Hickory Smoked Turkey

Happy Thanksgiving to all my loyal readers out there.  I appreciate all 6 of you.  :-)  This year, in addition to my family, my job and my health, I'm thankful for my smoker...and I got to put it to use again today.

It is just the 4 of us for Thanksgiving this year.  With temperatures being in the 60s, I decided to smoke a turkey breast for our thanksgiving turkey.  Along with mashed potatoes, homemade cranberry sauce, dinner rolls and pumpkin pie, it's been a really great Turkey Day.

So, for those of you who have a smoker, here's what I did to smoke a turkey breast, which turned out to be one of the best tasting turkeys I've ever eaten. 

I bought a 6 lb turkey breast, which is just about right in terms of leftovers for sandwiches.  Last night, I made the following brine, which I found at my favorite smoker cooking website.  Smoker-cooking.com has all the tips and techniques needed to make great smoked food.  I used the techniques found on that website for the last 2 smoked meals I've made, and both have been great.

Here's the brine;

Ingredients:

1 gallon 1 cup 1/4 cup 1 Tbs 1 Tbs 1 Tbs 1/2 Tbs 1/2 Tbs 1/2 Tsp 1/2 Tsp 1/2 Tsp

water Morton kosher salt white sugar onion powder garlic powder paprika white pepper powdered ginger mustard powder powdered sage nutmeg

I boiled the water, then added the sugar and salt.  Once the sugar and salt was dissolved, I added the remaining ingredients.  After the brine had cooled to room temperature, I put the turkey breast in and refrigerated for 9 hours.

After 9 hours, I removed the turkey from the brine and washed the brine off.  I then let the turkey "rest" in the refrigerator for 3 hours.

Next, I dusted the cavity of the turkey with the following rub (dry ingredients only).

1/8 cup 1 Tbs 1/2 Tbs  1 Tsp 1 Tsp 1 Tsp 1/2 Tsp 1/4 Tsp

vegetable oil onion powder paprika garlic powder kosher salt white pepper powdered ginger powdered sage

After dusting the cavity, I added the vegetable oil and put the wet rub all over the outside of the turkey.

Now, on to the smoker.  Again, I only had hickory wood, but I like hickory flavor, so no big deal there.  I got the smoker to 250ish degrees and held it there.  I cooked the turkey at that temperature for a little over 5 hours (gotta get that white meat to 160-165).  I added 2 handfuls of hickory chips every hour for the first 3 hours (the chips had been soaked in water since last night).  I also basted with butter 3 times over the 5 hours.

After 5 hours, I pulled the turkey breast off the smoker and wrapped it in foil for 20 minutes to let the juices settle throughout the meat.  I then carved and served. 

The turkey was really moist and very flavorful.  I liked it better than the Alton Brown Roast Turkey I made at Christmas last year, but my wife said that while this one was really good, she liked the Alton Brown Roast Turkey better.  So, I guess I have 2 turkey recipes to roll with in the future.

What I'm Watching

There are actually 4 new shows out this fall that I'm finding interesting, in addition to my usual stalwarts of "Castle" and "Psych".  "Psych" is still great, and "Castle" is holding it's own so far.  Curse my DVR for making me capable of keeping up on 6 series...now you know why the movie reviews and book reviews have slowed way down.

Here are the new shows I'm tracking:

"Terra Nova" - this new Monday night show on Fox focuses on mankind in the year 2149, and then 85 million years in the past.  In 2149, mankind has so destroyed the environment, that the earth is nearly unlivable.  But, a doorway to the past of a parallel universe has been discovered, and certain people get to go back and start over again.  One such family is the Shannon family.  I think this is going to sorta be like "Lost" but with dinosaurs.  Probably the most likely of this list to be removed from my DVR, but for right now, I'm sticking it out.

"Person of Interest" - this one is on CBS on Thursday night.  Starring Jim Caviezel and Michael Emerson, this show is just great.  Emerson plays a billionaire who created a machine that is designed to spy on us and find probable acts of terrorism.  But, it finds everything, including normal crimes, which the government ignores.  Emerson programmed "the machine" to spit out a number to him every night, and he uses that number to find a person who needs help.  But, to help these people, he needs help, and that is where Caviezel comes in.  Caviezel plays an ex-spy gone underground who is looking for redemption.  This one is great...but then, anything with Jim Caviezel is great.

"Grimm" - I've got 3 of the 4 major networks covered with this one.  NBC has this show on Friday Night, which is a bad night for a show.  But, this is a really good show.  The main character is a Portland police detective who learns that he is descended from the Brothers Grimm, and it's his family's job to combat the things that go bump in the night.  There's only been 3 or 4 episodes so far, but they've been really good.  This show remindes me of the early days of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer."  Lots of potential here, if it can survive the Friday night curse.

"Once Upon a Time" - Now I've got all 4 major networks covered.  "Once Upon a Time" is ABC's foray into the world of fairy tales.  In this show, all our well know fairy tale heroes and villains have been transported to Maine by a dark spell cast by the evil queen from Snow White.  These people are all miserable, and they don't remember who they are.  But, our heroine Emma shows up and things start to turn around in Storybrooke Maine.  A little bit more of a girly show than "Grimm" but really good as well, and enough action to keep me interested. 

I hope all 4 of these shows survive, and I hope that you can give them a shot now that we are nearing rerun season.  I would put them in this order if you have to choose:

1 - "Person of Interest"
2 - "Grimm"
3 - "Once Upon a Time"
4 - "Terra Nova"

And of course, don't miss out on "Psych" and "Castle".