The other day when I wrote my Garbage can turkey thread, I didn't go into the history of it.
Last year when we lived in Central WY, my wife and I had our first chance to make our own Turkey Day Dinner. Being the Italian that I am, I made the turkey. I didn't really know how to make it since I never have made one before, but being an Alton Brown fan, I followed one of his recipes which called for using a brine and vegetable stock solution, something I had never done before either.
I played around and made the brine and veggie stock just fine but had a problem with the next step because I was supposed to soak the turkey in the brine. I didn't have anything large enough to soak it in and cover it, so I ended up grabbing one of our cleanest garbage cans. I think it was a five gallon thing. I washed it out, then used an SOS pad like crazy, bleached and scrubbed some more and then I ended up giving it a wash of regular dish soap and rinsed it out thoroughly. I mixed the brine (which by now was a mix of the brine and veggie stock) along with a gallon of ice water and put it in the can along with the turkey which was fully submerged and stayed that way overnight in the laundry room.
It turned out wonderfully, lots of flavor, and a great golden brown color.
This year was different, lol.
I didn't have a garbage can to use, and I followed Marcies advice of using one of our coolers. We have a Igloo Cube cooler which is exactly what the name implies...a cube shaped cooler. I put the brine and ice water in and noticed there would be a problem as the turkey was only about half covered compared to last years submersion.
I went on with the cooking and ran into another problem. I don't make turkey at all during the year so in the 12 months that have passed, I forgot exactly what I used as far as the pan. I followed the recipe this year and used a low pan (in my case a cookie pan) and a wire rack to put the turkey on and tossed it in the oven at 500. Then it occured to me as smoke started filling up the kitchen that the cookie pan was now 500 degrees and was searing and flash burning all the liquids that touched it from the dripping turkey. After a quick back up check with Marcie, we confirmed that I used a roasting pan last year I Took the bird out and swapped it with a roasting pan that I had coated with olive oil and put down five celery sticks on the bottom of the pan.
I finished the high temperature cook for 30 minutes all together and then covered the breast with tinfoil and cooked for another 2 hours and it was done.
I took the turkey out and it was cooked to perfection, outside of some buring at the top of the turkey breast (not black, just dark brown and a tad crispy). I let it sit for a bit and then cut into it and had to quickly get it to the sink as it was very moist.
It tasted pretty good, but after talking with Marcie, last years had more flavor and that was due to the fact that the entire thing was submerged in the brine for about 16 hours, compared to this year where only half of it was in the solution at a time. Lesson learned.
Now I just need to get some recipes for using up the rest of the turkey.