Can-Am Thanksgiving Part 4: Roasting the Turkey

Now for the day-of fun! It all starts with the turkey, of course!

1. Remove the turkey from the brine and allow it to soak in a sink of cold water for 15 min.

2. Dry the turkey well. Let it sit there while you:

3. Chop 3 celery stocks, 1 onion and 1 carrot, spread them in the bottom of a heavy cookie sheet and cover with a rack. I used a cookie cooling rack.

4. Dry the turkey with paper towels. Mix 1 Tbs Salt, 1 tsp pepper and 2 tsp baking powder together and rub it all over the top of the turkey.

5. tie the drumsticks together so the legs partially cover the breast (see photo)

6. Put in the oven at 275 for about 3 hrs until breast is 160F and legs are 170-175F



7. Remove from the oven and let it sit for 30-90 min - use this time to cook the stuffing. Note the nice golden dry skin from the baking powder.

8. Glaze -
This is from the America's test kitchen website mentioned under Part 2. You can make it at any point ahead of time - even the day before. Just warm it up before you glaze.

3 cups cider
1 cup craberries
1/2 cup molasses
1/2 cup cider vinegar
1 tbs mustard (I would go less as I thought it was a bit strong)
1 tbs fresh grated ginger

Bring all ingredients to a boil and cook, stiring occasionally until reduced to about 2 cups - approx 30 min. Then the directions told you to strain out the cranberry but I just skipped that because it seemed like too much work.

9. After you take the stuffing out of the oven, bring the oven back up to 450. Glaze the turkey with a first coat and put it in for about 7min. Remove and apply a second coat of glaze - 10 more min at 450. Then a final coat of glaze and a final 10 min and you're ready to much.



Transfer the turkey to a serving platter/cookie sheet so you can get at the yummy drippings for the final gravy step.



Carve up the beautiful bird and enjoy!