IT'S THANKSGIVING on Thursday and my advice for those planning to celebrate with a home-cooked feast is: buy your turkey today. The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) advises the safest way to defrost a frozen turkey is to thaw it slowly in the fridge. They calculate the process takes one day per 2.2kg. You'll need about 500 grams of uncooked turkey per person, so a 9kg frozen turkey (to feed 18-20) needs four days in the fridge.
Because most of us make a big turkey dinner only once or twice a year, it can be a nerve-wracking experience. It doesn't have to be - in fact it can be fun. Last Thanksgiving, three friends and I cooked dinner for 30 people. I had asked my friends to buy sliced bread for the stuffing and lay it out overnight so it would have time to dry. When I arrived at the flat, I saw that bread had been placed, slice by slice, on every flat surface in the spare bedroom. Everything was covered with sliced bread, which had me laughing.
THE TURKEY: One food-reference Web site I turn to often is cooksillustrated.com, whose subscription is US$24.95 (HK$194) per year. The recipe testers recommend brining the turkey (soaking it in a bucket of salted water) before cooking. To do this, though, you need a huge fridge. Fortunately, this Web site also conducted a blind tasting of eight kinds of fresh and frozen turkeys. Its conclusion was that frozen turkeys that had been injected with a salt-water solution were the juiciest and tastiest because this process is similar to brining. These 'self-basting' turkeys are available in Hong Kong.
On Wednesday (or, if you're not using this guide for Thanksgiving, the day before you cook the turkey), remove the bag of innards from the thawed bird, reserving them for the gravy. Rub the bird, inside and out, with about 1/2 cup of white wine, then wrap it and put it back in the fridge until it is ready to cook.
It's safest to cook the turkey unstuffed. A stuffed bird needs to be cooked longer so that it reaches a temperature high enough to kill any bacteria. This also makes for a drier bird. Remove the turkey from the fridge an hour before cooking in order to bring it to room temperature. Preheat the oven to 200 degrees Celsius. Brush the bird with melted butter, sprinkle with salt and pepper and place, breast-side down, in a heavy roasting pan. Roast for 30 minutes then lower the heat to 160 degrees Celsius. Baste frequently with butter or dripping and cook for two to three hours (depending on the size of the bird). Turn the turkey over and continue to cook it, breast-side up, until it is done. A 6kg turkey takes about three hours, a 10kg bird about four and a half hours. The USDA recommends using an instant-read thermometer to check the temperature of the bird at its thickest point. Insert the thermometer into the fleshiest part of the thigh (it shouldn't touch the bone) and when it's 82 degrees Celsius, the turkey is ready. Check about 30 minutes before the calculated time. Allow the turkey to rest for 30 minutes before carving.
THE STUFFING: This is my mother's recipe and it always receives rave reviews when I make it. Use sliced white bread with the crusts removed: allow for two to three slices per person. Lay out the slices overnight to let them dry. On turkey day, cut the bread into cubes. For 12 people, dice 250 grams of sliced bacon and fry until crisp, pouring off the fat into a heat-proof bowl. Remove the bacon from the pan. Pour a few tablespoons of bacon fat into the pan and saute a diced onion until it is translucent. Add a few stalks of diced celery and saute for several minutes, then remove the vegetables from the pan. Unless you have a very big pan, you'll need to do the rest in batches. Pour bacon fat into the pan and add a portion of the diced bread and some of the vegetables. Drizzle in chicken broth. Cook, stirring frequently, to let the bread absorb the broth - it should be moist but not sopping. Remove to a large bowl and continue with remaining bread and vegetables.