While the inspiration for my previous recipe post for Pumpkin Pie Minis came from Southern Living Magazine today’s post for cooking a turkey comes directly from NYT Cooking section courtesy of Samin Nosrat. Chef Nosrat is the author of the cookbook Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat which is also a Netflix series by the same name. I love the cookbook. I loved the Netflix show. I love Chef. I am super excited to make this turkey for the upcoming holiday table! Hope you will find it intriguing too!
BUTTERMILK BRINED ROASTED TURKEY
You will need to start this recipe 2 -3 days before roasting day .
You will need a 10 – 14 lb turkey, a sharp butchers knife or sharp kitchen shears, 2 – 2 gallon roasting/cooking bag, a very large bowl or a baking pan with sides, 3 quarts of buttermilk, 7 T of kosher salt, a large roasting pan
Begin by spatchcocking the turkey. You can find videos for this process on You Tube if needed but here is the simple description………. place the turkey breast side down on a cutting board. Using your kitchen shears begin to snip the backbone out, alternating from right to left sides of backbone as you progress. Stay as close to the backbone as possible in order to snip the smaller bones away from the spine. When you’ve snipped it away, remove the backbone adding it to the neck/giblets and wingtips for making stock and gravy.
Turn the turkey over, breast side up, splay out the legs and press down on the breast bone to flatten the turkey out on the cutting board. You will hear or feel the cartilage release in the process.
Place one of the cooking bags inside the other and place them in the the bowl or baking pan. Combine the buttermilk and salt in the inner bag. Allow the salt to dissolve before adding the turkey to the bag.
Add the turkey to the bag with the buttermilk and salt. The outerbag will protect from leakage. Squeeze any air from the turkey bag as you seal it. Then roll it around in the bowl to coat the turkey.
Refrigerate the bagged turkey!
Allow the turkey to marinate in the bag, in the fridge, for 48 hours turning the bag about every 8 to 12 hours. You want to make sure all the surfaces of the turkey are being marinated.
3 hours before you want to begin roasting remove the turkey from the fridge and allow to come to room temperature. Wipe off as much of the buttermilk brine mixture as you can.
Heat the oven to 400 degrees
Set the turkey, breast side up, on a parchment lined roasting pan or baking pan with sides. Place the pan in the oven, keeping an eye on the turkey every 30 minutes or so and rotate the pan back to front after each check in. You may need to tent the turkey with foil if the skin begins to become too dark.
Depending on size the turkey will take anywhere from 1 hour to 2 hours to roast. Check with a meat thermometer for internal temp of the breast at 150 and the meat of the thigh to 165.
Transfer the turkey to the platter and allow to rest 20 minutes before carving.