Wednesday, July 28, 2010

What is the best turkey recipe?

i need a good turkey recipe for thanksgiving every year one person in my family cooks the thanksgiving meal this year it's my turn please help me!What is the best turkey recipe?
Mom's Turkey with Giblet Stuffing


http://www.cherskitchen.com/recipes/poul鈥?/a>What is the best turkey recipe?



Ingredients





* 1 (14 to 16 pound) frozen young turkey





For the brine:





* 1 cup kosher salt


* 1/2 cup light brown sugar


* 1 gallon vegetable stock


* 1 tablespoon black peppercorns


* 1/2 tablespoon allspice berries


* 1/2 tablespoon candied ginger


* 1 gallon iced water





For the aromatics:





* 1 red apple, sliced


* 1/2 onion, sliced


* 1 cinnamon stick


* 1 cup water


* 4 sprigs rosemary


* 6 leaves sage


* Canola oil





Directions





Combine all brine ingredients, except ice water, in a stockpot, and bring to a boil. Stir to dissolve solids, then remove from heat, cool to room temperature, and refrigerate until thoroughly chilled.





Early on the day of cooking, (or late the night before) combine the brine and ice water in a clean 5-gallon bucket. Place thawed turkey breast side down in brine, cover, and refrigerate or set in cool area (like a basement) for 6 hours. Turn turkey over once, half way through brining.





A few minutes before roasting, heat oven to 500 degrees. Combine the apple, onion, cinnamon stick, and cup of water in a microwave safe dish and microwave on high for 5 minutes.





Remove bird from brine and rinse inside and out with cold water. Discard brine.





Place bird on roasting rack inside wide, low pan and pat dry with paper towels. Add steeped aromatics to cavity along with rosemary and sage. Tuck back wings and coat whole bird liberally with canola (or other neutral) oil.





Roast on lowest level of the oven at 500 degrees F. for 30 minutes. Remove from oven and cover breast with double layer of aluminum foil, insert probe thermometer into thickest part of the breast and return to oven, reducing temperature to 350 degrees F. Set thermometer alarm (if available) to 161 degrees. A 14 to 16 pound bird should require a total of 2 to 2 1/2 hours of roasting. Let turkey rest, loosely covered for 15 minutes before carving.



Look up recipes for brining. I did this last year and I can't believe how good and juicy it was! Here's one:





Supplies: To properly brine a turkey you need to start the night before you plan to cook. You will need at least 10 to 12 hours (plan on 1 hour per pound of turkey), a container large enough to hold your turkey and enough brine to cover it. You'll also need salt, water, sugar, seasonings, and enough room to refrigerate it. A large stainless steel stock pot or even a 5 gallon clean plastic bucket would make excellent containers. Whatever container you choose the turkey needs to have enough room to be turned so it should be big. Both Reynolds (Oven Roasting Bag for Turkeys) and Ziploc (XL Storage Bag) make very large food safe sealable bags that are great for brining.





Turkey: Now let's get to the turkey. The turkey should be cleaned out, completely thawed, and should not be a self-basting or Kosher turkey. Self-basting and Kosher turkeys have a salty stock added that will make your brined turkey too salty. A fresh turkey works best, but a completely thawed, previously frozen turkey will work just as well.





Brine Ingredients: To make the brine, mix 1 cup of table salt in 1 gallon of water. You will need more than 1 gallon of water but that鈥檚 the ratio to aim for. One way of telling if you have enough salt in your brine is that a raw egg will float in it. Make sure that the salt is completely dissolved before adding the seasonings you like, making sure not to add anything that contains salt. Brines can be spicy hot with peppers and cayenne, savory with herbs and garlic, or sweet with molasses, honey and brown sugar. Whatever your tastes are, you can find a large number of brine recipes on my site.





Sweetening the Brine: Sugar is optional to any brine, but works to counteract the flavor of the salt. While you may choose a brine without sugar, I do recommend that you add sugar (any kind of ';sweet'; will do) to maintain the flavor of the turkey. Add up to 1 cup of sugar per gallon of brine. Like the salt you need to make sure that the sugar is completely dissolved.





Set-up: Place the turkey in a container and pour in enough brine to completely cover the turkey with an inch or two to spare. You do not want any part of the turkey above the surface of the brine. Now you put the whole thing in the refrigerator. If you are like me, making enough room in the fridge is the hardest part of this project. The turkey should sit in the brine for about 1 hour per pound of turkey. Brining too long is much worse than not brining enough so watch the time.





Keep it Cool!: Don't have room in the refrigerator? Try a cooler. A cooler big enough to hold your turkey makes a good container for your turkey and brine. The cooler will help keep it cool and allow you to brine your turkey without taking up precious refrigerator space. If the weather is cool, but not freezing you can put the whole thing outside until you need the turkey. If the weather is warm fill a a zip top bag with ice. Place this in the cooler with the turkey and brine and it will hold down the temperature during the brining process.





Rinsing: When you are ready to start cooking your turkey, remove it from the brine and rinse it off thoroughly in the sink with cold water until all traces of salt are off the surface inside and out. Safely discard the brine and cook your turkey as normal. You will notice the second you start to carve your turkey that the brining has helped it retain moisture. The first bite will sell you on brining turkeys forever, and after you've tried this you will want to brine all your poultry.












You're going to do great! It's really actually quite easy to make a wonderful turkey. The key is the two B's, Butter and Basting (just made that up, aren't I clever).





I use a lot of butter, and sure it's not such a healthy bird anymore, but it sure does taste good! You'll cut the butter into pats, like 1/2 an inch thick or less. Pull the skin away from the bird gently, and you'll see that you can put the butter under the skin. Do this all over the bird. Now drizzle some olive oil on the bird and rub it down - didn't say it wouldn't be messy ;-) On top of the olive oil sprinkle your favorite herbs and spices. I like to sprinkle on garlic salt, Italian seasonings, marjoram, salt pepper, and whatever else sounds good at the time.





This all goes onto a V rack in the baking pan you're using. It's not imperative that you have a V rack, so no worries if you don't. To the pan add some chicken broth and white wine, maybe a cup of each. When the bird is done, these juices are going to be an excellent gravy! Oh, I almost forgot. Slice up some onions and celery and lay the turkey on top of these. You can add the cooked onions and celery to your stuffing, oh my gosh good.





I'd say to baste the bird every 1/2 hour - 45 minutes, but make sure that before your first baste the herbs/spices have baked onto the bird. If you don't have a baster, you can just scoop up the liquid in the pan with a measuring cup and baste it that way. I know you'll do great, it's really very easy!





Happy Thanksgiving!!
This how to cook a Turkey Read and Watch on the


net.








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