There’s a reason people only eat Turkey once a year, although, given modern culinary options I’m not even sure why it’s that frequent. One of the many problems with cooking a 20lb bird is that all their not-so-noodly-appendages have different cooking times. Cook the thighs and you’ve got bone dry breasts, cook the breasts just so and you’ve got bloody legs, etc… it’s a B grade horror movie that only Harold McGee could find entertaining. There are a number of solutions to this, the one we use is great. Not only does it involve using paper towels to maneuver a 20lb, 400 degree object numerous times during cooking, but it includes bacon!
We’re currently at the end of the earth in lovely Tofino, Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada (don’t worry, they’ve taken up our Friday shopping extravaganza and put all 10 shops in town on a 40%-off sale for Friday only). We’ve adapted this recipe for the bacontarian on holiday in a hostile foreign land, like Canada.
Step one of our starting point recipe calls for brining the beast. Now, you need a bloody big pot to brine a 20lb creature, no matter how plucked they are. But, we respect brining, mandatory soaking in salt is always a good sign that the product your cooking leaves just about everything to be desired. Since we didn’t have room for a 10 gallon stock pot (yah, we’ve got one of those) in our fuel efficient VW Golf we decided to take an alternate path… we are, of course, steps from the Pacific Ocean. And, matey, there’s rumored to be salt in them thar waters. Avast… keel haul the creature! (more on this silliness here and here).
Step two – if keel hauling in the Pacific Ocean, wash sand out.
Step three – cook the bird breast side down for 30 minutes at 400 degrees. Yawn…
Step four… decision time (and it’s not a hard one). First, using paper towels, flip the bird breast side up. Wasn’t that fun? How badly did you burn yourself? Paper towels absord and that things spurting juices… who thought this up. Want to do that 3 more times? Hell no! Abandon thee recipe! Beyond here thar be dragons.
The breast is going to dry out if we cook the thighs through…. what to do? Cover the fowl in Bacon, like so…
mmmm… bacon
Cook until bacon is done (who cares about the stupid bird). It should look something like this…
Put the non-flying creature back in the oven and cook it some more (to crisp up the skin, the only worthy part of this whole creature) while fending off friends and family who will attempt to eat all the bacon you’ve spent half the day cooking.
Chop up remaining bacon and put it in the mashers (make sure there is plenty of creme and butter in those thar mashers) … yum. Serve turkey as an after thought or a side dish.
We hope you’ve enjoyed our method of cooking bacon.
I have cited this post enought times without saying it; Well done! This year I cooked an “American Bronze” heritage turkey. There was more leg, thigh and back meat and less breast meat that a “traditional” big breasted white turkey. It was a better turkey than any others I’ve cooked. The only pork I managed to get out of it was the two pounds of hot italian sausage that went into the split pea soup that was made with the turkey stock, which will certainly change after reading this post!
Thanks,
– Douglas Hunter
Nice looking bird!
I’ve never heard of brining a turkey before cooking it, though and I’ve been eating Christmas turkey for 40 years, and cooking them myself for the past 10 years. Even my Mother-in-Law asks me advice on the subject now, though I had one cock-up when we moved to a new house and I didn’t give the bird a chance to come to room temperature overnight, so we didn’t eat until about 6pm.
Here’s what I do now, after combining advice from Delia Smith and Nick Rhodes: Make sure the bird is cleaned out, dry and at room temperature early on the morning of cooking (ie, sort it out the evening before and leave it covered in the kitchen. Lay two large strips of foil in an cross on the roasting tin and place the bird on top. The next bit’s not for the squeamish, but can be oddly satisfying.
Force your fingers up under the skin of the breasts, going in from the flap where the neck was. The skin will come away from the meat, but be careful not to break through (it’s pretty tough, so no need to be too gentle). Into this space use your fingers to spread a load of room temperature butter so that it covers the breasts. This butter will help keep the meat moist for serving.
If you’re going to put stuffing inside the cavity, now’s the time to do it, and you can also put some under the flap of skin at the neck end (not too tightly packed, to allow room for expansion).
Spread a load more butter over the exposed skin, including the legs.
Coat the whole bird in a pattern of overlapping streaky bacon as you’ve done, allowing that the bacon will shrink.
This stops the skin from burning while it cooks and gives more fat to aid moistness.
Seal up the foil so it’s not touching the turkey and bang it in the pre-heated oven.
Cook at about 200 degrees for 30 mins to get it up to temperature, then drop it to 170 degrees for 3-4 hours depending on size.
Uncover and cook at 200 for 45 mins, basting every 10 min until the skin’s nicely crisp and brown (take the bacon to one side for this).
Allow the bird to rest for 30 mins before serving, giving you time to take off the fat and use the juices for gravy.
You want the recipe for chestnut and bacon stuffing? Ask nicely.
cheers, Mark, loving bacon since birth.