Roast turkey

[vitoduke]

Hi James--- We had some friends over last night and did some pizza. This morning the oven had cooled to 475 degrees and we did a small 10 pound turkey in it. We used the recipe that is in the current Sunset magazine and it turned out incredible.It took about 1 hour and 20 minutes. It had a nice crisp skin and the meat was very juicy with a nice smokey flavor. Some of our friends stayed over and were really impressed with the oven including Fran and I. That was the first thing other than pizza that we did in the oven and are now looking forward to doing the leg of lamb for the holidays. Mel

[arevalo53anos]

Hi, Vitoduke

Congratulations by your first turkey!
Since I have not access to the Sunset magazine (foreign country), could you, please, post the turkey recipe (including size of the turkey and roasting temperatures) in this forum.
Thanks,
Luis

[Marcel]

Sunset Magazine's current Turkey Recipe winner

Hi, Vitoduke

Congratulations by your first turkey!
Since I have not access to the Sunset magazine (foreign country), could you, please, post the turkey recipe (including size of the turkey and roasting temperatures) in this forum.
Thanks,
Luis

(M) Hi, Luis,

I don't know if this is the same recipe used by Mel (Vitoduke) but you may want to explore it by going to:

http://food.sunset.com/sunset/recipe...ipe_id=1119567

With 12 cloves of garlic, it could not be bad.

Ciao,

Marcel

[vitoduke]

Recipe

Thanks Marcel for posting the recipe. That is the correct one-

Luis- The turkey was a little over 10 pounds and we cooked it at 475 degrees- It took 1 hour and 20 minutes to cook -an instant read thermometer read 160 degrees at the thigh. I put a stainless rack on the hearth -raising the rack about 1 inch above the hearth. I then put the turkey in a foil roasting pan and placed it in the oven on the rack. I ment to use a roasting rack in the pan to raise the turkey above the juices but forgot to. I just made a couple of sandwiches from the breast and they were great - nice and moist. I agree- anything with 12 cloves of garlic has to be good. We used a small turkey because we were not sure of cooking time and temps, next time we would use a larger turkey.---Mel

[arevalo53anos]

Thanks Mel and Marcel
I?ll try asap, since the recipe needs to be mastered by Christmas!
Or may be somebody in my family enjoys turkey pizza and champagne! ;-)
Luis

[helenb]

overnight temps

What size oven do you have? I cook pizzas at night but the oven has gone out and is cold next morning. Mine is a pompeii style oven. Why do you put a rack on the hearth then put the roasting pan on top? Sorry for all the questions. I recently cooked a leg of lamb in the oven and it was fantastic but did not have a smoky flavour.

Regards
Helen (Australia)

Hi James--- We had some friends over last night and did some pizza. This morning the oven had cooled to 475 degrees and we did a small 10 pound turkey in it. We used the recipe that is in the current Sunset magazine and it turned out incredible.It took about 1 hour and 20 minutes. It had a nice crisp skin and the meat was very juicy with a nice smokey flavor. Some of our friends stayed over and were really impressed with the oven including Fran and I. That was the first thing other than pizza that we did in the oven and are now looking forward to doing the leg of lamb for the holidays. Mel

[vitoduke]

Hi Helen-- Our oven is the Forno Bravo Premio 100. I just thought that lifting the foil pan off the hearth would prevent a hot spot on the bottom of the turkey. What was the size of the leg of lamb that you cooked and how long did it take and what was the temp? We are looking forward to doing a leg of lamb for Christmas.Our oven always retains heat the following day. If you have any other questions, Im sure that James can answer them---We will be leaving for vacation on Tuesday and will not have access to a computer until December 4th. I hope everybody has a great Thanksgiving. We will be staying in the Costa Rican rain forest and will sure miss using the oven----Mel

[helenb]

cooking lamb

I used a leg of milk fed lamb which was about 2kg. It is beautiful, tender young lamb so I just cut some slits and filled them with chopped fresh rosemary and garlic then rubbed it with S&P and olive oil.

I then placed it in a baking dish on top of a couple of onions and rosemary sprigs then poured some white wine in the bottom, covered it with foil and then put it in the oven.

After half an hour I added some potatoes and root veges to the pan (put the leg on top). and left it for 1 hour, checked it again, removed the foil and gave it another half hour. Take the meat out and rest it for at least 20 minutes - put the vegies in another pan, pour more wine into the dish and scrape up the juices (I added 1 tablespoon of flour to thicken the gravy).

The temp was about 200 celsius which, I think is about 400 degrees fahrenheit.

Lamb is much better slow cooked than at high heat.

I am looking forward to cooking the Christmas turkey in the oven and will take note of your experiences - you guys eat more turkey than us!

Regards
Helen

[helenb]

temperature

Hi Everyone,

Like us, you are probably getting ready for Christmas but while you will be huddled around your fire, we will be sweating over hot turkey in the middle of summer!!!

I am looking forward to your sunset dry-cured rosemary turkey recipe and have converted it as follows:

Weight: 4.5 kg (10 pounds)
cooking time: 2.5 hours
Cooked temp: 71 degrees celsius (160 degrees)

Does anyone know if this sounds about right?

[aikitarik]

Lamb is much better slow cooked than at high heat.

Helen, I so agree with you. Lamb does not have the advantage that a bird does, that it can be 'hollow' and be cooked from inside and outside. This is part of why you really cannot stuff a bird when you are cooking with the high heat method.

Now slow cooked lamb... yummm.... I am wanting to try a middle eastern recipe where we stuff the carcass of a lamb and slow cook it overnight in the oven.

Tarik

[james]

Tarik,

Do you have a list of spices you would use. I would like to see that. We had some wonderful stews when we were in Istanbul that I have been trying, with limited success, to replicate here.

James

[janprimus]

spices

http://www.zamourispices.com/index.html

Has a pretty good selection that should get you into the ballpark.

[james]

Excellent. Thanks.
James

[aikitarik]

Do you have a list of spices you would use. I would like to see that. We had some wonderful stews when we were in Istanbul that I have been trying, with limited success, to replicate here.

That's a nice website. I'll have to give it a try myself.

James, I normally mix my own spice rubs, and while I could not give you a definite list of what I would use since I kind of do it on the fly, the typical flavors of this type of dish would probably include some of the following:

allspice, cumin, saffron, red pepper (cayenne), paprika, sumac (this is one of the very distinctive arabic spices), thyme, sage, aleppo pepper (very nice), cinnamon, etc..

These are perhaps the most commonly used. The combinations are endless and custom to every cook who ever came out of the mid-east. :-)

For this type of lamb dish, I would probably experiment with allspice, cinnamon, aleppo pepper, and perhaps saffron, lots of onion, some garlic, and some type of fruit in the rice such as raisins, currants, or dried apricots.

Regards,

Tarik

[helenb]

lamb recipe

Hi Tarik,

I did the lamb again at the weekend - it was even better than the first one! I would love to hear how your eastern lamb goes cooked overnight - it should be sensational.

Could you please share the recipe?

Have a Merry Christmas everyone.