By Greg B. With the Thanksgiving holiday rapidly approaching (do you have your turkey thawing yet?  Get on it!)  people should consider what method they want to use to cook the turkey.  There are many methods, including grilling, smoking, deep frying, and using a crockpot, but this post will be regarding more traditional oven roasting style cooking.

There are, in my mind, two methods to cook a turkey in an oven.  One is higher heat for shorter time, the other is lower heat for longer time.  Both yield delicious results, though slightly different.  Depending on how much time you have and what your cooking resources are (need to make multiple turkeys for more people or just one turkey, etc).  However, both will start from the same point of view: Brining a fully thawed bird.

OK, so lets get something straight.  The turkey should be fully thawed.  And keep in mind the very basic guidelines to thaw your bird in the fridge

• 8-12 lbs –  1-2 days
• 12-16 lbs – 2-3 days
• 16-20 lbs – 3-4 days

You can see where this is going, every additional 4lbs over 8 pounds, add an extra day of time to thaw.  So keep in mind, today is Sunday, November 23rd, and thanksgiving is Thursday, November 27th, so start thawing for those fatter birds now!

And yes, you heard me, brining.  This is a great way to ensure your bird comes out juicy and full of flavor, and works great with chicken and pork.  You will need a large container, big enough to stick your bird in and to cover the bird in liquid.  Coolers work nicely.  So, in a large pot, take about a gallon of water, 1.5 cups of salt and 1/2 cups of sugar and combine until it is a nice, homogeneous mixture.  I like to also add black peppercorns (cracked or whole, up to you), chopped sage and some crushed, dried rosemary.  Mix this up and let it cool (you don’t want to pre-cook your turkey by pouring hot water on it, do you?) to around room temperature.

Once at room temperature, add this mixture to your cooler with the turkey.  If you place the bird breasts down, so the thicker, meatier part is submerged in the brine, you can ensure more liquid/flavor absorption.  Try to make about as much brine as you can to cover the animal, but you can dilute it a bit with cold water if you need some emergency volume.  Let the turkey soak 6 hours or so, before cooking.  When you are ready to roast, remove the turkey, rinse off the bring and peppercorns (few people like to eat a whole one), dry the skin (otherwise the oil wont stick to it nicely), and then, you can begin roasting!

The Slow Cooked Method:

Once your bird is (fully) thawed and brined, you will want to preheat the oven to 200 degrees F, take your bird and place it on a rack suspended over a pan, breast side up.  At this point you can truss the bird, if you like presentation, but really, it doesn’t do much else so I normally skip this step.  You can add a few cups of water below the turkey, rub oil all over the bird’s skin, season with salt and pepper (this makes a delicious skin for later), and I like to season the inside of the bird with some rosemary, sage and a few cloves of garlic, crushed.

Cover the bird with aluminum foil, and place it in the 200F oven, on the bottom rack and walk away.  Seriously, just turn around and go about your business for hours, 6-8 hours for a bird about 12lbs.  Within a few hours there should be a really delicious smell wafting through the house, as the turkey juices begin to fill the internal cavity with all those spices and they spice up the turkey.  After about 2.5 hours, I usually go back and check on the water level below the turkey, and baste every 30 minutes.  Place a meat thermometer into the breast (but be sure not to penetrate all the way to the internal cavity, or else your readings will not be accurate!) and leave it there, watching the temperature.  You want to get the temp up to 165F to be fully cooked, but thanks to the deal of “carryover”, you can remove the bird around 162F and let it rest for up to 15 minutes before carving.  However, if you want a nice, crispy brown skin, I normally crank up the oven heat to 400F, remove the aluminum, and then keep an eye on it for around 20 minutes, making sure I don’t overcook the skin and just get it golden brown.

Normally, signs that your turkey are cooked will include: thermometer reading 165, drumstick meat beginning to pull back from the bones, crispy delicious skin, and no blood/pink juice when you slice into the meat.

The Quicker Method:

So, now that you’ve read through the long, slow cooking method, the quicker method will be much simpler!  Preheat your oven to 450 degrees F, place the turkey on a rack, breasts up and the same spices I mentioned above (sometimes a little sugar adds a nice flavor to the liquid for basting, so maybe a few teaspoons of sugar can be nice), add a little bit of water to the pan below and place in the oven for 30 minutes.

After 30 minutes, remove the turkey, cover with aluminum foil and bring the oven temperature down to 350F.  You can place the bird in (remember, this is for our theoretical and perfect, 12lb bird) for another 2 hrs.  Check on it once or twice for the temperature in the final half hour.  When it is 162F, remove, let rest, then slice and serve.

And that’s all there is to a delicious Thanksgiving bird!  I know the brining method seems like a lot of work, but it is a really great way to ensure your turkey is moist and very flavorful.  Having only recently discovered this method of cooking, I have to say it does wonders for poultry and I highly recommend this.  As for side dishes with your Thanksgiving feast, I’ll cover those in a separate post.