Kickass Lemongrass Turkey

Filed under: Food & Drink

People have different recipes and ways to prepare their holiday turkeys.  The receipe below is one which my mom passed to me with a couple of tweaks.  The most important thing to remember here is to check the internal temperature of the turkey.  You will want to measure the temperatrure of the breast meat throughout the cooking cycle.  The temperature of the breast meat needs to be around 170 degrees.  Do not use the readiness indicator that might already come with the bird.  I have found thatwhen that goes off, it is always too late and you’ll be left with a dry turkey.  This recipe does not allow room for stuffing.  Cooking stuffing in a bird sounds like a good idea, but more likely than not actually dries out the bird due to the extended cooking time or does not actually get cooked.  In my opinion, its safer to cook a stove top stuffing rather than stuff the bird.

What you’ll need:

• Turkey (of course)
• Several stalks of lemongrass (available at your local Asian grocery and in some supermarkets)
• Garlic salt
• 4-5 Cloves of garlic
• 3 sticks of butter
• Reynolds Oven Bag
• Spoonful of flour
• Deep baking pan
• Alumium Foil

Preparation:

• Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F.
• Several days before your’s ready to roast up the turkey, put the turkey in the fridge to defrost it.  If the turkey is still frozen when you’re ready to cook it, place it in a vat of room temperature water and change the water every 30 minutes until the turkey is defrosted.
• Remove the giblets from the turkey and set aside if you want to use these to make a soup or gravy.
• Wash the turkey in and out with room temperature water.  Pat the inside and outside dry with paper towels.
• Rub a generous amount of garlic salt inside and outside of the turkey.
• Put one stick of butter inside the turkey.
• Smash 1-2 garlic cloves and put it inside the turkey.
• Rinse the lemon grass under water and dry.  One at a time, bend each lemongrass stalk and stuff into the turkey until you have used up all the lemongrass or you can not fit any more in.
• Take the turkey size oven bag and put one spoonful of flour in it.  Shake the bag to dust the flour around the bag evenly.  Discard the remaining flour.
• Place the turkey carefully into the oven bag.
• Cover the open gap where the lemongrass is stuffed with aluminum foil, trying to seal all of the gaps.  This is important since it will keep your turkey moist during the cooking process.
• Cut the remaining butter into 1/4 inch slices and place under the skin of the turkey, on top of the turkey skin and between the turkey legs.
• Chop the remaining garlic into a fine cut and spread evenly over the top of the turkey.
• Close the oven bag with the oven tie or tie it shut.
• If you have a meat thermometer, put it into the turkey making sure you avoid touching any of the bones.  Doing so will cause the thermometer to report a higher than actual reading.
• Cook the turkey according to the times listed on your turkey packaging.  About one hour before the turkey is supposed to be ready, start checking the turkey internal temperature.  Once the breast meat has reached 170  degrees, take the turkey out.
• Cut the bag open and let the turkey set for about 15 minutes before taking the turkey out.

You should now have a delicious moist turkey ready for your holiday feast.  The turkey will not have the golden brown color which many people expect.  Some websites have recommended firing up a blowtorch and carefully running the flame along the skin to crisp it up and to give the turkey that dark golden color.

2 Responses to “Kickass Lemongrass Turkey”

1. Ning Says:
   December 22nd, 2009 at 10:30 pm

   Can we have a picture of the turkey kicking your ass?

2. Mauro Butterfield Says:
   January 16th, 2010 at 10:52 pm

   Thank you for the information provided. Food and cooking is my passion so this helps

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