Peru de Natal Assado

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •Large food-safe brining bag or 8-liter container
• •Large roasting pan, about 16 by 12 inches
• •Roasting rack or thick bed of onions and carrots
• •Instant-read thermometer
• •Kitchen twine
• •Aluminum foil
• •Small saucepan for the sauce

Instructions

1. 1

   Check the bird

   Put the thawed turkey on a tray and pull out the neck and giblets from the cavities. Pat it dry enough to handle, then check the label. If it says already seasoned, injected, or in a salt solution, skip the salty brine and use only the citrus, onion, garlic, bay, and pepper in cold water for 4 to 6 hours. A bird already salted by the factory does not need you adding more salt and then blaming Christmas.

   Don't brine a frozen turkey. The salt can't move evenly through frozen meat, and you'll end up with one part bland, one part salty, and a cook who thinks she failed. She didn't. The bird was frozen.
2. 2

   Make the brine

   In a large pot or food-safe container, stir 4 cups of the water with the salt and sugar until dissolved. Add the remaining 12 cups cold water, the quartered onion, halved garlic head, sliced oranges, bay leaves, and peppercorns. The brine must be cold before the turkey goes in, because warm brine is how you invite trouble into the kitchen.

3. 3

   Brine overnight

   Lower the turkey into the cold brine, breast side down if it fits, and refrigerate 12 to 16 hours. Keep it fully covered, using a plate to weigh it down if needed. The salt seasons the meat all the way in and helps it hold onto its juices during roasting. The sugar is not there to make it sweet; it helps the skin brown and rounds the sharp edges of the salt.

4. 4

   Dry the skin

   Lift the turkey out of the brine and discard the brine and aromatics. Do not rinse the bird in the sink, because that sprays raw poultry water around the kitchen for no good reason. Pat it very dry with paper towels, inside and out, then set it on a rack, uncovered in the fridge for at least 1 hour or up to 12 hours. Dry skin browns. Wet skin steams and turns soft, and nobody waited all year for rubbery skin.

5. 5

   Mix the butter

   Stir the softened butter with the grated garlic, orange zest, chopped cheiro-verde, and black pepper until smooth. Slide your fingers gently between the skin and the breast meat, loosening the skin without tearing it. Push most of the butter under the skin and spread it over the breast with your hands from the outside. This is where the butter belongs, right against the meat it needs to protect.

6. 6

   Set the pan

   Heat the oven to 325°F (165°C). Rub the outside of the turkey with the oil. Spread the thick onion slices, carrot pieces, and halved orange in the roasting pan, then set a rack over them if you have one. Place the turkey breast side up, tuck the wing tips under, and tie the legs loosely with kitchen twine. Pour 1 1/2 cups water or stock into the pan, not over the bird. The liquid keeps the drippings from burning, and those drippings are your sauce later.

7. 7

   Roast tented

   Cover the breast loosely with foil and roast for 2 hours without fussing. The foil is not decoration; it protects the breast while the legs catch up. If the pan goes dry, add 1/2 cup water. Don't keep opening the oven to admire your work. Every peek drops the heat, stretches the cooking, and dries the part you're trying to save.

8. 8

   Brown and finish

   Remove the foil and continue roasting until the skin is deep golden and an instant-read thermometer reaches 162°F (72°C) in the thickest part of the breast and 165°F (74°C) in the thigh, about 45 to 90 minutes more depending on the bird. Brush once or twice with pan juices, but don't bathe it every ten minutes. Color comes from dry heat and time, not nervous splashing.

9. 9

   Rest before carving

   Move the turkey to a board, tent it loosely with foil, and rest 35 to 45 minutes. The temperature will finish climbing and the juices will settle back into the meat. Cut too soon and the board gets the juice instead of the people at the table. We respect the rest. It does real work.

10. 10

    Make the sauce

    Pour the pan juices through a strainer into a measuring cup and skim off most of the fat, saving 2 tablespoons of fat if you have it. In a small saucepan, warm those 2 tablespoons fat or 2 tablespoons butter over medium heat, stir in the flour, and cook until it smells a little nutty and turns pale beige, about 2 minutes. Whisk in 1 to 1 1/2 cups pan juices or stock, little by little, until smooth. Simmer until it coats a spoon. Flour needs those two minutes or the sauce tastes raw, and whisking slowly keeps lumps from setting up camp.

11. 11

    Carve and serve

    Remove the legs first, then slice the breast off the bone and cut it across the grain into thick slices. Arrange the slices and dark meat on a warm platter with orange wedges and parsley leaves. Spoon a little sauce over the meat and serve the rest at the table with arroz soltinho, feijão if that's your house, couve or a green salad, and farofa. That's the Christmas pê-efe with a party shirt on.

Chef Tips

• •Buy an unseasoned turkey if you can. If the label says seasoned, injected, or salt solution, the factory already did part of the salting, usually not with your grandmother's garlic and orange. Skip the salt brine or the bird will be too salty.
• •A thermometer is not fancy. It's the difference between knowing and guessing. Guessing is how good cooks make dry turkey and then invent family myths about how turkey is always dry.
• •The honest shortcut: mix the butter two days ahead and keep it in the fridge. The dishonest shortcut: a seasoning packet. That's salt, aroma, and powder pretending to be cooking. Garlic, onion, orange, bay, and time do the job properly.
• •Use the drippings. A spoonful in the sauce, a spoonful in the farofa, and suddenly the whole table tastes like it came from one kitchen instead of five separate dishes.
• •Leftover turkey keeps 4 days in the fridge. Slice it before storing, spoon a little sauce over it, and reheat gently covered. High heat the next day will dry what you worked so hard to keep juicy.

Advance Preparation

• •Thaw a frozen turkey in the refrigerator 3 to 4 days before cooking. Plan on about 24 hours for every 4 to 5 pounds.
• •Brine the turkey 12 to 16 hours before roasting. Longer is not better here; past that, the meat can turn too salty.
• •After brining, dry the turkey uncovered in the refrigerator for at least 1 hour or up to 12 hours. This gives better browning.
• •The garlic-orange butter can be mixed up to 2 days ahead and refrigerated. Let it soften before spreading under the skin.
• •Roast the turkey early enough to rest 35 to 45 minutes before carving. That rest is part of the cooking, not empty waiting.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 270g)