We followed Alton Brown's brining technique, scouring Watertown and Allston-Brighton for allspice berries, a necessary ingredient for the brine (we found ours in the Spanish spices section at Shaw's). Since we didn't have a huge cooler, we stuck the brine and the big guy in three industrial-sized garbage bags.
As you can see, our refrigerator was stuffed to the gills. Wednesday night was also the same night as my high school 10th year reunion, so we returned home slightly-to-mostly inebriated and flipped the turkey over for even brining. I don't remember the flipping very well, but we managed to flip it without any mishap :)
We rinsed and patted the big guy dry, and prepared some aromatics (pictured above) for stuffing the bird.
We also basted the turkey with vegetable oil. One thing to keep in mind when following Alton Brown's recipe - coating an 18 lb. turkey with oil that has a low smoking temperature is not recommended! We preheated the oven to 500 degrees F, and when we put the bird in for 30 minutes, per the recipe's instructions, it smoked up the entire house for nearly an hour. Next time, we'll use another oil with a high smoking point, such as safflower.
While the bird roasted, we also prepared some maple glazed root vegetables as a side dish. Most of the root veggies came from our winter CSA, such as the celery root (the scary thing pictured below) and turnips (also below).
We got a couple golden beets from Russo's in Watertown, which we included in our roasted veggies. Pictured below are the veggies all cut up and ready for roasting! The maple glaze was prepared separately.
I hate to brag, but our turkey came out perfectly! There was some angst about the internal temperature - we weren't sure if we took it out too early or too late - and it didn't help that one of our thermometers gave an insanely high reading. I began to despair that we would have dried out turkey, but the breast meat was incredibly moist and tender. I think it helped that we got a happy, hormone-free, free-range turkey from a local farm.
I also made gravy with the pan drippings; the turkey stock was prepared the week before with turkey legs. Even though it takes a lot of work, using homemade turkey stock gave the gravy more depth (though I would use a lot less salt next time, and cook the roux some more).
Here are a series of pictures detailing the carnage. Ben and Vic were adept at carving the turkey; I think Ben watched a couple videos online about carving. I think he did a great job. Note the lovely color of the skin, and the enormous breasts (our turkey was a traditional broad-breasted white turkey - we considered getting a heritage breed, but they cost significantly more...though I hope to try a heritage breed one day).
The carved turkey laid out on a serving platter. This platter doesn't include the other half of the turkey breast, which fed us for days as leftover turkey, turkey sandwiches, etc.
My brother Vic and I putting the final touches on the dining table.
In addition to maple glazed roasted root vegetables, we had leek mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, rice pilaf, and stuffing. I loved the stuffing - we used a rustic italian loaf from Clear Flour Bread, sage, roasted chestnuts (which were such a pain to roast and peel, next time I'm going to cheat and get canned ones or omit them), and italian sausage from DePasquale's in Watertown. Here's the recipe (we had seen it on Food Network's Thanksgiving special, and decided to make it because it looked so easy).
Ben's plate at dinner. This was our first Thanksgiving where we took responsibility for getting all the dishes to the table, and I think we did a pretty good job. We cheated with desserts, and ordered pumpkin and pecan pies from Flour Bakery (along with a delish cranberry chutney).
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