Best Turkey Ever
The recipe that I think makes the best ever T'day turkey was first in House Beautiful about 20 yrs ago. This is a recipe from Gene Hovis--Uptown down Home Cookbook.
Gene Hovis was a black man from the Carolinas originally and made it to top social circles in New York by way of food. His obit is here in NYT
It is the best turkey I know of.
Marinate is :
2 cups soy sauce
2 bay leaves crushed
6 juniper berries ( I have some nice ones from Penseys Spice)
1 tbs. dried rosemary crushed
1 cup sherry vinegar
1 cup white wine
1 cup honey
fresh ground pepper
1 tbs poultry seasoning
1 lg onion chopped
3 or more cloves garlic crushed or minced
Combine all marinate ingred. in lg saucepan and bring to boil for 5 min, cool.
and I marinate it in a big cooking bag tied up tight around it and placed in a big bowl so I can rotate it over a day or two. Marinate at least 24 hrs, rotating bird.
Remove from marinate and let reach room temp.
preheat over 350 F
Pat bird dry and rub w/ butter and peanut oil (or whatever you have )
ROAST UPSIDE DOWN 15 min to the lb.
For last 45 min, turn bird right side up.
If starts getting too dark make AL foil tent.
Let rest 30 min B4 cutting.
Now since I love the marinate, I pour it back in the pan for roasting and let it mix w/ bird juices.
It cooks up w/ dark skin mostly due to the marinate but also the honey browns to dark.
I use some big meat forks that I got from some mail order catalog to flip that hot bird, but to be safe and not scald one's self, if it is a big turkey, man-power is called for here.
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