Seanan McGuire (seanan_mcguire) wrote,
Seanan McGuire
seanan_mcguire

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The annual turkey post, or, How To Bake Big Bird.

Back by popular demand, here is my family's turkey recipe. I share because a) I care, and b) apparently, some people have experienced dryness in their breast meat when cooking their turkeys in another fashion, whereas my mother once set a turkey on fire and still had moist breast meat. Despite the, y'know, flames. Any recipe that can survive flames is good by me.

You will need:

* A turkey. Duh. If you don't understand why you need a turkey, please go away.
* Ginger ale.*
* Olive oil.
* Fresh garlic. I use pre-crushed, because I am lazy. You're welcome to play Alton Brown and crush your own. I won't stop you, but I may laugh at you while I sit back and do my nails.
* Honey or molasses.
* Brown sugar.
* Dry spices according to your specific taste. I use a mixture of sage, thyme, and rosemary. One of my cousins uses curry powder. It's all you.
* Salt and pepper.
* Something vegetable to shove into the turkey. More on this in a second.

* A roasting pan of some sort. The cheap aluminum ones at the grocery store work fine; just make sure they fit your turkey before buying them.
* Foil.
* A way to get the turkey out of the roasting pan, because that sucker will be hot and heavy.

You may want:

* A turkey thermometer. Sexy, sexy little things that they are.
* A turkey baster.
* A meat brush.

(*As far as ginger ale goes, I recommend Canada Dry. If your bird is between zero and sixteen pounds, you will need two liters. If your bird is between sixteen and twenty-five pounds, you will need four liters. If your bird is over twenty-five pounds, I am coming to your place for dinner. Add two liters if you are using one of those fancy-ass roasting pans where your turkey is on a rack and getting sort of steamed by the liquid evaporating beneath it, because those suckers use up your basting liquid like nobody's business. Don't use diet soda unless everyone at your Thanksgiving likes the taste of aspartame.)

Assuming you're starting with a frozen turkey, you'll want to give it approximately twenty-four hours per four pounds of bird for thawing. Starting your cooking process with a frozen turkey is neither fun nor good. I recommend against it, having done it twice in recent memory, and it is annoying. The best way to confirm whether your turkey is fully thawed is to shove your (clean) hand up its ass and feel the ribs. If everything in there is thawed, you're probably good to go. If not, you need to thaw your turkey some more. In an emergency, you can try to thaw your turkey with lukewarm water. Don't let the water get too hot, or you'll have boiled turkey. Not pleasant.

Remember that there is a bag somewhere inside the turkey. This bag contains your giblets. It will either be in the main cavity, or concealed under a flap of skin at the neck. Either way, remove the bag before cooking.

Set your oven to three hundred and fifty degrees. Get out a small bowl, the olive oil, garlic, brown sugar, honey, and dry spices. Here's where precise measurements begin to break down, because they simply can't be given: the size of turkeys varies too much. You want to put approximately one tablespoon of olive oil per four pounds of turkey into the bowl. It doesn't need to be precise, and it's best to err on the side of excess. Once the olive oil is in the bowl, add an equal volume of honey. With me so far? Good. Now, add one tablespoon of crushed or minced garlic per eight pounds of turkey to the mixture—feel free to increase this if you're a garlic fiend.

Mix the contents of your bowl vigorously, and add dry spices to taste before mixing again. Once this is done, apply the mixture onto the turkey, paying special attention to the top, wings, and legs. This is going to provide your sealant, and also make the turkey prettier. Yay. Continue applying the mixture until it's aaaaaaall gone. (Application can involve either a meat brush or a spoon and your fingers. Your call.)

Now we will prepare our inter-cavity stuffing. A note: I do not cook stuffed turkeys. Which is to say that while yes, I put things inside the turkey, they are vegetable things, meant to influence the final flavor, and not bready things. Fully stuffed turkeys take longer to cook, and I've never done one, so while you're quite, quite welcome to cook your turkey that way—it is, after all, your turkey—you'll need to look elsewhere for things to tell you how to do it. If you're happy cooking your stuffing outside your bird, what you'll want to do at this point is take whatever vegetables you feel appropriate, chop them coarsely, and shove them into the turkey, along with the giblets. You want to fill half the available space; no more.

(I generally combine one-third to one half of a leek, a small red onion, some garlic cloves, some shallots, and a loose handful of pomegranate seeds. I am very strange. Feel free to put anything you like into your bird's butt. It's your bird, after all.)

Now that your turkey is sealed and stuffed, put it into the pan. Taking approximately one-quarter to one-half cup of brown sugar, sprinkle liberally over the top of the bird. This will caramelize during cooking, adding a second layer of sealant. Salt and pepper the turkey. Once this is done, fill the bottom of your basting pan with ginger ale. If you're cooking in a standard turkey pan, the ginger ale should cover the bottom inch or so of the bird. If you're cooking in a rack-roaster, the ginger ale should fill the bottom two inches of the pan. Put the turkey into the oven. La.

