For those who are interested in Turkey cooking technique...
The Turkey Has Left the Building
By STEVEN RAICHLEN
OVER the last 30 years I've cooked turkey using just about every technique contrived by human ingenuity, from baked with sliced truffles under the skin (a remembrance of my cooking school days in Paris) to roasted under a veil of butter-soaked cheesecloth (in the manner of Julia Child). I've braised turkeys, deep-fried them and roasted them upright on an open can of beer (a very large can manufactured by Foster's). I even once cooked a turkey under a metal trash can (a clean new can of course): a sort of outdoor oven dreamed up by a seasoned out-of-the-box thinker, the leader of a Boy Scout troop.
But I keep coming back to a technique that, like turkey itself, is native to the Americas: smoke-roasting, also known as barbecuing. After a decade of traveling the world's barbecue trail and sampling Southern-style, Texan, Southwestern and even Yucatan-smoked turkeys, I'm convinced that smoking is the best way to cook turkey. And the method can be used indoors as well as outside. Apartment dwellers, take heart: no backyard or special equipment is required.
There are countless advantages to smoking your turkey. There is the burnished mahogany sheen the smoke gives the bird, not to mention the rich, evocative flavor of wood smoke, boosting the mild, forthright taste of turkey without camouflaging or overpowering it. The smoke imparts a flavor that is as distinctly American as barbecue itself.
Smoking produces a bird of incomparable succulence, especially when combined with another traditional American barbecue technique, brining. Given turkey's tendency to dry out, this is no small attraction. Then there's the simplicity of the method: once you put the bird in the smoker or on the grill, you pretty much leave it there until it is done.
And should you opt to smoke the bird outdoors, the process frees up the kitchen and the oven for the side dishes and desserts.
Last but certainly not least, you get an excuse to spend a fall afternoon outdoors, maybe with beer in hand.
The first step in smoking a turkey is brining, a process that involves little more than marinating the bird overnight in a mixture of salt, sugar, water and flavorings. Thanks to osmosis, the bird absorbs some of the brine, making it juicy as well as flavorful. You can cook a tasty smoked turkey without brining, and I've included a recipe for doing so. But you will get a richer flavor and moister bird if you brine first. Read More....
The New York Times > Dining & Wine > The Turkey Has Left the Building
The Turkey Has Left the Building
By STEVEN RAICHLEN
OVER the last 30 years I've cooked turkey using just about every technique contrived by human ingenuity, from baked with sliced truffles under the skin (a remembrance of my cooking school days in Paris) to roasted under a veil of butter-soaked cheesecloth (in the manner of Julia Child). I've braised turkeys, deep-fried them and roasted them upright on an open can of beer (a very large can manufactured by Foster's). I even once cooked a turkey under a metal trash can (a clean new can of course): a sort of outdoor oven dreamed up by a seasoned out-of-the-box thinker, the leader of a Boy Scout troop.
But I keep coming back to a technique that, like turkey itself, is native to the Americas: smoke-roasting, also known as barbecuing. After a decade of traveling the world's barbecue trail and sampling Southern-style, Texan, Southwestern and even Yucatan-smoked turkeys, I'm convinced that smoking is the best way to cook turkey. And the method can be used indoors as well as outside. Apartment dwellers, take heart: no backyard or special equipment is required.
There are countless advantages to smoking your turkey. There is the burnished mahogany sheen the smoke gives the bird, not to mention the rich, evocative flavor of wood smoke, boosting the mild, forthright taste of turkey without camouflaging or overpowering it. The smoke imparts a flavor that is as distinctly American as barbecue itself.
Smoking produces a bird of incomparable succulence, especially when combined with another traditional American barbecue technique, brining. Given turkey's tendency to dry out, this is no small attraction. Then there's the simplicity of the method: once you put the bird in the smoker or on the grill, you pretty much leave it there until it is done.
And should you opt to smoke the bird outdoors, the process frees up the kitchen and the oven for the side dishes and desserts.
Last but certainly not least, you get an excuse to spend a fall afternoon outdoors, maybe with beer in hand.
The first step in smoking a turkey is brining, a process that involves little more than marinating the bird overnight in a mixture of salt, sugar, water and flavorings. Thanks to osmosis, the bird absorbs some of the brine, making it juicy as well as flavorful. You can cook a tasty smoked turkey without brining, and I've included a recipe for doing so. But you will get a richer flavor and moister bird if you brine first. Read More....
The New York Times > Dining & Wine > The Turkey Has Left the Building
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