This entry was posted on Monday, November 19th, 2007 at 11:23 am and is filed under General, Recipes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
This will be the best, moistest (is that a word?) bird you ever ate. My Mom use to roast turkeys for 8-12 hours - that will just dry them out, do this and you will be a Convert! To see what we have “cooking” with our houses - click here.
1 frozen young turkey (about 15 pounds)
For the brine:
1 cup kosher salt
1/2 cup light brown sugar
2 tablespoons of chopped or diced Garlic from the jar
1 gallon chicken stock (optional)
1 gallon ice water
For the aromatics:
1 red apple, sliced
1/2 onion, sliced
1 cinnamon stick
1 cup water
4 sprigs rosemary
6 leaves sage
Olive oil
Combine some of the water and all brine ingredients, in a stockpot, and bring to a boil. Stir to dissolve, then remove from heat, cool to room temperature, and throw in a cooler just big enough to hold the turkey, this brine, water to cover and some ice.
Early on the night before cooking, combine the brine and ice water in the cooler. Place thawed turkey breast side down in brine, cover with water and ice and cover the cooler and let it sit in cool area (like a basement) overnight. If you do this, you will still have ice in the morning, so you are cold enough. Not many refrigerators are big enough to hold the brine and Turkey and pot, whew!
A few minutes before roasting, heat oven to 500 degrees. Combine the apple, onion, cinnamon stick, and cup of water in a microwave safe dish and microwave on high for 5 minutes.
Remove bird from brine. Discard brine.
Place bird breast side down on bare roaster pan – no rack - and pat dry with paper towels. Add aromatics to cavity along with rosemary and sage. Slide your hand under the skin and loosen without tearing. Put a stick of butter cut in pats under the skin. Tuck back wings and coat whole bird liberally with vegetable or corn oil. (olive oil won’t brown as well).
Roast on lowest level of the oven at 500 degrees F. for 30 minutes. Insert probe thermometer into thickest part of the breast and return to oven, reducing temperature to 350 degrees F. Set thermometer to 161 degrees. Baste every 30 minutes with baster and use the drippings.
A 14 to 16 pound bird should require a total of 2 to 2 1/2 hours of roasting. Let turkey rest, loosely covered for 15 minutes before carving.
This will be the best, moistest (is that a word) bird you ever ate. My Mom use to roast turkeys for 8-12 hours - that will just dry them out, do this and you will be a Convert! To see what we have “cooking” with our houses - click here.
