House Of Koenig

We had a small group gathering today and decided to do a pre-Thanksgiving Thanksgiving.  I bought a 17 pound turkey and was going to do the traditional roasting but after seeing a Food Network show on favorite Thanksgiving recipes I decided to smoke the turkey first.  I had some mesquite chips in the garage from the summer barbecue season so I took a few handfuls and soaked them in water.  Then I spread them out in the bottom of a heavy roasting pan.  Next I put a metal rack on top of the pan and placed the turkey on top of that so the turkey was basically sitting on the rim of the pan.  The idea was to have lots of space between the chips and the bird.  Then I wrapped the whole thing in aluminum foil and placed the pan on a stove top burner and turned the heat up to medium (5).  As the wood chips heated and started to smoulder you could smell the sweet mesquite.  I left this on the burner for about 1.5 hours.  The bottom of the bird started to cook a bit but it was all good.  After the smoking time I rubbed it down with olive oil and sprinkled salt and black pepper on the skin, covered it in foil and popped it into the oven.  I let it roast covered for about 4 hours on 325 F.  For the last 45 minutes I uncovered the bird and took the foil off so the skin would brown up and get nice and crispy.  After a 30 minute cool down I carved it all up.  The meat had a nice smokey flavor to it, especially the skin.  If you are looking to do something different this Thanksgiving try smoking the turkey before roasting.