The photo doesn't do it justic but this turkey was fantastic.
We started with a fresh organic young turkey from Costo. Almost 9lbs since we were feeding 4 people and wanted leftover. It wasn't a cheap bird - over $2 per pound but it was well worth the money.
The night before Thanksgiving, we set the turkey to brine in a large stockpot. Filled it up with:
water - over a gallon and 1/2
1 cup of salt (next time i may cut back the salt)
fresh rosemary leaves
blackpepper
1 orange
1 lime
1 onion
4 bay leaves
brown sugar
And we let it brine in the fridge overnight till around 11am the next day.
Next we thoroughly washed the turkey to remove the brine and placed it into a large Pyrex casserole dish.
Next up was the seasoning rub. Softened 3/4 stick of butter. Mixed it with more fresh rosemary all chopped up, black pepper, and garlic. We took the mixture rubbed it all over the turkey and under the skin.
Then took more rosemary, oranges, limes, and onions to stuff in the cavity. As well as celerary and carrots - to help give the turkey some extra flavor while cooking.
We cooked the turkey at low temperatures - between 275 and 325 for 3 and 1/2 hours. (First time cooking something this long in our new oven so had to play around with the settings a bit to find the right setting) making sure to bast frequently and cover the top breast area w/ foil to it wouldn't overcook or burn as the rest still needed to cook. We took it out after checking the internal temprature with the meat thermometer. This is vital for ensuring that you have a properly cooked turkey.
It was our first time trying an organic turkey so I'm not sure if it was the turkey itself or the combination of the brine/seasonings/rub etc that made it so good. But it was juicy and lacked the gamey flavored. No part was overcooked which is typical when cooking turkeys. I hope this method will pay off when cooking with a larger turkey. For once I could not stop eating - kept on going back for more bits to nibble on.
I love Thanksgiving dinner. Probably my favorite meal of the year.
