How do you do your turkey?

[dedmiston]

I'm looking forward to cooking our birds on Thanksgiving, but I'm curious to know how folks do their turkeys.

I was hoping this new forum would have a built in poll feature, but I don't see one (yet).

Do you:

• Bake
• Fry
• Smoke
• Other?

I'm doing two turkeys on the pellet smoker spatchcock style. I remove the backbone and lay them flat on the grill covered with dry rub and smoke the spatchcocks for around two hours until they're done.

My wife has always been queen of the turkeys, but she turned her crown over to me to do the birds outdoors so she can use the oven for other dishes.

[Diamond_c]

I just found a new ( to me anyway) way of doing turkey. It’s called a trash can turkey. Looks simple and interesting. I might have to give it a try when the weather breaks in the spring.

[buffalowings]

We oven roast ours.  In a roasting tin, with plenty of vegetables and some water/stock.  Then we wrap the whole thing up in tin foil to keep the moisture in.

We use a temperature probe to check it when it's done.  If it's overcooked even slightly it tends to be dry.

[Wanderlost]

We've baked, deep fried, roasted, and smoked over the years.  Of them all, I prefer smoked or deep fried.

This year, Nephew is doing the heavy lifting, and he's smoking one, leaving their oven for other stuff.  We'll bring the roasted autumn vegetables already cooked and still hot.  Looking forward to it, now that we're no longer the hosts...

[Desert_Captain]

One of my favorite ways to do turkey is in the pressure cooker. It is perfect for the small confines of our 24' Class C. I start with a 4ish pound breast and it goes into the PC for 50-60 minutes. I use chicken broth for the cooking liquid and season the breast with salt and pepper, sage, garlic powder and poultry seasoning.

I doubt it is possible to produce a more moist, succulent breast using any other method. Pair the bird with my great grandmothers simple {but very tasty} stuffing. Simply saute chopped celery, onion and mushrooms in  butter and a little chicken stock and use the same seasonings as noted above for the breast.  Chop or tear a loaf of bread {I like whole wheat} and place in a large bowl. Pour the veggie mixture over the bread and mix thoroughly and transfer to a baking dish.  Into the oven at 350 it goes shortly after the the breast is in the PC.  After 30 minutes top with some seasoned bread crumbs for a nice crunch topping and pop it back in the oven until the breast is ready.  Mashed potatoes  are an easy fix if you're so  inclined. Gravy from mix or canned/bottled will work and my bride takes care of the cranberry relish.

Start to finish including the prep time you are talking about an hour and 20 minutes {+/-} and you can feed 4-6 easily.  Having a real oven and a three burner stove top makes this meal easy to prepare and you may draw a crowd as the aroma wafting from the galley is more than a little enticing.  Enjoy!

[Cybergrunt]

I usually bake them, but have done a couple spatchcock turkeys over the years when the weather cooperated (I really liked them, wife not so much). 😒

[magnusfideRvNet]

Dutch oven😎 BTW dedmiston, they still haven't sent me my new access to this site even though I followed the directions to click on the RV.Net user button. Thought you should know. I registered separately to be able to answer your thread.

[dedmiston]

And your Dutch oven sounds better than some of the methods I've seen.

I'm in love with my smoked birds though. I don't think I'll ever go back to the oven.

[dedmiston]

Ugh. We definitely don't want to lose your post history.

Take a look in your Spam folder and see if you can find the message, especially if you clicked the link to reset your password.

[magnusfideRvNet]

Yes, I checked my spam folder too. This forum is not sending me the setup link.

[LMHS]

I used to use an electric turkey roaster pan to cook a brined turkey. But I was basically cooking a big turkey for one person (I don't care for turkey but my husband loved it). It would take my husband months to eat the leftover turkey meat (I froze it).  The turkey carcass was picked over and the bones were broken down and placed in a plastic freezer bag. I placed the meat I picked off in a smaller freezer bag and tucked it into the bag of bones. A month or two later, I would make Turkey Rice soup. I stored the roaster pan in the basement of the Class C.

Now, I simply buy a rotisserie chicken (either whole or just leg quarters). The whole bird gets the leg quarters eaten, the breast is removed and split into two pieces which are frozen separately. The carcass gets broken down and frozen. I make a soup with the carcass (bone broth in the pressure cooker) and one of the breast halves. The other breast half gets used in some other recipe that calls for a cooked chicken breast. So I get three meals for two people from one whole chicken.

[Campinfan]

I used to fry mine but the oil is $$$$. Now I have an oil less fryer from Charbroil. I have been using this for 10 years now or so. It is great.

[bukhrn]

X-2, I've fried a lot of them in the past, but now I can buy gas for my car a lot cheaper than frying oil, an oiless turkey fryer is on my bucket list. 

Right now it's either oven roasted or smoked.

And whole cranberry stuff, daughter brings her own can. 

[dieseltruckdriv]

I smoked ours already. I did it last weekend, vacuum sealed it and now it's in the freezer.

If you are using a pellet grill, I would recommend a smoker tube also. They are available at almost any ACE hardware or Amazon etc. That makes a big difference on my Louisiana, basically the same as a Pit Boss.

Edited to add: Jellied cranberry is a MUST!!! 😉

[pasusan]

LOL - Jellied cranberry...

I have a funny story about that stuff. My hubby's grandmother was a farm lady and surprisingly she liked her sliced jellied stuff from the can. I was a Mother Earth News sort of gal and I made my own cranberry sauce from the actual berries (still do). Anyway - one Thanksgiving she put me in charge of putting out the cranberry sauce and she handed me the can. What did I do? mashed it all up to make it look homemade. She freaked!!!

I was never so surprised and I still think of that today when Thanksgiving comes around...