)
Materials for Brine:
Brining bag (it’s a HUGE ziploc bag) or a bucket large enough to hold the turkey.
Big pot to boil water
Directions for Brining:
Rinse the turkey well. Place the turkey breast up in the brining bag or large bucket.
Cover it with cold water until the turkey is just submerged in the water.
Count the quantity of water cup by cup or gallon by gallon as you pour it in. 16 cups = 1 gallon.
Take out about a gallon of water and boil it. Now for each gallon of water, you need 1 cup of salt-sugar in the ratio 2:1. Add the sugar and salt to the water and dissolve the salt/sugar.
Add the roasting rub spice mix into the pot (about 1.5 oz). Turn off the heat and let it cool down. Once it’s lukewarm or nearly cool, pour it into the brining bucket and mix well.
Seal the brining bag or cover the bucket. Let the turkey sit in the brine for an hour per lb of turkey. Refrigerate it or if it’s winter, you can put the bucket outdoors if the temperature outdoors is really cool.
Example: I had a 12 lb turkey. It took abt 4.5 gallons of water to cover the bird completely. That means i needed 4.5 cups of sugar-salt mixture, about 3 cups of salt and 1.5 cups of sugar. I took out 1 gallon from the brining bag, that left 3.5 gallons behind. In that 1 gallon of water i added the salt-sugar-spice mix and boiled it to make the brine. Since my turkey was 12 lbs, i had to brine it for abt 12 hrs. My turkey was sitting in the brine for abt 17 hrs and it came out really juicy.
Now we get to the roasting part.
Ingredients for roasted turkey:
1/4 cup olive oil
6 cloves of minced garlic
fresh thyme/sage/rosemary
1 apple
1/2 onion
**Materials:
**Large roasting pan
Aluminium Foil
Silicon brush for basting
Meat thermometer
Directions for roasting turkey:
Pre-heat oven at 500F.
After taking turkey out of the brine, rinse the bird thoroughly. Place the bird breast up in the roasting pan and pat dry. Tuck the wings carefully under the bird. There is no need to tie the bird, it will prolong cooking time. And you can throw away the brine.
Lift the skin on the turkey breast and insert sprigs of rosemary/thyme/sage between the flesh and the skin. Cover the breast with a double layer of aluminium foil. In the bird’s cavity, place sliced onions, sliced apple, rosemary/thyme/sage. Place the roasting pan into the oven at 500F for an hour.
After an hour, the bird will have started to brown lightly. Mix up the minced garlic and olive oil. Take the bird out of the oven, remove the aluminium foil, and with the silicon brush, baste the turkey all over with the garlic oil mixture. Reduce the temperature of the oven to 400 and place the pan back into the oven.
After yet another hour, you should rotate the bird to ensure even browning. Take it out of the oven. Apply yet another round of garlic oil. At this point, if you like, you can put halved baby potatoes, carrots, etc into the roasting pan around the turkey. Place the roaster back into the oven and reduce the heat to 350.
After another hour has passed, time to rotate the bird. After four hours have passed, rotate again. At this point, you can check the temperature of the meat. Stick the thermometer into a part of the breast, if it reads 160 or more, the turkey is cooked. My turkey roasted for exactly 5 hrs and it was done perfectly, neither over cooked nor undercooked.
If the turkey is done and the breast temp reads over 160, take the bird out of the oven. Cover it with aluminium foil and let it rest for 15 mins before carving it up.
Happy Thanksgiving everyone!
