Ready for Next Year

The Mild Wife pointed out the other day that I seem to like cooking special meals. Sure, I help with the usual day-to-day meals, too, but the ones that really stand out in her mind are the meals or items that tend to take a bit of extra prep work or that we don't cook very often. I'd never really thought about it that way, but I can't really fault the logic. I do like to make risotto, for example, and that can take a while to prepare.

Well, one of the items that I've added to my repertoire was roasting a turkey. The Mild Wife and I decided to make one for ourselves last year, and I was largely in charge of the process. She definitely helped, but like I said, it was largely my operation. Fortunately enough, it came out pretty well, and we were happy with the whole process. In fact, we were so happy with it that we figured that we could make the turkey for a larger family meal the next year.

This year was "next year," so I had to replicate the success from last year. I'm not going to lie, there was a bit of trepidation going into the whole thing. I mean, it's always possible that the first time was luck, and I'd put my family through a tough or bland turkey for Thanksgiving. I certainly didn't want that. So, I did my level best to do everything as closely as I could to what I'd done last year.

First, I soaked the turkey in a simple brine (water, salt, onion, garlic, thyme, dill, and a tiny bit of sugar) for about sixteen hours. I would have let it brine for longer, but given when we had to leave that morning to arrive at a reasonable hour, I needed to cut the brining process short.

Next, we concocted a butter-herb rub.

Butter, parsley, thyme, and dill

As the "rub" implies, I had to rub this all over the turkey. Note, that meant both rubbing it over the skin and rubbing it under the skin. It took a little bit of effort to get it under the skin, because I had to be careful not to tear the skin. That'd sort of defeat the purpose of trying to keep all the juices in the bird. Also, I was a little scared of NOT doing things more or less exactly how I'd done them last year. I mean, what if I skipped a step and that turned out to be the key, critical step?

During the actual cooking process, I basted the turkey every twenty minutes or so, and made sure to tent it with some foil. It took a bit more effort, but again, it worked last year. Last but not least, I made sure to wait after it was removed from the oven. Everything I'd read said that this step was critical, so I did as I was told.

Well, fortunately for me, the turkey came out tasting fairly decently. The meat wasn't dry, and it had a pretty good flavor to it.

This seemed like a pretty good sign to me

Now, at this point, you might be wondering why any of this is amusing. I mean, sure, there was a bit of mental consternation during the cooking, but that's not THAT funny, right?

Well, it actually came out well enough that a couple of the guests, Mild Wife included, started to plan out what "we" should make for next year's Thanksgiving. I should take this moment to point out that since I've had success with the turkey for two years running, it's more or less now my thing. There's no way that she's going to suddenly suggest that she should make the turkey. If it ain't broke, don't fix it, right? So, let's just say that "us" cooking the turkey is strongly slanted in one particular direction.

The conversation started as I was cooking the turkey, but by the time the meat was served, it had turned into a full blown plan. From what I understand, the turkey is definitely included in next year's menu, but there was talk of adding in a honey baked ham, a turducken, and maybe even a fried turkey at some point. We hadn't even finished cleaning up, and there was already a menu for next year.

This whole cooking thing leads to laughs in unexpected ways.