On this Saturday after Thanksgiving we'd like to give thanks. Sure, this is a burger blog and we're very thankful for a lot of the places we've been able to try and enjoy while posting it. We're thankful for Angus beef and grills, fresh lettuce and tomato and buns that are the perfect compliment.
But during this very American holiday we wanted to show how grateful we were for the grill. Yes, the grill.
For us the grill is a magical piece of art. With it you can make some of the most tasty meals imaginable. That is, if you do it right. For us, doing it right is to use real fire. By that we mean fire produced by wood and charcoal. We have a gas stove in our kitchen. Why, if we wanted to cook with gas, would we not just go inside and use the stove? You're grilled food should give you gas, not be cooked with it.
We cook lots of things on our grill, from burgers and steaks, hot dogs and ribs, even our vegetables are cooked on the grill. And we do it year round. In the dead of winter you can find us grilling up some chicken and potatoes on the grill.
Come November, though, the most important thing we use our grill for is in the making of Thanksgiving dinner. Yes, we cook our turkey on the grill using charcoal and wood. And not just any wood either. We use Alder wood. There is a certain quality to the smoke coming from Alder wood that so wonderfully enhances the flavor of the turkey. It also works great with chicken.
We've been doing this for years. Our recipe is simple, we get a good, large bird. We salt and pepper the cavity (yeah, that's the bird's butt) and then add some spices such as fresh parsley and sage. Then we cut some oranges and lemons and a lime in half and add them to the cavity. Then we cook.
This year the bird went on at noon, tented for the first couple of hours to keep the skin from getting burnt. We cooked it for a little over six hours, tending it every half hour. One thing about using wood and charcoal to grill with is that you can't just set the temperature and let it go. So when one of us would go out to turn the bird 180 degrees for even cooking, we would add a little more fuel for the fire. In addition we also used Alder wood chips to really kick up the smoke flavor.
The turkey came off about 6:30 and we let it rest, tented, for 45 minutes. Then, when Mark went to slice it it was literally falling off the bone. The slices didn't make for a pretty presentation but they were so juicy and tender, soaked with flavor, that everyone ate more than their share. That's OK, because we had a very large bird.
So on this Saturday after Thanksgiving we are taking a break from our usual burger bliss and being thankful for grilled turkey which brings the family together. Now, seeing that it's lunch time, we're off to fix a couple left over turkey sandwiches.
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