Grilled Turkey | Honey Brined Smoked Turkey | Ham with Bourbon, Molasses and Pecan Glaze

Mom’s Roast Turkey

Preparation time: About 5 hours.

1 turkey, approximately 15 lbs.

Juice of a lemon

Salt and pepper

Olive oil or melted butter

1/2 yellow onion, peeled and quartered

Tops and bottoms of a bunch of celery

2 carrots

Parsley

Sprigs of fresh rosemary, thyme

1. To start, if the turkey has been refrigerated, bring it to room temperature before cooking. Keep it in its plastic wrapping until you are ready to cook it. While in the refrigerator, and or while you are bringing it to room temp, have the bird resting in a pan, so that if the plastic covering leaks for any reason, you are confining the juices to the pan. If you get a frozen turkey, you will need to defrost it in the refrigerator for several days first.

   Handle a raw turkey with the same amount of caution as when you handle raw chicken - use a separate cutting board and utensils to avoid contaminating other foods. Wash you hands with soap before touching anything else in the kitchen. Use paper towels to clean up.

   Remove the neck and giblets (heart, gizzard, liver). Use the heart and gizzard for making stock for the stuffing. The neck can be cooked along side the turkey or saved for turkey soup.

   Note that if your turkey comes with a plastic piece holding the legs together, check the instructions on the turkey’s package. Most likely you do not need to remove those plastic ties for cooking (unless you plan to cook your turkey at a very high temperature). If you remove the plastic ties, you will need to use kitchen string to tie the legs together.

2. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.
3. Wash out the turkey with water. Pull out any remaining feather stubs in the turkey skin. Pat the turkey dry with paper towels. Lather the inside of the cavity with the juice of half a lemon. Take a small handful of salt and rub all over the inside of the turkey.
4. In this method of cooking a turkey, we don’t make the stuffing in the turkey because doing so adds too much to the cooking time. For flavor, put in inside the turkey a half a yellow onion, peeled and quartered, a bunch of parsley, a couple of carrots, and some tops and bottoms of celery.

   You may need to cap the body cavity with some aluminum foil so that the stuffing doesn’t easily fall out. Close up the turkey cavity with either string (not nylon string!) or metal skewers. Make sure that the turkey’s legs are tied together, held close to the body, and tie a string around the turkey body to hold the wings in close. The neck cavity can be stuffed with parsley and tied closed with thin skewers and string.

5. Rub either melted butter or olive oil all over the outside of the turkey. Sprinkle salt generously all over the outside of the turkey (or have had it soaking in salt-water brine before starting this process). Sprinkle pepper over the turkey.
6. Place turkey breast down on the bottom of a rack over a sturdy roasting pan big enough to catch all the drippings. This is the main difference between the way mom makes turkey and everyone else. Cooking the turkey breast down means the skin over the breast will not get so brown. However, all of the juices from the cooking turkey will fall down into the breast while cooking. And the resulting bird will have the most succulent turkey breast imaginable.

   Add several sprigs of fresh (if possible) thyme and rosemary to the outside of the turkey.

7. Chop up the turkey giblets (gizzard, heart, liver). Put into a small saucepan, cover with water, add salt. Bring to simmer for an hour or so to help make stock for the stuffing (see stuffing recipe).
8. Put the turkey in the oven. Check the cooking directions on the turkey packaging. Gourmet turkeys often don’t take as long to cook. With the turkeys mom gets, she recommends cooking time of about 15 minutes for every pound. For the 15 lb turkey, start the cooking at 400 F for the first 1/2 hour. Then reduce the heat to 350 F for the next 2 hours. Then reduce the heat further to 225 F for the next hour to hour and a half.

   If you want the breast to be browned as well, you can turn over the bird for the last 15-20 minutes of cooking, at an oven temp of 300°F. (Oven must be at least 250°F for browning to occur.)

   Start taking temperature readings with a meat thermometer, inserted deep into the thickest part of the turkey breast and thigh, a half hour before the turkey should be done. The dark meat in the thigh should be about 175 F. The white meat in the breast should be 160 F to 165 F. If you don’t have a meat thermometer, spear the breast with a knife. The turkey juices should be clear, not pink.

9. Once you remove the turkey from the oven, let it rest for 15-20 minutes. Turn the turkey breast side up to carve it.

Source: Simply Recipes, http://www.simplyrecipes.com

Grilled Turkey

Serves 10 to 12

This recipe was submitted to The Roanoke Times by reader Rebecca Feaster and calls for brining the bird before cooking it on the grill. After finding this recipe in Southern Living magazine years ago, the Feasters have been perfecting their grilled turkey ever since.

