Every once in a while I will buy a large turkey when they go on sale in the stores close to thanksgiving. This year I got an 18 pounder, at 49 cents a pound. This is by far the largest bird I have ever cooked. What was I thinking? I was not so sure about dragging that much weight, heated to 350 degrees or more, out of the oven to baste it or even to get it to a table to cut it up. A friend of mine had put herself in the hospital carrying such a bird out of the oven a year ago.
Enter the Cyber Monday sale at Meijer's a local grocery/department store. I had gone there after exercise class on Monday to get an extension cord for my out door lights. While looking for the cord a clerk pointed out to me that these roasters by Rival were on sale for only 24 dollars. Right on the front the advertising claimed that it would handle up to an 18 pound turkey. I picked up the box. It did not feel too heavy. I got it on the bottom rack of the cart and finished my shopping.
When I got the roaster home, I put the frozen bird in and the lid fit. I questioned whether the sides were thick enough to handle the heat, so I roasted some potatoes in it. They turned out great and the counter did not char. So I roasted the two pounds of carrots that were in my crisper. Those, too were delicious. Toward the end of the week, I took the turkey out of the freezer and put it in the garage to thaw. It is about 48 degrees in there. Three days later, the bird was almost thawed, so I finished the job in the kitchen sink, as my mother had done when I was growing up.
I got out the roaster, turned it on, and after checking for feathers and rinsing out the cavities, I plopped the bird on the rack on the removable pan inside the roaster. I totally forgot to buy the broth to inject into the breast, so I used a can of chicken noodle soup instead, putting the veggies and noodles in the bottom of the roaster pan. The noodles ended up getting stuck to the side, but a little elbow grease got them out later. The bird was supposed to take four hours. It looked done after two, so I lowered the heat and cooked it one more hour. Then I turned it off and went to bed.
The roaster is in pieces drying here and there leaning on furniture in the dining room as there is no more room in the kitchen. So, before breakfast I have to wipe that off and get it put away. Then sometime I will have to get the rest of the bones out of the dark meat.
Cooking a turkey is a lot of work, but what a lot of meat for the winter I now have. Healthy meat. Fortunately the trash can in the garage where the garbage is bundled up is cold enough to keep the bones secure till garbage day. My hat goes off to all of those ladies with families including my own Mom years ago, who went through this routinely every year for their families.
It must be the memory of those years when I was a child and I would get up Thursday morning to observe the end of thawing, and the cooking with all the wonderful smells of sage, celery and onion in the stuffing (we stuffed our turkeys back then). My mom made such a feast for four or five, and the leftovers were as wonderful as the meal, perhaps more so. Overeating used to be a problem, but as I age it does not seem to be anymore. I only had about two ounces of the meat last night and that just to be sure that the meat was indeed done and moist.
I discovered that the dark meat is usually more attached to the bone than the white meat. I threw out all of the skin and fat that I could find but was amazed at how much fat was in the water at the bottom of the pan. In previous years I would use this to make gravy, but I will settle for store bought low fat gravy. Also, turkey cooked in a roaster does not brown well, and there was little skin crisp enough to tempt me. I am amazed at how much I have acclimated to my leaner habits with food.
I am a little concerned about the cooking time and the heat, but the bird appears to be done, and since I will be reheating most of the meat and freezing it today or tomorrow, it should be OK.
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