Roasted Bacon-Wrapped Turkey and Honey-Bourbon-Giblet Gravy

Bacon-Wrapped Turkey

Ah, the turkey. As much as it is a labor of love, it can be very nerve-wracking roasting a turkey. As is well documented in family cooking lore, magazine articles, and every morning talk show in November, the white meat cooks much more quickly than the dark meat. People try all sorts of tricks to get around this, from the traditional (tenting, frequent basting, brining), to the trendy quick fix (frying), to the complicated / desperate (splatching, separating the parts (and putting them back together with meat glue if you’re Wylie Dufresne)). My personal solution is a solution that a lot of people use for a lot of different problems: bacon.

Bacon serves 4 purposes here:

• It protects the outer layer of breast meat from drying out
• The fat renders and ‘bastes’ the turkey as it cooks
• The drippings mix with the turkey drippings and make for an amazing gravy
• It’s tasty

It also seems to act as an anti-depressant / inspiration to some people, but I’ll consider that an off-label benefit.

The act of producing this beast can be divided into 7 steps. Timing here is for a beast of a 20-lb turkey. The rule of thumb is 15 minutes per pound of meat, so that’s 5 hours in the oven for this bird. The basic steps are:

1. Brine the bird (24 hours pre-service)
2. Prep the bird (6 hours pre-service)
3. Get the bird in the oven (5 hours pre-service)
4. Baste every 30-45 minutes (from 4.5 hours pre-service up until 30 min pre-service)
5. Remove from the oven and let it rest (20 min pre-service)
6. Use the pan drippings to make gravy (right after you take the turkey out)
7. Carve (5 min pre-service) and serve!

So, here we go…

1. Brine the bird (24 hours pre-service)

Ingredients:

• 1 cup of sea salt
• 1 cup of light brown sugar
• 1 apple, diced (don’t peel it or seed it or anything)
• 1 orange, diced (same idea)
• 1 T. peppercorns, whole
• 1 t. juniper berries, whole
• 1 dash of worcestershire sauce
• 1 dash of aged balsamic vinegar
• 1 sprig each of fresh thyme, sage, dill, and parsley
• 1 brining bag (large plastic zip lock bag that the turkey can fit in)

Method:

• Combine all ingredients with 6 cups of water in a medium saucepan and bring to a  boil
• Reduce heat to low and simmer for half an hour and then remove from heat
• Refrigerate mixture (the brine) until it’s cool (doesn’t have to be ice cold)
• Rinse and dry off the turkey. Take the giblets out of the cavity and put them in the fridge – you’ll need them for the gravy
• Place turkey in the brining bag and then pour in the brine on top of it, and then zip it up tightly while trying to get as much air out of the bag as possible
• Set the turkey in the fridge breast-side down so that the breast is soaking in the brine
• Early the next morning, flip the whole thing breast-side up
• An hour before getting the bird in the oven, remove the bird from the brine. Thoroughly rinse off all of the brine (including inside the cavity) and pat the bird dry with paper towels

2. Prep the bird (6 hours pre-service)

Ingredients:

• Handful of fresh thyme, sage, dill, and parsley – all washed, rubbed, picked, and minced
• 3 T. crushed black pepper
• 1 package of hickory smoked, uncured bacon (as natural as possible)
• 2 lemons, quartered
• 1 head of garlic, cut in half cross-wise (so that all cloves are cut in half)
• 1/2 stick of softened/melted butter

Method:

