It’s beginning to smell a lot like turkey…

Wedding season is just barely past and I am off into turkey land. You might have seen that our Thanksgiving menu is up and out for ordering. But before it could be finished the Turkeys had to begin…

Over recent years there have been many thoughts on how to cook the best bird. I like turkey a lot and have tried most of the recipes out there... deep fried... paper bag...Turducken... (The turducken is a whole story of its own)

This year I decided to experiment with what we would be offering on the menu.

It is a 95° day and I am face to face with 3 turkeys, this is not turkey weather. I scour my many cook books plus the internet for a brine recipe and a dry rub recipe. We use a 12-14# natural turkey. This is your classic turkey that mom cooked at home, not salt injected or heritage, just a good old turkey. Both brined and dry rub take an extra day of prep, the ideas is the extra time with salt water or salt should help to keep it moister. The brine we did submerged in a bucket over night approx 12 hours. The dry rub is rubbed inside and out and let rest 12 hours

Wednesday morning I prep all three turkeys; the brined bird is rinsed and panned;  dry rub is ready to go, and last I make a classic herb butter and season turkey number 3. We do not stuff our turkeys here and have the luxury of a convection over so after about 2 hours the turkeys are done.

Guess what we had for lunch… We blind taste tested all three and the old fashioned butter herb won!  A couple of our thoughts:  the brine changed the texture of the meat to be more deli turkey, though flavorful and moist it was just not right, the dry rub put off the least amount of drippings but at the same time the flavor did not come though and the drippings that were put off were really not usable for your classic gravy. I guess Mom’s turkey wins again ;)

Gobble, gobble

A