Smoked Turkey

Here it is. This is my turkey recipe. I make it this way on a Big Green Egg or pellet grill.

The Turkey

Author

Ingredients

  • 1 Chicken
  • 1 Turkey
  • 2 Yellow Onion
  • 4 Carrots
  • 1 cl Garlic
  • Celery
  • Tarragon
  • Thyme
  • Rosemary
  • 2 Apples
  • 2 Lemons
  • 4 st Butter; unsalted
  • 1 ga Zip-Lock Bag
  • Salt
  • Pepper

Instructions

  1. Put turkey neck and chicken in a large stock pot
  2. Add one onion halved, 2 stalks of celery halved lengthwise, 2 carrots chopped, half of each herb.
  3. Fill pot with water. Simmer all day. Use for the gravy and, if necessary, to baste the turkey.
  4. Rinse turkey then pat turkey dry, salt and pepper the cavity fairly liberally. Into the cavity stick one small onion (halved), one apple (quartered), one lemon (quartered) and a big bouquet of herbs (rosemary, sage, thyme, and whatever else you like. If you are a garlic person, it's a good place to stick some of that as well). Take two sticks of butter, softened. Smear turkey with butter. Place one stick of butter in cavity.
  5. Put the bird in a roasting pan, breast up, elevated either on a v-rack or in my case I have a trivet like metal piece that raises the bird about 1 inch above the pan.
  6. 20 minutes before you put it in the smoker (or oven), take a one gallon zip lock bag full of ice cubes and lay it over the breasts for the 20 minutes.
  7. Bring smoker up to 300° F for at least 45 minutes before putting turkey in. Fill a drip pan with water. Insert turkey. Cover loosely with foil if it gets too brown.
  8. Turkey is done when a thermometer reads 180 in the thigh and 165 in the breast.
Erick Erickson