Thanksgiving: Tips for the Perfect Turkey

Since Thanksgiving is almost here, here are my tips for a delicious turkey!

• First, brine your turkey! I finally tried this 2 years ago and it helped a lot to create a delicious and moist turkey. To brine, using enough water to completely cover the turkey, for every gallon of water add 3/4 cup of brown sugar and coarse salt. Heat to dissolve everything, cool it, and submerge your turkey in it. Do this for at least 18 hours.

• Put a generous amount of butter on the outside of your turkey. Now I know what you are thinking, butter is bad for you. But butter does two wonderful things for your turkey: it adds fat, which, let's be honest, gives it more flavor because birds naturally have less fat, and it helps it brown! The browning makes it look pretty. When you are done brining, you must pat your turkey the best you can with paper towels. Get most of the moisture off so it can brown better. Then take room temperature butter and put it all over the skin, and put a bit under where the skin peels up naturally. Finally, put some spices on the outside.

• Another thing that will help the gravy and the turkey is to put a little bit of chicken broth in the bottom of your roasting pan along with a bed of veggies. You can use any veggies you wish, like onions, carrots, celery, etc. Plus herbs! The chicken broth can be used to baste your turkey throughout the cooking process and can prevent drying.

• The most important part, cook your turkey to the proper temperature. You should cook it so that the thickest part of the breast reads 170 degrees F. Then allow it to rest so the juices don't run everywhere when you cut it.

• Lastly, let's do a simple gravy. Take 1.5 tbsp of butter to 1 tbsp of flour and make a roux. To make a roux, you melt butter and then add your flour. Cook the flour for a minute to get rid of the raw flour flavor. Then add your pan drippings and some broth or wine and whisk it together. Once at the proper consistency, season with salt and pepper. Gravies are so easy to make and are more flavorful if you make them yourself. 

~Katrina