User post: 40 Practice Turkeys, And the Winner Is...

It all started 8 years ago. Fresh into a new house that was finally big enough to host the whole extended family, I decided to host Thanksgiving.

Having never cooked a turkey before, I wanted to experiment before the big day.

At the time, brining was big among food writers. It looked good on paper. Until I tried to find a container big enough to hold the turkey and the brine and enough room in the fridge to hold both until roasting. Scratch that.

That year, I also tried high-heat roasting, low-heat roasting, basting, not basting, oil over the skin, oil under the skin, and just buying a kosher turkey (pre-brined).

Then Year 2 rolled around and my oldest child said to me, "Are you going to wait until Thanksgiving to cook the turkeys this year?"

Notice the plural -- turkeys -- as if everyone cooks five or six turkeys in a single month.

Turkey Cooking Methods Galore

Always one for a challenge and not feeling satisfied that I found the perfect method the year before, I decided to give it another go. That was the year I decided to experiment with different types of turkeys: fresh turkeys, organic turkeys, heritage turkeys and a frozen Butterball.

As always, everyone proclaimed the one I made for Thanksgiving (a Butterball with my own seasoned oil under and over the skin and an orange in the cavity) the best yet.

Now, I'm not saying it wasn't a good turkey. Honestly, it was just as moist and tasty as the uber-expensive organic turkey that with the compound butter under the skin. But I knew it was still a bit overcooked and what they really liked was the gravy.

Since then, practice turkeys have become a tradition for me.

I have tried flavor-injecting (think giant hypodermic needle full of butter inserted into turkey), marinating, cooking a turkey upside down (will NEVER do that one again!), wrapping the breast in foil, slow cooking (yes, in a Crockpot -- not safe by the way -- imagine lots of bacteria multiplying as it cooks), bacon-wrapping, spatchcocking (a method only a chef or professional food could possibly want to try) and various and sundry methods for flavoring the turkey.

Noticeably absent from this list are three popular methods: grilling, smoking and deep-frying. I am the first to agree that these techniques can produce excellent results, but grilling and smoking are not my thing.

And as for deep-frying, well, I have a certain fondness for my eyebrows, and I feel certain that that big a bird in that much hot oil would almost certainly put them at risk.

All told, I figure I've tried about 40 different methods for cooking a Thanksgiving turkey, and only one stands out as the clear winner: Turkey in an oven bag.

This method produces a moist and juicy turkey every time. Of course, I add my own special twist to it -- here's my recipe and step-by-step directions for how to make an oven bag turkey.

But whether you use my flavor secrets or not, you will still get a wonderfully juicy turkey with this technique.

I think it's because this method is so forgiving. You can overcook the turkey and still get nice results. And of course, when all else fails, you still have pumpkin pie.

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