Happy Alton Brown Day!!

They should just rename turkey day to Alton Brown day, I mean really, the man already won thanksgiving.  Just give him the title.  I’ve been pre-baking turkeys for thanksgiving for the past 3 years, mostly because I love turkey and I cannot wait to get one into the oven and then into my belleh.  From the day that whole turkeys go on sale till the day they take it away from me, I cook as many as Sean and I can eat in the timeframe.

Rules and Tips for Roasting Turkey

1. BRINE YOUR TURKEY.  I cannot stress this enough.  Turkey is a fairly big bird, and its not easy to season the outside so it flavors the inside.  The math just doesn’t work people.  You need to soak that bird, then it will get juicier, more tender, and more flavorful.  Why anybody would NOT brine a turkey is beyond me.  “But waaah waaah I don’t have a big enough pot to brine in!”  Shut up and listen ok, reduce the brine recipe, stick your turkey in there breast side down, let his ass hang out.  You want the breast to get the most out of the brine, the dark meat is usually flavor and juicy enough by itself, it can hang out and not be submerged, some of the saltiness will travel upward – and I actually prefer it this way for dark meat.  Let me reiterate, if you are not putting your turkey in a brine, I will come to your house and beat you with the tasteless dry turkey corpse and all your relatives will be horrified on thanksgiving when I start beating them too with your dry ass turkey, do you really want that to happen?!
2. Try not to put stuffing in it.  When you put stuffing in the cavity of the turkey, it gets in contact with the bacteria and uncooked turkey goo, so you really have to cook the turkey until it’s all the way done in the middle – and usually when you are at this point of the cooking process, you’ve already overcooked your turkey (or cooked your turkey to a great temperature, and get sick from the turkey bacteria in the stuffing).  Just don’t do it, it’s not worth it.  Stuff it with aromatics instead, it makes your turkey smell great and more flavorful, and smell less like throwing up the next morning.
3. This tip I learned from this year’s turkey.  Make sure you have some liquid in the bottom of your pan.  The recipe I adapted used a few cups of water to steep the aromatics, and the entire mixture is put into the cavity of the turkey.  A lot of the liquid leaks out and settles at the bottom of the pan.  You ask, why do I need to keep my pan moist?  Well do you want turkey gravy??  If there is no moisture at the bottom of your pan, all the yummy turkey juices and fats that cooks off are going to hit the bottom of the pan and sizzle away and/or burn into the pan.  By the end of the cooking process, you’re left with very little turkey juices and a lot of turkey crust.  Nobody likes turkey crust.

Now I present to you, a picture of the best turkey you will taste in your entire life, already eaten a little by me… because I was hungry… very hungry… and it was so good… yes it’s missing a leg… and an entire side of his body….. THIS IS HOW YOU KNOW IT’S GOOD PEOPLE!!

The Best Thanksgiving turkey EVER

adapted from Alton Brown’s Good Eats Roast Turkey

Ingredients:

• 1 (14 to 16 pound) frozen young turkey

For the brine:

• 3/4 cup kosher salt
• 1/2 cup light brown sugar
• enough chicken stock to cover half of your pot (a gallon or so)
• 1 tablespoon ground white pepper
• 2 teaspoons allspice powder
• 4 or 5 slices of ginger
• 1 cinnamon stick
• enough iced water to submerge your turkey and not overflow the pan

For the aromatics:

• 2 onions cut into quarters
• 2 stalks of celery, rough chop
• 1 carrot, rough chop
• 1 cup water
• 1 tablespoon dried rosemary
• 1 tablespoon dried thyme
• Canola oil

Directions:

2 to 3 days before roasting:

Begin thawing the turkey in the refrigerator or in a cooler kept at 38 degrees F.  Or buy a thawed fresh turkey and bypass this step.  Defrosting turkey sucks.

Combine the chicken stock, salt, brown sugar, pepper, allspice, cinnamon, and ginger in a large stockpot over medium-high heat. Stir occasionally to dissolve solids and bring to a boil. Then remove the brine from the heat, cool to room temperature, and refrigerate.  If you’re impatiently putting the turkey in the brine on the same day, you can wait until it’s somewhat cooled, and add ice until it’s all melted and cool (like how you make quick jello!)

Early on the day or the night before you’d like to eat, combine the brine, water and ice in the 5-gallon bucket or a big cooking pot.   Place the thawed turkey (with innards removed) breast side down in brine.  I find it very annoying to find fridge space for a 5 gallon bucket, so I’m a big fan of the half brine method I used this year with the turkey.  If  using a 5 gallon bucket, weigh down the bird to ensure it is fully immersed, cover, and refrigerate or set in cool area for 8 hours – 16 hours, turning the bird once half way through brining if you find it necessary.  I prefer the shorter time period, once I brined a turkey for too long and it was way too salty, so be careful with your timing in relations to how big your bird is.  Mine was about 13 lbs and I brined for about 8 hours overnight, without turning, in a smaller cooking pot with the turkey’s ass hanging out.

Preheat the oven to 500 degrees F. Remove the bird from brine and rinse inside and out with cold water. Discard the brine.

Place the bird on roasting rack inside a half sheet pan and pat dry with paper towels.

Combine the onion, celery, carrot, dried herbs, and 1 cup of water in a microwave safe dish and microwave on high for 5 minutes. Add steeped aromatics to the turkey’s cavity.  Tuck the wings underneath the bird and coat the skin liberally with canola oil.  A trick to tucking the wing is locate where the wing meets the body of the turkey, cut a small slit on the body side, and insert the tip of the wing into the slit.  That wing will never fall out during the cooking process.

Roast the turkey on lowest level of the oven at 500 degrees F for 30 minutes. Insert a probe thermometer into thickest part of the breast and reduce the oven temperature to 350 degrees F. Set the thermometer alarm (if available) to 161 degrees F. A 14 to 16 pound bird should require a total of 2 to 2 1/2 hours of roasting. Let the turkey rest, loosely covered with foil or a large mixing bowl for 15 minutes before carving.  My 13 lb turkey took about 1 hour 50 minutes and was a perfect 161 degrees.  And if you don’t have one of these, your life is not complete and you really need to buy one, now.

When your turkey is resting, look in your roasting pan, there should be EGADS! Turkey juices!  Pour that into a small pan, scrape up all the turkey crusty bits as well.  Bring to a boil, add flour to bring the texture to a gravy-like state.  You probably don’t even need to salt it due to the flavor of the brine.

I made a green bean HOT DISH (not casserole, you’re in minnesota territory now) and stuffing for sides.  We kind of ate them as well, before pictures, so… here are some after shots.

And finally, the cleanup crew. Let me halp you lick that up, it haz a flavor.