Seattle Brown Out Turkey

This is part af a multi post about Thanksgiving:
I
II
III
Breakfast
Lunch
Seattle Brown Out Turkey
Tukey Timing Redux
Sides
Afters

A week from tonight here's what you do for a pretty good turkey.

Once upon a forty or so years ago there was less power grid here in the Great Northwest than there were various and sundry folk wanting to plug in. Picture the poor sap running the grid on Thanksgiving: 7:00 am all those hard working Moms and other chefs-with-the-duty jump out of bed and rush into the kitchen in their flimsies to shove a humongous turkey into the oven at 350⁰ The grid feels like Cassius Clay KOed it instead of rhyming it to death.

The lights of the city grow dim. phut. They go out. The turkey is maybe 82⁰ and goin' nowhere. Dinner is about 11:30. Almost Friday.

Del's solution, which I urge you to adopt in these precarious times was more or less what I do now.
Preheat the oven to about 350⁰

Wrasstle that bird out of its bionic packaging and sluice its frame in water. Reach your hand inside and yard out the sweetmeats packed by the abbattoir. Set them aside. (Where ever you like)((Where ever the cats like))

Do not pack this cavity with anything you intend to eat or allow your family to eat.
Shove sone herbs in it. Some onion or scallions. Some fresh sage and rosemary and thyme. Hell throw some gnger root and lemon in there if you think you like it that way. Any aromatic is jes' fine. Rub the skin with butter and salt and pepper or as you like it.

Put it in the life boat and cover it in aluminum foil. Place it reverently in the oven about bedtime the night before you eat it. Immediatey reduce the temp to 250⁰. Give it about an hour a pound. Check on it when you wake. That will be early because the aroma of roasting bird will have you pacing the floor by about 6:00 am. With luck you won't have to worry about carving the bird -- it will fall apart at a sharp look.

Now you have the rest of the morning to make the rest of the foo-fer-rar, and to prorperly baste the cook in a good Bordeau, and to simmer the juices into gravy.
The stuffing, made next morning, will be jes' fine with some of the pan juice or a can of chicken stock. Hell a cup or two of tawny port is even better.

Stretching out the process de-frazzles the cook.That allows time for the burgundy to turn the cook into a human.

Just be nice enough to set the table if asked.

Happy Turkey Day!

--ml