You're going to want to watch things pretty closely for the first hour or so, because your goal is for the turkey to brown, not burn. Once the top of your turkey gets all pretty and brown, add a foil tent to the equation and walk away. Come back periodically and baste the sucker, but really, heat, chemical reactions, and all that lovely dead flesh will do your work for you. If your ginger ale level gets low—and it will, especially with a rack-roaster; those suckers can use two full two liter bottles without breaking a sweat—top it off, but don't add so much to a traditional pan that you wind up with a small turkey-based flood in your oven. Boiling meat-juice and ginger ale does not equal fun for the whole family.

If you have a turkey thermometer, you want the temperature at the meaty part of the thigh to be a hundred and eighty degrees. Otherwise, the following chart is a vague guide:

8 to 12 pounds, 2 3/4 to 3 hours
12 to 14 pounds, 3 to 3 3/4 hours
14 to 18 pounds, 3 3/4 to 4 1/4 hours
18 to 20 pounds, 4 1/4 to 4 1/2 hours
20 to 24 pounds, 4 1/2 to 5 hours

You may need to turn down the heat, depending on your oven and how hot it seems to be running. Once your turkey is done, remove it from the oven, but do not remove the foil; let it sit for twenty to thirty minutes in order to finish steaming.

Remove the foil, transfer the turkey to your cutting board, try not to burn your fingers, carve and serve! You will have the moistest turkey in the world. It will pretty much dissolve as you cut into it, and may just drop off the bones, like it has a tasty, tasty new form of Ebola. Mmmmmmmm, filoviruslicious. Don't forget to invite me to dinner.

Yay, turkey.
Tags: cooking, food
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  • 76 comments
That was fun to read and totally comprehensible for someone with my lack of cooking skilz! Thanks! We're not cooking the bird this year, but I may refer back to this at some point.

And filoviruslicious is my new favorite word!
Yay! See, that's why I post the recipe: because cooking a turkey is actually really easy, and doesn't require you to know how to cook. Have a great Thanksgiving!

dormouse_in_tea

7 years ago

It's a secret, but...

jenk

7 years ago

Good gods, that sounds delicious! Yum!
I am a Turkey Fan.

sheistheweather

7 years ago

keristor

7 years ago

teddywolf

4 years ago

Did I ever tell you my mother's recipe for turkey?

I have a recipe card. It has the recipe for Gramma's cornbread stuffing, and then it says:

1. Buy Reynolds Cook Bags.

2. Follow directions on bag.

...which still makes me giggle, as it's basically "throw in some celery and flour and stick the bird in." But the few times I cooked a turkey myself, back before my vegetarian days, they always came out fine.

...or maybe it was just luck. :)
My mother moved to the bag method many years ago, and it works quite well. We even convinced my mother-in-law to convert to the bag method, and it has saved us from dessicated white meat ever since.

seanan_mcguire

7 years ago

Deleted comment

Yay turkey invite!
"If your bird is over twenty-five pounds, I am coming to your place for dinner."


Well then come on over!!! Open house!
HOORAY!

Deleted comment

Oh, VERY true, and excellent point.
I have made your fabulous TurkeyofYum three times and all three were perfect and lovely. You are the best ever!
Yay, and thank you, and enjoy!
"Remember that there is a bag somewhere inside the turkey. This bag contains your giblets."

Funny, I would have thought it would contain the _turkey's_ giblets. I believe that mine are still in the orignial manufacturer's recommended position.
Well, if it's your turkey, they're your giblets. You just have a human set and a turkey set. :)

ann_totusek

7 years ago

seanan_mcguire

7 years ago

jenk

7 years ago

Any recipe that can survive flames is good by me.

This is probably the best cooking advice I've ever seen--and I've seen a LOT!

Great recipe--thanks for sharing! I'm not cooking this year and for the first time EVER, will be on the west coast and will NOT be going to my mom's for dinner. Going to my bro- and sis-in-law's (Jahn's bro) instead. I've gotta find an excuse to try your recipe though...living with a vegan makes it a challenge--I don't NEED that much turkey! I'll figure it out.
:: laughs at your icon ::

seanan_mcguire

7 years ago

lonotter

7 years ago

seanan_mcguire

7 years ago

kshandra

6 years ago

seanan_mcguire

6 years ago

kshandra

6 years ago

That sounds like an awesome recipe. I don't eat turkey on Thanksgiving because 1)it's just me and my hubby(and the cats) and I don't know what to do with the leftovers as I'm culinarily challanged and my hubby doesn't have the time, and 2)we get the prime rib holiday dinner from our local store and I love Prime Rib. But your recipe sounds absolutely delicious as well and if my hubby ever wants to try it (He's the cook), I'll point him in your direction. After all, he loved your sweet salsa at the Agora house party. :)
In our household, the cats have some very serious recommendations on what to do with the leftovers.... :)