You will need:

Cold water

Large, disposable aluminum roasting pan

Large stockpot, plastic tub or bucket

1 1/2 cups kosher salt

1 cup sugar

One 12- to 14-pound turkey, neck, wing tips and giblets reserved, cavity fat removed

2 medium onions, coarsely chopped

1 carrot, coarsely chopped

1 celery rib, coarsely chopped

2 cloved garlic, diced

3 Tbsp. unsalted butter, melted

1. In a large stockpot or plastic tub, mix 1 1/2 gallons of water with the salt and sugar and stir to dissolve. Add the turkey to the brine, breast side down, and refrigerate for 10 to 12 hours.
2. Remofe the turkey from the brine, rinse in cold water and pat dry with paper towels. Discard the brine.
3. Light a charcoal grill using 5 pounds of charcoal briquettes. Rake the hot coals into two piles on opposite sides of the grill and replace the grill rack. For a gas grill, turn the front and back burners to high and preheat to 400 degrees; leave the center burner off. Turn the burners doen to medium (350) before grilling the turkey.
4. Meanwhile, place half of the onions, carrots and celery and all of the garlic in the turkey cavity. Using kitchen string, tie the turkey legs together, then bring the string around the turkey and tie the wings at the breast. Scatter the remaining onions, carrots and celery in a large, disposable roasting pan. Brush the turkey with the melted butter and set in the roasting pan, breast side down. Pour 2 cups of water into the pan.
5. Set the pan on the grill. Cover and cook with the vents open for one hour; do not open the grill. (If using a charcoal grill, heat another 1 1/2 pounds of charcoal in a chimney starter after 45 minutes, then remove the pan and rack from the grill and stir the coals, adding half of the new coals to each pile. Replace the rack and pan). Turn the turkey breast side up and base with the pan juices. Continue to grill, covered, for about 1 1/2 hours longer. The turkey is done when an instant-read thermometer insterted in an inner thigh registers 170 degrees.
6. Transfer the turkey to a carving board, cover loosley with foil and let rest for 20 to 30 minutes. Reserve the pan juices for making the gravy.

Honey Brined Smoked Turkey

1 gallon hot water

1 pound kosher salt

2 quarts vegetable broth

1 pound honey

1 (7-pound) bag of ice

1 (15 to 20-pound) turkey, with giblets removed

Vegetable oil, for rubbing turkey

1. Combine the hot water and the salt in a 54-quart cooler. Stir until the salt dissolves. Stir in the vegetable broth and the honey. Add the ice and stir. Place the turkey in the brine, breast side up, and cover with cooler lid.. Brine overnight, up to 12 hours.
2. Remove the turkey from the brine and dry thoroughly. Rub the bird thoroughly with the vegetable oil.
3. Heat the grill to 400 degrees F.
4. Using a double thickness of heavy-duty aluminum foil, build a smoke bomb. Place a cup of hickory wood chips in the center of the foil and gather up the edges, making a small pouch. Leave the pouch open at the top. Set this directly on the charcoal or on the metal bar over the gas flame. Set the turkey over indirect heat, insert a probe thermometer into the thickest part of the breast meat, and set the alarm for 160 degrees F. Close the lid and cook for 1 hour.
5. After 1 hour, check the bird; if the skin is golden brown, cover with aluminum foil and continue cooking. Also, after 1 hour, replace wood chips with second cup.
6. Once the bird reaches 160 degrees, remove from grill, cover with aluminum foil, and allow to rest for 1 hour. 7. Carve and serve.

Source: Food Network, www.foodnetwork.com

Ham with Bourbon, Molasses and Pecan Glaze

1/2 cup apple juice (preferably fresh unfiltered)

1/4 cup bourbon

1 3/4 cups (packed) dark brown sugar

1 cup pecans, toasted, cooled, finely ground

1/4 cup mild-flavored (light) molasses

3 tablespoons dry mustard

1 whole bone-in 16- to 18-pound ham

Boil juice and bourbon in small saucepan until reduced to scant 1/3 cup, about 6 minutes. Combine sugar, pecans, molasses, and mustard in bowl. Add bourbon mixture; stir to form thick paste. (Can be made 2 days ahead. Cover; chill. Bring to room temperature before using.)

Position rack in bottom third of oven and preheat to 325°F. Line large roasting pan with heavy-duty foil, leaving overhang on all sides. Trim off skin and all but 1/4 inch fat from ham. Place ham, fat side up, in prepared pan. Roast ham until thermometer inserted into thickest part registers 130°F to 135°F, about 10 minutes per pound or 2 hours 40 minutes for 16-pound ham.

Remove ham from oven; increase oven temperature to 425°F. Lightly score fat on ham in diamond pattern. Rub glaze thickly over top and sides of ham. Return ham to oven and roast until glaze is deep brown and bubbling, about 25 minutes. Let ham stand at least 20 minutes and up to 45 minutes. Serve with chutney and spoon bread.

Meat tip: Choose a bone-in ham or a boneless ham that has the natural shape of a leg. Don't use a pre-formed ham (known as deli ham), which is best sliced cold for sandwiches.