Poll of the Day > Winner winner turkey dinner!

(+) Yeah! (+)

My roommate bought a frozen turkey for like 50 cents a pound and there was no room to keep it in the freezer for 2 months so I decided to go ahead and make it now. I use a recipe that is basically Alton Brown's Good Eats turkey, with a few modifications that I think make it even better, like cooking on top of a bed of vegetables, using melted ghee instead of canola oil, and flipping the bird over to brown the underside.

Start thawing the turkey in the fridge about 5-6 days before you want to eat it. And make sure you have a very large roasting pan with a rack, the bigger the better. I have a 17x13 inch Circulon roasting pan. If you don't have one, a large casserole and wire rack will do.

Two days before dinner time you'll need to make a brine in a huge stockpot using 1 cup of kosher salt, 1 gallon of water, half a jar of Better Than Bouillon seasoned vegetable base, 1 tablespoon of black peppercorns, 1/2 tablespoon of allspice berries, and 1/2 tablespoon of chopped candied ginger. Bring this to a boil and stir until everything is dissolved, then let it cool. When it's completely cooled, put the turkey in the brine (remove the neck and giblets first!) then add ice cold water until the turkey is completely submerged, up to 1 gallon. Cover and put the stockpot in the fridge. If you don't have a stockpot, you can use a clean, food-grade plastic bucket. And if you don't have a big enough fridge, you'll need a large cooler chest and a ton of ice.

Let the turkey soak for a day, then flip it over to make sure everything gets to soak in the brine.

The day of the feast, begin by filling the bottom of the roasting pan with vegetables such as potatoes, carrots, parsnips, and sweet onions. Celery does not work (it dries out and gets stringy), nor do tomatoes (they sort of melt and turn into nothing).

Dump the brine and rinse off the bird, then pat it dry with paper towels. Take a couple cinnamon sticks, a red apple, sliced, and an onion, sliced, put it in a bowl with a cup of water, and microwave for 5 minutes. Let that start to cool, and take a generous helping of ghee (clarified butter) and melt it in the microwave. Do not use regular butter, it will burn! If you can't find ghee, use canola oil. Use a silicone spatula and coat the bird thoroughly. Fill the cavity with 6 sprigs of fresh rosemary and about 10 leaves of fresh sage as well as the microwaved apple, onion, and cinnamon (careful, they're probably still hot). Put the turkey on the rack, with the wings tucked underneath as best as you can, then put the rack on top of the veggies in the roasting pan. Insert a meat thermometer probe into the thickest part of the breast.

This monstrosity probably weighs about 30 pounds now, so caaaarefully put it into the middle of a 500F oven, making sure the wire for the probe doesn't catch on anything. Set a timer for 30 minutes and set the thermometer alarm to 150F. When the timer goes off, lower the oven to 350 and let it run until the thermometer goes off. Then carefully remove the roasting pan from the oven and very carefully flip the turkey over so the breast in facing down. Put it back in the oven, crank up the heat to 500 again, and set the thermometer to 161.

When the thermometer alarm goes off for the second time, remove the roasting pan from the oven, set a timer for 15 minutes, and do not touch anything. Use this time to prepare any other quick dishes like instant stuffing, corn, etc, though there's little point unless you're feeding an army because everyone will fill up on the turkey & veggies. After 15 minutes, you can flip the turkey back over so it's right-side up, place on a cutting board and begin carving.

The turkey will be incredibly juicy and delicious and the vegetables will have been cooking in all the juices from the turkey and they'll be tender and buttery.

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10/10 - i love turkey

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