Roast Turkey (Жареная индейка)

We won’t lie: a Thanksgiving turkey with cranberry sauce, stuffing and the whole shebang consumed on a cold November night is not a part of traditional Russian cuisine. That is not to say Russians have never heard of or eaten turkey. As a matter of fact, turkey is quite popular in Russia where it’s called Indeika (Индейка).

Whatever you call it, it still needs to be cooked, and the number of recipes is endless. A fundamental question anyone put in charge of this year’s turkey feast needs to answer is whether to brine or not to brine. Some supermarket turkeys come pre-brined (although in that case it means injected with a solution of secret chemicals through a thousand needles). The choice between fresh and frozen poses another dilemma.

A New York farmer recently told us their turkeys are so fresh they come out soft and juicy without any brining and additional tenderizing efforts. The farm takes advance orders and never freeze the birds. Moreover, you can even arrange the exact time you want to pick up your turkey! That way you can run back home and put it straight in the oven while it’s still warm. (Do you find this little detail shocking enough to become a vegetarian this Thanksgiving?)

Before we start with the recipe, let’s a few things out of the way.

Stuffing. Guess what! We don’t have a recipe for that and don’t encourage making it. Eating salty bread crumbs soaked in saturated grease can make your longevity only slightly better than that of the turkey you are about to roast. But if you do it anyway, remember to cook the stuffing separately, not inside the turkey, because it may end up undercooked. Salmonella will then get you before stroke or heart attack…

How to brine. Turkeys are big and heavy, and it’s often not easy to find a container where the bird would be completely covered with brine. Fitting it inside your fridge may be another challenge. Giant stockpots, buckets of all sorts and Ziploc bags all can work.  Whatever plastic bag or container you use for brining, make sure it’s food grade. For example, you can put a huge food-grade plastic bag as a liner inside a clean paint bucket. Garbage bags are usually not food grade and can release carcinogens into the brine.

Cooking methods. For this post, we slowly cooked a 14 lb. turkey for 4 hours in a stainless steel basket inside a vertical infrared oven. It came out very juicy and received lots of compliments. You can bake the turkey in an oven basting occasionally, use a spit roaster or even deep fry it – anything goes as long as you cook it thoroughly with the internal temperature reaching 165F per the FDA. Some chefs say that temperature is too high and makes the meat tough. We cooked our turkey to 173F without it turning into a piece of rubber.

Side dishes. Sauces, cranberries, or leftover pumpkins. let us know about your favorite side dishes in the comments below!

Warning: Don’t give turkey skin, greasy drippings and other unwanted parts to your dog. Sparky and Fido may become very sick with pancreatitis and even die. And your bank account may done even sooner after a few visits to the vet. No more Black Friday. Christmas shopping cancelled (unless you are that vet).

With that in mind,

Ingredients

• 3 quarts distilled water
• 1 cup Diamond kosher salt
• 1 cup Light brown sugar
• 1 quart apple cider
• 5 bay leaves
• 1 tbsp. mixed peppercorns
• 1 pinch coriander
• peel of 1 tangerine
• 1 tbsp. mashed garlic
• fresh turkey 14 lbs. (not frozen)
• butter or olive oil
• rosemary and other herbs (optional)

Method