Gobble, Gobble!

Smoke 'em if you've got 'em! We're talkin' Turkey Day here. If this is (fair & balanced) gastronomy, so be it.

[x The New York Times]
The Turkey Has Left the Building
By Steven Raichlen

Over the last 30 years I've cooked turkey using just about every technique contrived by human ingenuity, from baked with sliced truffles under the skin (a remembrance of my cooking school days in Paris) to roasted under a veil of butter-soaked cheesecloth (in the manner of Julia Child). I've braised turkeys, deep-fried them and roasted them upright on an open can of beer (a very large can manufactured by Foster's). I even once cooked a turkey under a metal trash can (a clean new can of course): a sort of outdoor oven dreamed up by a seasoned out-of-the-box thinker, the leader of a Boy Scout troop.

But I keep coming back to a technique that, like turkey itself, is native to the Americas: smoke-roasting, also known as barbecuing. After a decade of traveling the world's barbecue trail and sampling Southern-style, Texan, Southwestern and even Yucatan-smoked turkeys, I'm convinced that smoking is the best way to cook turkey. And the method can be used indoors as well as outside. Apartment dwellers, take heart: no backyard or special equipment is required.

There are countless advantages to smoking your turkey. There is the burnished mahogany sheen the smoke gives the bird, not to mention the rich, evocative flavor of wood smoke, boosting the mild, forthright taste of turkey without camouflaging or overpowering it. The smoke imparts a flavor that is as distinctly American as barbecue itself.

Smoking produces a bird of incomparable succulence, especially when combined with another traditional American barbecue technique, brining. Given turkey's tendency to dry out, this is no small attraction. Then there's the simplicity of the method: once you put the bird in the smoker or on the grill, you pretty much leave it there until it is done.

And should you opt to smoke the bird outdoors, the process frees up the kitchen and the oven for the side dishes and desserts.

Last but certainly not least, you get an excuse to spend a fall afternoon outdoors, maybe with beer in hand.

The first step in smoking a turkey is brining, a process that involves little more than marinating the bird overnight in a mixture of salt, sugar, water and flavorings. Thanks to osmosis, the bird absorbs some of the brine, making it juicy as well as flavorful. You can cook a tasty smoked turkey without brining, and I've included a recipe for doing so. But you will get a richer flavor and moister bird if you brine first.

There is no need to buy a special outdoor smoker, but many barbecue aficionados already own one. Among the devices they will employ this Thanksgiving are upright water smokers affectionately nicknamed "bullets" because of their round-top cylindrical shape; kamado or ceramic cookers like the Big Green Egg; and offset barrel smokers, those large heavy smokers with a separate firebox and smoke chamber fashioned from oil pipe or plate steel. If you have one of these devices, smoke the bird using the manufacturer's instructions.

But if you own a charcoal grill with a high lid, you can make a magnificent smoked turkey. You can cook a turkey on a gas grill, but it is hard to achieve a pronounced smoke flavor, even on one with a smoker box and a dedicated burner. If you want to make a smoked turkey outdoors, I suggest you invest in an inexpensive charcoal grill.

Smoking with charcoal involves indirect grilling. It's simple enough: you rake the lighted coals into two mounds at opposite sides of the grill, placing an aluminum foil drip pan in the center. When it is time to cook the bird, place it in the center of the grate over the drip pan and toss a handful of soaked hardwood chips on each mound of coals.

In many parts of the country the traditional wood for smoking is hickory, but I'm partial to the lighter, milder flavor of fruitwoods like apple or cherry. Look for wood chips at a barbecue-supply store or specialty food stores. Remember to soak them in water, apple cider or beer for at least an hour beforehand. Soaking allows the chips to smolder rather than burn, generating fragrant clouds of flavorful wood smoke.

Leave the vents on the bottom of the grill open wide and adjust the top vents to obtain a cooking temperature of 325 to 350 degrees or insert an oven thermometer in one of the top vent holes. Remember to replenish the coals and chips every hour. That is really all there is to it. The brining keeps the bird moist; the mild smoky heat makes it exceptionally tender and flavorful.

For those without charcoal grills or outdoor space, all you need to make a terrific smoked turkey indoors is a stovetop smoker or a large deep wok.

When using a stovetop smoker (like the Cameron), you will need to tent the bird with aluminum foil, rather than close the smoker with its flat metal lid. Use a large sheet of heavy-duty aluminum foil, crumpling and crimping the foil under the top flanged edge of the smoker to create a hermetic seal.

You can smoke a turkey from start to finish in a stovetop smoker, but you will not get crackling-crisp skin because the sealed environment in the smoker generates steam, which softens the skin.

I get around this by using a technique I call "smoke-roasting." First, you smoke the bird in the smoker for 30 to 40 minutes. Once it is thoroughly flavored with wood smoke, you finish roasting it in the oven, uncovered, to crisp the skin.

Like an outdoor grill, an indoor smoker uses hardwood to generate the smoke flavor. But instead of chips, you use coarse hardwood sawdust, which, because of the smoker's compact design and efficiency, you do not need to soak. Most indoor smokers come with several different types of sawdust, and you can also purchase it at cookware shops, by mail order or online. (A good source is Camerons Professional Cookware, 888-563-0227.)

You can also smoke a turkey in a wok tented with heavy-duty aluminum foil. A standard 14-inch wok works fine and is best suited for an 8- or 9-pound bird.

Use a round 12- to 13-inch wire cake rack that fits snugly in the wok, holding the turkey about 3 inches above the bottom. For a drip pan, use a small aluminum foil pan, like a 9-inch square disposable foil brownie pan.

Line the inside of the wok with a circle of heavy-duty aluminum foil, pressing the foil against the bottom. Spread the sawdust over the bottom of the wok in a 4-inch circle. Place the foil drip pan in the wok an inch or so over the sawdust. Set the wire cake rack inside and place the turkey in the center on top. Place two 18-by-30-inch sheets of heavy-duty aluminum foil side by side and fold the center edges together several times to make one foil rectangle of about 30 by 30 inches.

Tent the bird with the aluminum-foil square, crumpling and crimping it around the edges as described above, to make a tight seal.

Smoke the bird in the wok over medium-high heat for 30 minutes. Then carefully remove the foil (watch out for the steam), discard it and transfer the bird to a 350-degree oven and roast uncovered for an additional 1 to 1 1/2 hours. The total cooking time for a 9-pound turkey I recently smoked was 1 3/8 hours.

Whatever type of indoor smoker you use, make sure the sawdust is completely burned to ash before discarding it. Then to play it safe, douse it with water. Never put hot ash in the trash.

Of course if you do not have an oven large enough to hold a turkey, or it is otherwise occupied, you can cook it from start to finish in the smoker or wok. The cooking time will be even faster, but the skin won't be crisp.

So smoking indoors or out: the choice is yours. Wherever you cook your bird, brining and smoking produce an explosively flavorful Thanksgiving turkey in the finest American barbecue tradition.

Steven Raichlen is the author of 25 books, including Indoor! Grilling, published this month by Workman.

Copyright © 2004 The New York Times Company