• Preheat the oven to 425 degrees
• Prepare the fresh herbs. Rinse them all and dry them off  - they’re pretty dirty if you get them from the farmers’ market. The rub them between your fingers or hands – this releases more of the oils (flavors) that are in the leaves. Now remove the leaves from the stems – you only want the leaves, not the woody stems. Finally, mince all of them and combine them in a small bowl with 2 T. or so of crushed black pepper
• Find where the skin separates from the breast meat on the turkey. Stick your fingers in between the skin and the meat, and then plunge them into the space to lift the skin away from the breast meat all over. Make sure your hands are clean first! Then, take handfuls of the herb and pepper mixture and distribute it underneath the skin. This flavors the white meat and presents a much tastier option for those choosing to eat healthy/boring and skip the skin
• Quarter the lemons and halve the garlic. Roll the lemon slices in the rest of the crushed black pepper and then put the lemons and garlic in the cavity of the turkey. Then, close the legs and truss/tie them
• Now, the bacon. Lay it down in strips on top of the breast so that they cover it. Then, pin the strips in place with toothpicks – otherwise they’ll fall off when they crisp up
• Use the butter to pain the legs, thighs, wings, and any other part of the turkey not covered in bacon
• Proceed to the next step…

3. Get the bird in the oven (5 hours pre-service)

Ingredients:

• Giblets without the liver

Method:

• Wait until the oven is pre-heated to 425 degrees
• Place the triumphantly bacon-wrapped, butter-basted turkey on a roasting pan with a wire rack and put the whole thing in the oven
• After 30 min, lower the temperature to 325 degrees
• Put the giblets in a small sauce pan with enough water to barely cover them. Turn the heat on and set it to low – the giblets will simmer the whole time the turkey is roasting so that you get the maximum amount of flavor possible from the giblets

4. Baste the bird (from 4.5 hours pre-service up until 30 min pre-service)

Method:

• Wait until the oven is pre-heated to 425 degrees
• Place the triumphantly bacon-wrapped, butter-basted turkey on a roasting pan with a wire rack and put the whole thing in the oven
• After 30 min, lower the temperature to 325 degrees
• Baste the turkey every 30-45 min with the drippings in the pan (tilt the pan to make this easier). And yes, basting the turkey means basting the bacon. With its own fat + turkey fat. You can taste the America already
• Check the simmering giblets (which is pretty good name for a band) to make sure there is enough water such that they’re just barely submerged. If not, add hot water until they are

5. Remove the bird from the oven and let it rest (20 min pre-service)

Method:

• Take the bird out of the oven and set on a table
• Transfer the bird and the wire rack to a separate area

6. Use the pan drippings to make gravy (20 min pre-service)

Ingredients:

• 1/2 c. Maker’s Mark bourbon
• 1/4 c. honey
• Liver from the giblet pouch that you saved
• 1 c. Unflavored bread crumbs

Method:

• Pour the pan drippings into a fat separator, and pour the drippings (minus the fat) into a medium-size sauce pan. If you don’t have a fat separator, pour the drippings directly into the saucepan and use a big spoon to skim the fat off the top (save the fat if you want to use it to confit some leftover turkey dark meat, or use it to make sweet potato french fries, or anything else that would be great with turkey and bacon fat). Turn the heat up to medium low so that the drippings simmer
• Pour the bourbon into the roasting pan to deglaze it. This means taking a wooden spoon and scraping around to loosen up the burnt black bits from the bottom of the pan. Pour the remaining bourbon-and-black-bits mixture into the drippings
• Add in the honey and stir to combine
• Add in the liver and simmer for 5 minutes
• Use an immersion blender to puree the liver
• Gradually add in bread crumbs a tablespoon at a time and puree using the immersion blender until you have your desired thickness. You can thicken a gravy with a lot of things – a roux, corn starch, flour, potato – but breadcrumbs are the easiest. They don’t clump up, they require no prep, and they add a little flavor of their own. Anyway, remember that as the gravy cools, it will thicken slightly, so don’t add in too much bread crumbs or you’ll need a spoon to serve the gravy

7. Carve and serve ! (5 min pre-service)




Method:

• Start by first removing the legs and wings from the turkey and place on a large serving platter
• Then, use a carving knife to remove both breasts from the turkey – they’re much easier to carve once separated from the rest of the body. Then, use the carving knife to slice the breast and place on the serving platter
• Use a paring knife and a fork to pull the thigh meat, back, and shoulder meat from the turkey and place on a serving platter
• Enjoy!!!!