Tom McGee's Blog

From all of us here at tom-mcgee.com. LF and I are in snowy Cleveland, OH for this holiday, and we put together the dinner for everyone, and she’s documenting it, at left.

LF made the cranberry sauce and gravy, and was the brains behind the twice-baked sweet potatoes. I spearheaded the turkey effort, and we collaborated on the stuffing. Mom made the mashed potatoes and beans. Brother Tim was there too.

Here’s how I made the turkey. There were a lot of raised eyebrows all around the kitchen as I performed this maneuver, especially when the smoke alarms went off. But the consensus was, it worked.

Preheat the oven to 450. Take the turkey, put salt, pepper, part of an onion, some carrot, celery and a few herbs inside. Rub the outside thoroughly with butter, then salt and pepper.

Put in into the roasting pan breast side down, , put it all in the oven, and set your timer for 20 minutes.

After 20 minutes, take it out, baste with some more butter, and turn it on its side. You might need to take some balled-up aluminum foil to prop it up. Bake it for another 20 minutes.

Then, take it out and roll it onto the other side. Baste a little more, and bake it for another 20 minutes.

After that, pull it out and (finally) put it breast side up. Turn the heat down to a more normal 325 and roast until it’s about 155-160 at the thickest part of the breast or thigh.

This method does a couple of things: By starting with the back up, you get to brown the skin all around and give the dark meat, which takes longer to cook, a head start. The white meat is partially insulated for the first hour, and so you avoid that whole problem of the breasts being dried out because you’re waiting for the thighs to be done.

It also radically shortens the cooking time. This 13.6 pound bird was done in just two an a half hours.

Bon appetit!