best turkey ever....
Just a brief post to say that we enjoyed the best turkey we've ever roasted yesterday. We used the published recipe in Cook's Illustrated for the updated version of Julia Childs' disassembled bird, stuffing, and so on, pretty much as written. The bird itself was an organic, free range turkey, never frozen, so it was an excellent quality turkey to begin with. The recipe calls for separating the legs/thighs from the bird, then removing the back from the breast. We brined the breast and wings overnight, and boned the thighs, seasoned them on the inside, and tied them back up with twine. On Thanksgiving we pre-roasted the breast for half an hour in a hot oven, then flipped it breast up on top of a pile of coarse, dry stuffing with the legs arranged in more-or-less their normal location. Poured over the pan juices from the pre-roast, brushed the meat with melted butter, and seasoned with Montreal steak seasoning to finish roasting for about an hour.
The stuffing was a bit inconsistently moistened, so while the turkey was resting we scooped the stuffing into a covered casserole and returned it to the cooling oven to steam and redistribute juices. It was awesome, but incredibly simple-- just dried bread cubes, onion and celery, minced sage, beaten egg, and dried cranberries. The turkey roasting on top of the stuffing flavored it wonderfully.
The bird itself was absolutely the best I've ever cooked. When I pierced the thigh with a meat thermometer, the juice geysered out (onto the stuffing 
). The breast and the dark meat were both perfectly cooked.
I can't recommend the technique enough. It really worked-- dismembering the turkey and cooking the parts separately yielded the best roast turkey ever.
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