How do you prepare and cook your bird??

Turkey is stuffed w/ homemade stuffing, then cooked outside on a big ol' Weber charcoal grill.

Fry that bad boy!!

I will be preparing 3 turkeys, 1 smoked, 1 fried, and 1 oven roasted with oyster stuffing

Brined, then roasted.

Roasted with all sorts of yummy herbs under the skin, with a lemon and an orange squeezed over it and thrown inside, on top of a layer of celery/carrots/onions. I can't wait to smell it cooking!!

Brine, stuff garlic and yummy herbs under the skin then I let her ride the lightning. Fry, baby fry. My mouth is watering.

Unstuffed and breast side down.

Injected with Creole Butter Cajun Injector. So moist and delicious!

Brined, then roasted.

DETAILS Please!!!

I wash and pat my bird dry. I then rub it with olive oil, salt, pepper and herbs. Then I chunk a couple of apples inside. As they cook out, they release a very sweet moisture. I cook it breast up, covered in tin foil until about an hour before it is supposed to come out of the oven. Remove the tin foil the last hour and it will brown very nicely. I also, drain off the pan drippings to make my giblet gravy.

Nothing special but very moist and yummy!

DETAILS Please!!!

OK- this is the quick version--

1 cup kosher salt for every gallon of water. I have a 22 pound turkey, so I am not sure yet how much liquid I will need, but I do know it will be brining in a big plastic bag, iced down in a big cooler. I am going to boil some of the water and dissolve the salt, but I will do this the tomorrow and have it cooled to brine on Wednesday.

To the liquid, I add 2 cups brown sugar, a handful of bay leaves, a handful of celery leaves, a handful of garlic cloves (smash 'em), big bunches of thyme, sage, and rosemary, and a handful of black peppercorns.

Make sure there is plenty of ice to keep it cold, and leave it overnight.

Before cooking, rinse the bird and pat it dry. Then roast away- bird will be super juicy (at least that is the plan!)

inject with Tonys creole butter then fried in peanut oil! Yummy!!!

Rub outside with olive oil and sage. Inside throw an apple and an onion. Stuff with homemade stuffing loaded with sage. In another dish, oyster dressing cause not everybody likes oyster dressing (I don't know who they are or what their hangup is but I've heard it said).
This year though, ChefEd's Puerto Rican mamma is cooking the bird, we are taking the sides. I CAN"T WAIT. Don't know what she will do with it but I have never been disappointed by her cooking.

indirect cook for hours on the weber...use choice of hardwood for flavor...

We've already made ours, because we're going to a friend's house for Thanksgiving Dinner. But we've made it a tradition to get our own fresh bird and cook it the day after.

This year, we arranged to buy our bird from a local (Cleveland Ohio) farmer, and her pick-up day was Saturday. We decided, since we'd have the bird that early, might as well roast it up on Sunday.

In prior years, we've brined, added aromatics to the cavity, rubbed some seasonings into the skin, and roasted in the oven per Alton Brown's Romancing the Bird. This year, with Harold McGee (the dean of food science) coming out against brining, and with our bird being so fresh it was practically still gobbling, we decided to skip the brine.

Our birdie was a whopping 32 pounds.



This bird was sooo large (how large was it?) - it was so large, we had to cut it in half to make it fit in our double ovens.



Each half got a rub of paprika, kosher salt, tellicherry pepper, garlic granules and onion powder, then a lube with rendered turkey fat. Even in half - we only had 1 vessel in the house big enough to hold a half - Mom's Magnalite Turkey Roaster - so Half #1 went there (we haven't used the roaster much, because high pans aren't great for crisp skin - but they do create very moist meat by holding in steam):



After scratching our heads a bit - we realized that Half #2 would just barely fit on the broiler pan that "came" with the oven - we used foil to enclose it for the first two hours of cooking.



The final products were simply amazing!









Happy Thanksgiving, SoWallers! Looking forward to seeing you soon!

We're in full pre-Thanksgiving mode. Papa Scooterbug just headed to the store for a fresh turkey - he thinks it tastes better than frozen - and a long list of other dinner ingredients. The bread has been baked and the cranberry chutney has been made, the rest will be done wednesday and thursday.

I am sick, so my contribution has been reduced to fetching and carrying, potato peeling, and arranging the gourd centerpiece (so I don't get anyone else sick touching utensils or food).

Finally got to the grocery store this morning. I woke up at 5 am, slightly panicked that I had no turkey yet. Picked up a fresh Butterball...only 12 1/2 lbs. Should be just enough for the four of us. Believe it or not, I am looking forward to cooking. First I am making chili for sarafunn, who is on her way home from Austin. Baking cornbread and simmering the turkey neck for dressing, as well. I have nothing for dessert.

Oh, we brine and roast. Guess I'll go read the don'ts about brining.

Brined, then fried. Peanut oil. Although last time Fuzz fired up the turkey fryer we discovered that we didn't have enough peanut oil after all, so we tossed in the Crisco, olive oil, and everything else one could possibly fry something with. Came out marvelous!

Hint - make sure the thermometer you use to check the temperature of the oil is NOT made of PLASTIC :roll:

P.S. We are going out this year!