Friday, November 26, 2010

Thanksgiving Cooking

I really like cutting up the turkey to cook it. Just never liked carving at the table with 40 or 50 mouths to feed and this way you can carve ahead of time and cook the white and dark meat both to their proper doneness without a problem. No more shaking hands with Mr Turkey, unless you just want to. A big bonus with doing it this way is being able to take the bone out of the thigh meat and with some string tie it up to cook - beautiful slices and cooked evenly. This bird got a 3 to 4 hour brine after I got it cut up in a couple of 2 gal zip lock bags with some of Jose's Apple Sqeezens,lemon,and herbs - it then air dried overnight in the fridge. Bringing the bird to room temp before cooking is important to me and then just before going in the smoker I gave it a handful of herb butter under the skin of the breast. The double smoked ham came out better than usual just because the glaze was a last minute on the fly concoction that I made up and it turned out as good as any I've ever had on a ham. I had planned to make the coffee infused glaze that comes with the famous Dr Chicken's Double Smoked Ham recipe but forgot a few ingredients and didn't think about making it till it was too late so I had to come up with something quick. It was a simple mixture of No Sugar Raspberry Jam, Fresh Lemon Juice, Maple Syrup, Honey, and Cider Vinegar. Nice thing about this glaze is, if I add some crushed red pepper and a little more vinegar it might just make some really good bbq sauce. Maybe something in here will make you want to try something new for Thanksgiving next year.














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