Foolproof Thanksgiving Turkey

Nod if this sounds familiar. You spend all day in the kitchen, and maybe even the night before, preparing everything for the Thanksgiving Day feast. The pies are baked, the sweet potato casserole sizzling out of the oven, the gravy stirred until its lump-free. You finally gather the family around the table and commence to carving the turkey--only to discover a dry and tasteless bird! Well, fret no more! By following just a few easy steps, you can be assured that your turkey will be juicy and flavorful--and you don't have to follow any elaborate or complicated recipe. Just do these simple things:

1. Brine the bird. Brining means putting the turkey in a salt solution and letting it absorb the flavor. The night before roasting, fill a stock pot (or a bucket) with enough water to cover the turkey. Add a cup of kosher salt and a cup of sugar. Stir until dissolved. Immerse the turkey in the water and cover. If there's room in your refrigerator, keep it there, but if not, throw some ice cubes in the water to keep the temperature cool. In the morning, simply rinse off the bird and throw away the water. The sweet and savory flavors will have permeated the meat and infused it with a lot of flavor.

2. Lubricate. To make a flavorful skin and to keep moisture inside longer, mix herbs and spices of your choice (I like garlic, sage, thyme, salt, and pepper, but you can use your favorites) with 1/2 to 1 cup olive oil and rub it all over the outside of the turkey. This will not only make the turkey moister, but will help crisp up the outer skin. While you're at it, throw in some onion, celery, and carrot chunks in the cavity, and pour a little white wine in the bottom of the pan. Cover the whole turkey will foil and place a tight fitting lid on top to seal it in. Before you do that, however, make sure you do the following important step...

3. Fiip the bird. Most images we see of a beautiful roast turkey show the breast side up with the legs sticking out on the sides and a nice even brown coat all over. The problem with this image is that it is misleading. If you cook a turkey that way, all the juice will naturally run to the back, making the breast meat dry and overcooked. Cook the bird with the breast side down. Now the juices will run into the breast, keeping it juicy and avoided overcooking. Only during the last 30 minutes of cooking should you turn the turkey breast side up to give it that nice brown color.

There are many other things you can do to make you Thanksgiving turkey a great one, and other sites will undoubtedly tell you a great number of those things. But if you want to keep it as simple as possible, following these three directions is your best bet to a hassle-free Thanksgiving feast.