Judy Rogers of Zuni Cafe fame pioneered the dry brining technique. It’s easy. It doesn’t the take up tons of room in your fridge like wet brining and it works. It works really well. I recently saw a study that compared wet and dry brining. It was on a reputable food site so I believe the results. They had a blind taste testing. They compared wet brined, no brine and dry brined roast turkey. Dry brining won. Second went to no brine. Last place – wet brine. Last place. Crazy, messy work to make your bird worse. Dry brining is dead easy. One Tbsp of kosher salt per 5 pounds of bird. 3 days. Done. Better product. No brainer. Dry brined roast turkey for me every time. It works great for pork and poultry. Serve it with zuni style turkey dressing and super intense gravy for a memorable holiday meal.
Dry Brined Roast Turkey
Plan on 10-12 minutes per time roasting time to an internal temperature of 165F for the breast and 175F for the thighs. Make sure you insert the thermometer in the deepest parts of the turkey but don’t hit bone – that messes up the temperature reading. You will also need a roasting pan that can go from oven to stovetop and a v-rack (or rib rack) to keep the turkey off the bottom of your roasting pan. You definitely need an instant read thermometer for this recipe. The initial breast side down roasting step protects the breast and exposes the thighs. This is the secret to an evenly cooked bird. No way to do easily flip it with a huge bird – that’s why 14 lbs is the upper limit. A good friend of mine, a fine cook himself, gave me a great tip. You can get super heavy duty dishwashing gloves for next to nothing. Slip them on and your hands are insulated. To clean them, leave them on and wash your hands as you would normally. Genius!
Simple gravy
If you aren’t going to go the distance on the super intense gravy then go with a more conventional gravy. Make it in the roasting pan while the turkey rests.
