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Ok, I'm not actually going to offer my own roast turkey recipes because there are two excellent ones available on the web.
- The first is a brined and smoked turkey recipe by Meathead over at Amazing Ribs. Clear, accurate instructions, and he will answer your questions in near-real time by email. Delicious.
- The second technique is so close to my favorite method, rather than offering a new recipe, simply adopt this one from America's Test Kitchen and modify it with your own experience. No brining, but first cut the turkey into parts, then cook low and slow over a water tray. Monitor the dark and light meat temperatures separately, and pull each from the oven when done. Much simpler than trying to get the whole bird to cooperate and cook simultaneously, despite differences in muscle type and thickness, yet consistent with my experiments on brining and moisture.
And while we are on the subject of roast turkey, here are a few myths and misconceptions:
- Basting is the secret to a moist bird. Completely false. While the pan juices may add a rich sheen and color to the bird skin (like spraying apple juice on ribs), most of the moisture simply drips off the skin.
- Cooking with breast side "down" for half the time bastes the meat and adds juices. Well, not really. As the meat cooks and muscles relax and proteins unravel, juices are expelled from the interior. Basting cannot push these juices back in. But, the continual flow of extra liquid (compared to occasional basting) does slightly evaporatively cool the breast compared to legs simply dangling in the air. That slows down the white meat cooking speed, allowing the breast to reach 155F at the same time the dark meat reaches 170F. So its not overcooked and dry. More importantly, the temperature an inch or two above the water pan is 50F to 100F lower than the oven temperature, again slowing the breast meat's cooking rate. See this article for more details.
- Brining adds moisture to the meat. Actually, very little useful water is absorbed during brining. Mostly, the salt is adding flavor. But, salt also helps the meat retain its existing supply of moisture, so if you don't overcook, the bird is juicier. For this reason, dry brining works just as well as wet brining. Injecting salt is even better.
- Oven bagged turkeys are always pale and unappetizing. Not my favorite cooking technique, but infra-red radiation from the cooking elements will pass through the bag, and slowly brown the bird. Not as quickly as unbagged, but still effective.
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