This is what my mom does, and she bastes with the juices for the last part. Tasty tasty turkey.
Not to hyjack this thread, but does anyone have good suggestions for smoking a turkey?
I’ve got a ~15# bird and an electric smoker. Can I still use a bag? I’ve been told to use hickory and alder chips, and fill the water pan with some water and maybe a little white wine.
What suggestions or good/bad experiences can you offer?
I tried that, but the turkey just got darker like ham. Perhaps I needed to apply more butter or oil to the skin.
I have always found that the best stuffing is that with dried out bread and fixins.
chop and sautee celery carrots and onions, then add to the chopped up break. add chopped apples and bake until you get a brownish color. An important key to the stuffing are the spices. I like to use Thyme and a dash of rosemary.
Now, I can’t wait to eat turkey.
Cooking a part-frozen turkey is the best route to food poisoning (stuffing isn’t a problem if cooked properly - but remember to add its weight to the cooking-time calculation!)
But they’re good!
(1) Take approx. 1 yard of string and tie the ends together. Lay it crosswise in the roasting pan. Place the bird on top. The “loops” of the string will help you heave/lift out the bird when done.
(2) Baste the turkey with mayonaise. (really)
(3) Add a little instant coffee to your gravy.
regards,
widdley
Whew, glad I’m not the only person who bastes with mayo. A friend showed me that trick about 15 years ago. I would never eat mayo in any way, shape or form, but I do slather it on the turkey.
But to just double check, which one do I buy? Miracle Whip has two types of things that look like mayo. One is mayo and the other says something else. It always confuses me because I only buy it once a year.
I’m always willing to try new methods. I am adding this idea to my recipe box.
I do have a question, however, what does the mayo do? Does it hold in moisture? What’s with the instant coffee in the gravy? I have quite an ego about my amazing gravy so I want to know what effect the coffee will have on my masterpiece.
Instant coffee will give a bit of a smoky flavor that most people can’t identify. I’ve never used it in gravy, but have added it to baked beans. I suppose it would also add some color, but that’s unnecessary if the gravy is properly prepared.
Basting the turkey doesn’t do anything except frequently lower the oven temperature. Look, it’s the outside of the turkey you’re basting - none of that flavor will ever touch the meat. If you want to carry some flavor into the meat, brining is the answer.
Get a digital meat thermometer, insert it in the deepest part of the breast, not touching bone, and have it go off at 161 degrees.
And the other posters are right - stuffing lead to dry bird and possible illness.
This link leads to a great recipe that involves brining.
As far as the Mayo, since it’s composed of Egg Yolk and Oil, I imagine it would brown the skin and make it crispy. Sounds like a good idea! But I’ll try it on Chicken first…
And stuffing the turkey will not lead to salmonella if you cook it to the correct temperature. Get a meat thermometer for God’s sake! (or an electronic probe, if you’re a Good Eats fan)
Nothing to add other than if you use a bag, you’re cancelling out the benefits of smoking the bird. The point of smoking it is to permiate the meat with smoke. If you bag the bird, the smoke doesn’t hit the meat, so no smoked flavor!
Beyond that:
http://www.fabulousfoods.com/school/cstech/smoketurkey.html
If anyone wishes to try smoking their turkey this year (or more realistically, next year at this late date.) and doesn’t wish to shell out $150-$200 for a smoker, might I suggest making your own flowerpot smoker!
Smoked turkey is awesome!
I tried smoking a turkey once, but I couldn’t get my lips around it (and it wouldn’t stay lit). 
I bought a 24 pound turkey, and had the butcher slice it in half for me, as in, from neck to tail, end result a ‘left’ and a ‘right’ half turkey, each with one leg and one breast and weighing about 12 pounds.
(Since comment: man, those mini band saws or whatever butchers use are SHARP. It cut through that frozen turkey in roughly 3 seconds.)
I am only cooking one half of turky tomorrow, but I’m guessing that I should base the cutting time on the 24 pound original weight rather than the 12 pound ‘half-turkey’ weight. Does anyone know if this is correct?
My ‘reasoning’, such as it is, goes: how long a turkey takes to cook mostly depends on the thickness of the meat in the breast and/or thighs, which aren’t changed by cutting the turkey in half.
However…hubby points out that I’ve ‘lost’ the turkey check cavity, and it could be that the presence of a chest cavity, with relatively slow air circulation, meant it stayed cooler internally longer than it will now, and thus my turkey cook relatively faster.
Hmmmm.
Sheesh. It’s late and I’m getting slow and stupider.
It’s “cooking” time I’m trying to figure, not “cutting” time.
And ‘check cavity’ should be ‘chest cavity.’
And probably other typos I’m too groggy to catch. Sorry! I’ll go to bed now.
I agree with your post except for this comment. I’ve made an average of two turkeys per year for the past 35 years. The early ones were dry, but it was inexperience, not the stuffing that made them so. Mine are uniformly moist, and nobody has ever become ill in all those years. If someone is not bright enough or experienced enough to take appropriate precautions (such as checking the temp of the stuffing), then they should not be preparing a meal such as this.
The cooking time will be a lot faster - the half-turkey will be being heated from both sides at once, rather than from just one when it’s whole. This is a situation to definitely use a thermometer, in the deepest part of the thigh.
Oops. Glad I asked! Okay, I’ll start it a half hour later than planned, and take its temperature sooner on the other end. If it’s done too soon…<shrug> Standing time is good, yes? Makes it easier to slice neatly.
Yep, standing time is essential, as it allows juices to be reabsorbed by the flesh. Wrap it tightly in foil, and it’ll keep its heat a surprisingly long time.