Roasting the Thanksgiving Turkey

The Turkey

I now get 13lb turkeys because Chris smokes the other two. However, I used to get a 26lb turkey and roast it covered in a very slow oven. It turns out extremely moist, I’ve written down the times and temperatures for both. We eat in the evening at 6 p.m. but you can recalculate if you eat at midday.

I generally pick up the turkey on Tuesday, I might prepare the turkey the night before, but make sure the stuffing is completely cooled before placing inside the turkey.

A whole turkey requires 15 minutes to prepare for roasting.
Prepare stuffing separately a day ahead, keep stuffing in a covered casserole in the refrigerator. You can stuff the turkey, but you can also bake the stuffing with the turkey during the last hour of roasting time.
Refrigerate turkey below 40 degrees Fahrenheit.
A frozen turkey can be kept in a freezer for up to a year, so long as it is in its original wrapper and has never been defrosted.

To thaw a turkey, there is no hurry, place the turkey in its original wrapping in the refrigerator. Allow 24 hours per 7 pounds to completely thaw.
Or for a faster thaw, place turkey in its original wrapping in sink and cover with cold water. Allow about half an hour per pound of turkey to completely thaw. Change water every 30 minutes. Refrigerate or cook once turkey is thawed. Never re-freeze a defrosted turkey.

The best size is about 13 lbs for a turkey, this is good for about 10 people and leftovers the next few days. I buy two 13 pound turkeys for 20 people.
If you are having 30 to 35 people, and only one oven, then you need a large turkey weighing 28 lbs.
I’ll give you the directions for both sizes.
I generally order the fresh turkey(s) from Nichols a month ahead and arrange to pick up on Tuesday before Thanksgiving.

Make sure you have all the ingredients needed ahead of time.
You will need heavy duty wide length silver foil, turkey pins, a large roasting pan, kitchen string for trussing, Pam spray, 1/2 cup butter, 1 package of bacon.


Ingredients for the stuffing

1 package croutons
1 pound Gianelli sweet sausage
1 stalk celery chopped
1 can cream of mushroom soup (Campbell’s)
1 package slivered almonds

Directions for stuffing

Remove the casing from the sausage, break up the sausage meat and saute in two batches in a pan.
Mix all the ingredients together and place in the refrigerator covered.
This can be made the day before.
Never stuff the turkey until the stuffing is completely cooled.

To Prepare the Turkey:
Remove the neck from the breast cavity and the giblets from the neck cavity. Rinse the outside and inside of turkey with water and pat dry with a paper towel.
Rub cavities with salt and pepper, stuff both cavities with the cooled stuffing.
Secure the ends with pins, using string, tie up the turkey (known as trussing the turkey) so that the legs and wings are secure to the sides of the turkey.
Rub the outside of the turkey with salt and pepper. Place 1/2 cup butter sliced into chunks on top of the turkey, then cover the whole turkey with strips of bacon.
Place the turkey in a roasting pan and cover with silver foil, so that the foil is slightly tented, but tightly sealed so that no air escapes.

Turkey done this way is moist and tasty every time,

For a 13 pound turkey....
To eat at 6 p.m.......
9:30 a.m. preheat the oven at 275 degrees Fahrenheit.
10 a.m place turkey in oven.
3:00 p.m. turn oven up to 325 degrees Fahrenheit, keep turkey covered.
4:30 p.m. remove foil, brush turkey with butter, turn oven up to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
5:00 p.m. remove turkey from oven  and let stand for one hour before carving.

For a 26 - 28 pound turkey
To eat at 2 p.m. a large turkey is started the night before, well really in the early morning! Preheat oven at 275 degrees Fahrenheit at 12:30 p.m. night before.
1:00 a.m. place turkey in oven covered
7:00 a.m. turn oven up to 325 degrees Fahrenheit, keep turkey covered
12:30 p.m. remove foil, brush turkey with butter, turn oven up to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
1:00 p.m. remove turkey from oven and let stand for one hour before carving.

For 26-28 pound turkey
To eat at 6 p.m.
7:00 a.m. place turkey in oven covered at 275 degrees Fahrenheit
1:00 p.m. turn oven up to 325 degrees Fahrenheit, keep turkey covered.
4:30 p.m. remove foil, brush turkey with butter, turn oven up to 350 degrees Fahrenheit
5:00 p.m. remove turkey from oven and let stand for one hour before carving. 

Smoked Turkey for Thanksgiving

Our cousin, Chris, smokes the turkey for us at Thanksgiving. It is moist, tender and absolutely
delicious!

We had 2 13 lb birds, he stuffs a whole orange in each turkey, on the third rack he has a silver foil pan, filled with onions with the skins on and quartered, apples
slices in half, celery and a large dollop of red wine.

He also pours more red wine around the turkeys and checks during smoking time to make sure that none of the liquids dry out.

He may add more wine during the cooking time.


Chris smokes his turkeys for a good four hours, checking to make sure the meat is tender and falling away from the bone.

