Trophy Wife

Turkey Talk

This year, my wife and I decided to have a salt-roasted turkey for Thanksgiving. It was a break from our recent practice of brining the turkey.

Brining and salting are both fine ways to cook a turkey and celebrate Thanksgiving.

But, honestly, salting is the way to go. It tastes more ‘turkey-y.’ And the leftovers are much better. We unintentionally over-cooked ours a little. The result? The skin and the first ring of subcutaneous fat and dark meat are like a cross between the turkey of your dreams and beef jerky. Besides all this palette talk, salting is a lot easier than brining.

Salted turkeys did get some buzz this year. Russ Parsons of the L.A. Times recommended it. What moved us to give it a shot was an article in Cook’s Illustrated , the magazine of America’s Test Kitchen. And we followed their recipe. Easy and wonderful.