Holiday Turkey Recipe

I can hardly believe how quickly Christmas is coming.  I still have so many things to do to get ready before my kids are out of school and my out-of-state family starts arriving.

I’m still debating what I’ll make for our big family meal Christmas day but I am seriously considering cooking a turkey again instead of our traditional ham.  

 If you follow me on Instagram, you have already seen how pretty my Thanksgiving turkey looked.

 

 

This is just an iPhone picture so it’s not perfect but it still looks delicious!  

It was my first try at a new recipe and because I liked it so much I decided that it needed to be shared here on the blog even though I don’t have pictures of the process.  But, don’t worry it’s very simple.

 

I used Williams-Sonoma’s dry brine.   For years, I used a liquid brine but tried the dry version a couple of years ago and loved the flavor, moistness and the simplicity.    You just rub the brine all over the turkey one day ahead of time, wrap it in plastic wrap and keep chilled until you’re ready to cook.   Follow the instructions on the package and you’ll be good to go.

This year I added a couple of simple adjustments.  I was inspired by this recipe from Michael Symon of The Chew on ABC.  The recipe calls for soaking cheese cloth in a melted stick of butter to cover the turkey.   The recipe had me at butter!  

Before draping the cheese cloth over my turkey, I put half of a lemon, 3 sprigs of Rosemary, a small bunch of fresh Thyme, about 5 fresh Sage leaves, a garlic bulb sliced in half through its equator  (I used the bottom half only) and an onion sliced in half and put it inside the turkey.   (My turkey was just shy of 11 pounds, so I would double the amounts if I had a 20 lb. turkey.)  Then, I draped by butter-soaked cheese cloth on to my turkey and followed the instructions for roasting on Michael’s turkey recipe.  I started it at 425 degrees and then lowered the temperature to 375 for the remainder of the cooking time.  The cheese cloth stayed on my turkey the entire time and you can see that it still got nicely browned.  

 

I cooked it until a thermometer inserted in to the thigh read 160 degrees.

The turkey had a wonderful flavor and was juicy and so tender!  I will always, always, always use the cheese cloth and Michael’s roasting instructions from here on out.  It was perfect.  However, because I like to experiment, I may follow Michael’s recipe to the letter next time to see what his seasoning tastes like.  Plus, he makes his own dry brine which is probably cheaper than the Williams-Sonoma brine, but I loved this flavor so much I may just stay the course. 

 

Here’s to enjoying the season of good food, family, friends and holiday cheer!