Turkey Tagine -

After I had made the turkey stock, there was this gorgeous tender turkey meat. . . . so I came across this recipe which was on the bbcgoodfoodfoodshow.com. A really delicious way to use up leftover turkey. It even tastes delicious without the turkey!
I found this beautiful picture of tagines in Mourad’s book New Moroccan. He writes the following about the tagine.
‘A tagine is that Moroccan conical-lidded pot used to make braised dishes. But the word has come to mean any braised dish of the kind typically made in a tagine, whether it was actually cooked in one or not. Tagines are traditionally made of terra-cotta and were designed to be a kind of stovetop oven.’
I don’t have a tagine, so cooked mine in a stock pot.
This dish gets better as it sits in the fridge, we loved it!

Tagines

Ingredients

1 tablespoon olive oil
1 red onion thickly sliced
3 carrots thickly sliced
3 parsnips thickly sliced
1 head of broccoli cut into large pieces
2 garlic cloves finely chopped
4 teaspoons ras el hanout (a mixture of 1 teaspoon each of allspice, cardamon, cumin
 cinnamon, coriander and salt, and 1/2 teaspoon of pepper, ground cloves and nutmeg)
2 cups turkey or chicken stock
1 cup chopped tomatoes
1 can chickpeas drained
3/4 cup of dried apricots, prunes and cranberries, roughly chopped
1 1/2 cups leftover turkey cut into chunks
Salt and pepper

Directions
Heat 1 tablespoon olive oil in a large saucepan, add the onion and cook gently for 8 minutes until softened. Add the carrots and parsnips and cook for 8 minutes until starting to soften and brown, about half way through add the broccoli.
Stir in the garlic and ras el hanout mixture and cook for 30 seconds.
Add the turkey stock, tomatoes, chick peas, dried fruit and 1/2 cup water. Add salt and pepper, bring to a simmer and cook covered for 25-30 minutes until the vegetables are tender.

Add the turkey and simmer for 5 minutes to warm through.
Serve with couscous.

Turkey Stock for Thanksgiving

I make this a couple of weeks ahead of Thanksgiving and freeze it. Then we have it to make the gravy and use in the stuffing. I found this recipe on the Epicurious website.

Ingredients

6 lbs turkey parts (thighs, neck, legs)
20 cups water
3 onions trimmed, skin left on, cut in half
3 celery stalks cut into two inch lengths
3 carrots cut into two inch lengths
6 parsley stalks
10 peppercorns
1 bay leaf
1 1/2 teaspoons salt

Directions

Preheat oven to 500 degrees Fahrenheit, place the oven rack at the lowest point nearest to the heat.
In a roasting pan, place the turkey parts skin down and roast for 45 minutes, turning once until golden brown.
Transfer the turkey to a large stock pot.
Place the onions face down, the carrots and the celery on the same roasting pan the turkey parts were on.
Roast for 20 minutes and then add to the turkey in the stock pot.
Take the roasting pan, straddle the pan over two burners on the stovetop, add two cups of the water and scrape up the bits and stir for 3 minutes. Add to the turkey and vegetables in the stockpot.
Place 6 parsley stalks, 10 black peppercorns, 1 1/2 teaspoons salt and 1 bay leaf in stockpot
Add the rest of the water, 18 cups.
Cover, bring to a gentle boil and simmer for three hours.
Strain the stock in a colander.
This can be frozen for future use.

The meat is lovely and tender, I am going to make a tangine tonight with couscous or a turkey pot pie. Haven’t decided yet!

Stuffing for the Thanksgiving Turkey

Turkey by Daniela

Ingredients
1 package croutons seasoned with herbs
1 package slivered almonds
1 stick celery chopped
1 can cream of mushroom
1 clove garlic chopped
Gianelli Italian Sweet Sausage

Directions
Remove the outer skin, break sausage up a bit and saute sausage in a pan first.
Next, mix all the rest of the ingredients together,and stuff in bird.
If you are not cooking the turkey right away, allow the stuffing to cool first then stuff the bird. I generally make this the day before so the stuffing is thoroughly cooled.

I triple this recipe, using 2 1/2 lbs. sausage and bake the rest of the stuffing in the oven, covered, adding some turkey stock to keep it moist. Bake at 300 Degrees Fahrenheit for 1 hour.

Pumpkin Pie for Thanksgiving

Makes 2 pies

Ingredients for the dough
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup crisco
1/4 cup water

In a bowl, place 2 cups flour, 1/2 teaspoon salt and 1/2 cup crisco. Rub the flour and crisco together with your fingers until it is blended like bread crumbs. Add 1/4 cup cold water and mix together to form a ball. Let rest while you make the filling


Ingredients for the filling

1 1/2 cups sugar
1 tsp. salt
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
4 large eggs
1 can pure pumpkin 29oz
2 cans 12 oz each evaporated milk

Directions
Mix 1 1/2 cups sugar, 1 tsp. salt, 2 tsps. ground cinnamon, 1 tsp. ground ginger and 1/2 tsp. cloves in small bowl.
Beat 4 eggs in large bowl. Stir in 1 can pure pumpkin and sugar - spice mixture. Gradually stir in evaporated milk.
Halve the dough and roll out the dough on a floured board. Place in 9 inch pie dish sprayed with Pam. Press into the base and round the edge, flute edges.
Pour filling into pie shells.
Bake in preheated 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 45 mins. or until knife inserted near center comes out clean.

Ghost Train Corfe Castle

On the Swanage Steam Train from Norden to Swanage, passing by beautiful Corfe Castle . . . so many wonderful memories