seanan_mcguire

7 years ago

cleothyla

7 years ago

I usually stuff the turkey with bread things, either cornbread or bread baked on a steel baking sheet flattened out. I put the stuffing spices into the bread or cornbread before baking, bake and dice it the night before, then mix it with stock, giblets etc. If you pull the 'sack' out the night before, you get a better idea as to whether you need to finish the thawing under cold water instead of the 'fridge. It also gives you a chance to turn chicken stock into turkey stock by chopping up the neck and gizzard and simmering those in the chicken stock (or whatever else you have on hand.)
I use a mixture of turkey stock, canola oil and carmel sauce in a spray bottle, and hit it with that every 1/2 hour or so until the top browns. At that point, instead of using foil, I flip over the turkey and dump the rest of the basting liquid over it and stick it back in until it's done. (Oh, and turn it down to 325, too.)
Back when I used to be able to find the stuff, I'd spray the turkey down inside & out with spray garlic olive oil, but I haven't been able to find that stuff in years...
See, I put the neck in the pan, where it basically marinates in ginger broth and becomes a fantastic meat candy bar. But I'm special like that. :)

Your recipe sounds awesome. I shall have to be there when you commit turkey someday.
*Cackles* This was as much great for the humour as for the nommable, nommable recipe. If I ever have to roast a turkey instead of just helping, I may well try this.

Thanks!
Very welcome!
My mother always buys the biggest bird she can find. We try to eat around 5. See you then ;-)

My husband has turned to the deep frying method of cooking turkey (using Alton Brown's setup for safety and sanity). I approve, especially since I only have one oven in my kitchen (unlike Mom, who has 2). Of course, on Thanksgiving we still wind up using my oven as an auxiliary of Mom's kitchen because of the sheer number of people she feeds (and often has to pack up everything to go to her in-laws' house, even though she does most of the cooking--bless her, as her Mother-in-Law fancies herself a gourmet chef, but really isn't that good at basics and usually dessicates everything).
I have to approve of cooking methods that occasionally come with bonus pillars of flame. Because really, who doesn't love a good pillar of flame?
Have fun with your turkey! It sounds pretty good, if you like dead animal flesh. :)
I do indeed like my dead animal flesh.
The foil tent is an important addition, and one that I almost forgot about in my preparations for this year's bird. (I'm doing a dry-brined recipe this year. Big Bird has been sitting in my fridge covered in salt since Sunday night.)

Breast meat tends to absorb heat faster than thigh meat, but breast meat also is "done" (and therefore "overdone") at a lower temp. The foil tent slows down the breast so that the thigh can catch up.

Your recipe does sound like deliciousness. Maybe next year.
Mmmmmmmmmm, turkey.
Working on the thawing right now. :)
Excellent!
Oh, that sounds yummy! Now I'm all hungry...
The best thing about American Thanksgiving is the sudden availability of cheap, delicious turkey.
I have always put the foil on first, then take it off for the last 30 mins to brown the boidy.
It depends on whether you're doing a sugar-based "skin" or not, really.
You're welcome to come to our place for dinner. We're having not one, but two turduckens. Which comes out to something like 60 lbs. of meat. Because last year we only had the one, and our guests annihilated it.
I've never actually even seen a turducken. Wow I thought they were mythical.

droewyn

7 years ago

alethea_eastrid

7 years ago

natf

7 years ago

seanan_mcguire

7 years ago

We have turkey at Christmas, not Thanksgiving, but I'm going to copy that and send it to my sister. She needs to vet it for things which various people can't eat (for instance, we have a couple of diabetics and I don't know whether the honey etc. will be too much for them). Otherwise, yum!
If you put the honey on the skin and then don't eat the skin (which you shouldn't do anyway if you're watching such things; it's the fattiest part), you just get a "shell" effect, and no additional sugar in your bird. :)

keristor

7 years ago

seanan_mcguire

7 years ago

We have turkey for Christmas rather than thanksgiving but a good recipe to bookmark.

As a child I was terrorised by a turkey that lived behind the "Cottage Springs" pub. I had to walk an extra half mile around so that the turkey wouldn't chase me down the road. This will be my revenge on the turkey race
I fully support vengeance against turkeys. Tasty, tasty vengeance.
Follow-up -- my report on cooking turkey to (almost) your recipe is here. Summary: OM NOM NOM NOM...
Hooray!
Once again, a tour de force. Every year that I read this you've added new and funny snark to this amazing recipe. I am in awe. *bows*
Aw, yay. :)
You are the only person who cooks turkey in a way that I even remotely like <3 and you have no IDEA how happy I am that you don't put flour on and/or bread in it now that I know I'm celiac, because it means I can keep eating your turkeys FOREVER <3
Hee.
I have taken on the responsibility of the family turkey this year, and find myself somewhere between ecstatic and terrified.

With regards to the random plants that get added to the cavity, have you ever added a lemon to the equation before? Something in the back of my brain is saying "try it," but I don't cook all THAT much, so I'm hesitant.
I haven't, but Chris has, and it worked out well.

kshandra

4 years ago