Christmas turkey progress

interesting.....turkey and bacon.

It's really good... I think it helps keep the breast meat moist... and the flavor surprisingly does permeate the turkey.

2seaoat wrote:interesting.....turkey and bacon.

most club sandwich's have turkey and bacon together, pretty good.

Joanimaroni wrote:

Looks good.

Took these while basting. This is a 21lb bird.

The bacon is good for two reasons.  1)  It does help the breast meat stay moist and add flavor and 2) it's good in the gravy afterwards.  In addition to bacon, there is a citrus herb butter under the skin of the breast.  Inside the turkey are quartered onions, bay leaves, and the half lemons that were used for the herb butter.  All of that, the bacon, some tomatoes that I'll add later, the turkey wings and excess parts, will all go into the gravy at the end - which will be cooked in the roasting pan with the drippings from everything.  

The entire process I learned from this video a few years ago.  I've been doing my turkey this way ever since.  He doesn't give you any measurements so you have to do everything to your taste.  The gravy you just have to learn through trial and error.  

Starting to look good!

Oddly enough, the visual aspect is the weakest here. The smell is absolutely unreal.

It looks great, Boards. Except, I now have to eat to take care of my ticker. All of that saturated fat, and gravy to boot......

Enjoy it while you are still young, and a few decades away from needing angioplasty like I did......

Looks great BOF.

Here ya go Z....

TEOTWAWKI wrote:Here ya go Z....

Good job!

Wow.

How long did you cook your turkey?  

Mine was 22.5 lbs turkey.... cooked @325 for 3hr. 15 min. Using a LISK roaster.....100 years old.

I wasn't going to leave you guys hanging.  Here is how the gravy turned out.

Joanimaroni wrote:Wow.

How long did you cook your turkey?  

Mine was 22.5 lbs turkey.... cooked @325 for 3hr. 15 min. Using a LISK roaster.....100 years old.

Mine was just over 21lbs. Cooked for 3 1/2 hours at 340, rested for 1 1/2 hour. I normally like to rest for as long as I cook with turkey, but ran out of time this time.

Save some of that turkey and bacon for an after christmas BLT.

Until some years ago my mother-in-law would fix Thanksgiving and Christmas turkeys. She still roasted them as she did 40 years ago when they were much tougher and took long, long roasting. She'd start them in the middle of the night and by the time it was served, it was like an artificial turkey. Hard and dry, BUT she assured us that the salmonella was DEAD.

Mercifully she let my wife and I take over. I doubt that she thought all the little salmonella's were dead. It was juicy and tender.