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The Turkey Test
updated: Nov 27, 2010, 9:30 AM
By Leah Etling
Now that Thanksgiving is over and I've passed my first turkey test, I'd like to offer up a toast to all the women and men out there who make the turkey for their family each year.
You are underappreciated.
This turkey thing is serious business. Hard work. No holiday at all. My turkey process took 48 hours from brine to leftovers, and at the end, I was exhausted.
But it sure tasted great.
It seems that each year now there's a trend in turkey preparation that gets bandied about on TV, in cooking blogs and magazines, and by celebrity chefs. Even my vegetarian uncle caught this year's trend - roasting the turkey in pieces, not whole - on NPR. (This trend isn't great for vegetarians because the suggestion is that the turkey drippings should fall onto the roasted vegetables in a rack beneath. Tasty for meat eaters but not for anyone who doesn't want to eat animal fats.)
I'm thinking that Frank Frost's turkey tango with sewing, as featured on Edhat on Thanksgiving Day is in the running for next year's big turkey trend.
Meanwhile, I stuck with a trend from a couple years ago, because I think the two keys to a great turkey are the two B's - brine and butter. Couple caveats: You need to go out and buy a great big brand new bucket in which to do the brining. And, you'll have to have enough room in your fridge to host that bucket with the turkey in it overnight. Good excuse to clean out the fridge. But if you do a lot of make-ahead dishes for Thanksgiving this may be a serious challenge.
The night before the morning before Thanksgiving (Tuesday night) the brine needs to be cooked on the stovetop and then refrigerated overnight. The turkey goes in it on Wednesday morning so that it brines for 24 hours.
Here's the brine recipe I used. This is greatly aided by having a garden with fresh herbs (sage, rosemary and parsley).
-2 ½ gallons water (see note below)
-2 cups Kosher salt
-1 cup real maple syrup
-10 Bay leaves
-1 whole garlic, cloves skilled and chopped in half
-2 small bunches Italian parsley
-1 small bunch fresh sage
-1 small bunch fresh thyme
-6 sprigs of fresh rosemary
-4 lemons - zested; zest and juice of all four goes in the brine
A note about the water - 2.5 gallons of water isn't going to fit in your average soup pot. So go ahead and cook up the brine with 1 gallon and then add the rest after you've transferred the cooked brine to the bucket.
On the stove, heat the mixture to boiling, then reduce heat and simmer for five minutes. Take it off the stove and let it stand until room temperature. Then put it in the fridge with the rest of the water overnight.
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The day before Thanksgiving, place the rinsed turkey into the brine bucket. If you're using the giblets for stuffing, great, otherwise you can toss them out.
The minimum time to brine for it to have any effect is 8 hours. If you're going to all the work of doing it anyway, I'd recommend 24.
On Thanksgiving morning, take the turkey out of its brine bath and wash it thoroughly. Discard or compost the brine. Pat the turkey dry, removing all excess water. Place it breast up in the roasting pan.
Prepare herb-butter rounds or rectangles. I used sage and thyme for mine. You can also add marjoram. Williams-Sonoma makes a fancy turkey herb rub with those three herbs and charges $10 for it. Easy enough to mix them together yourself. Simply sprinkle the herbs on a plate, slice the cool butter into squares, and press into the herbs. I used up one stick of butter doing this. Call it the Julia Child approach.
Now move your hand beneath the skin of the turkey to slide the herbed butter pats between the skin and breast meat. The cookbook says you're massaging it - it's more like you're giving the thing plastic surgery. The skin is stretchy so it's not impossible to get the butter all the way to the far end of the breast. Put a couple pieces in between the legs and body, too.
Sprinkle salt and pepper into the turkey cavity. If you're doing stuffing, put it in there - I was not.
Then brush melted butter all over the top and bottom of the bird, and salt and pepper it as well, ending with the breast side up for roasting. Cover tightly with aluminum foil.
Roasting: 350 degrees for 3 hours for a 17-pound turkey. Times will vary. For the first two hours, leave it undisturbed. For the last hour remove the foil, and baste every 15 minutes with the juices from the bottom of the roasting pan. If you have a spot on the top that's starting to get too brown you can cover it with the foil for protection.
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When the meat thermometer hits 170 degrees, it's ready to come out. The turkey can sit for up to 45 minutes while you make the gravy and do other final preparations.
I wasn't thrilled with the gravy that I made, finding it too salty. But my family overruled me so here is the recipe.
After you've removed the turkey from the roasting pan, excise any large skin pieces from the drippings and then scrape the bottom of the pan clean. Strain the drippings into a bowl and set aside.
Make a roux of butter and flour, and set that aside.
In a saucepan, use one cup of the juice from the drippings, one-cup chicken broth, and one-cup pinot noir as the base of the gravy. Heat and stir until wine is reduced. Then add the rest of the drippings, another half cup of wine, and more broth as needed. If it's too salty, potato water can be substituted for the broth to cut down the salt a bit. Cook for another five minutes, and then add the roux to thicken, stirring constantly over low-medium heat. Do not allow to boil. Gravy is definitely a matter of taste, so add or augment as needed.
Just for fun, here's the lineup of the rest of our Thanksgiving dinner. Happy to provide any of these recipes on request: Homemade traditional cranberries, roasted green beans, traditional bread stuffing from family recipe (Vegetarian and with-giblets varieties), wild rice and mushroom vegetarian stuffing from the New York Times, mashed potatoes, Danish cardamom dinner rolls (from the Danish Mill bakery, available by special order), and salad with Stilton cheese, pears, and roasted pecans. Dessert was a pumpkin-caramel flan and a pecan pie.
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