{"id":1097,"date":"2016-12-22T21:20:44","date_gmt":"2016-12-23T02:20:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lecoupdegrace.local\/recipe\/perfectly-juicy-christmas-turkey\/"},"modified":"2026-08-30T03:09:04","modified_gmt":"2026-08-30T07:09:04","slug":"perfectly-juicy-christmas-turkey","status":"publish","type":"recipe","link":"https:\/\/lecoupdegrace.ca\/en\/recipe\/perfectly-juicy-christmas-turkey\/","title":{"rendered":"Perfectly juicy Christmas roast turkey"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3>\ud83e\uddc2 <strong>The brine, and why it is absolutely wild<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>A brine is heavily salted water that you soak the meat in. Said out loud it sounds like nothing. What actually happens is that the salt changes the structure of the proteins in the flesh, and the turkey starts holding on to water instead of pushing it out in the oven. It even absorbs some of it, along with everything else soaking in there: the wheat beer, the juniper, the fennel, the bay, the coriander, the thyme. Twelve hours later the seasoning is no longer sitting on the skin, it is inside the meat.<\/p>\n<p>The beer is my thing. I put it in nearly everything I cook, because it adds flavour and it completes the rest instead of stealing the show. Three bottles of Belgian-style wheat beer in a brine do exactly that: fruit, a hint of spice, and a base note that stays in the meat.<\/p>\n<p>The result is a breast that stays juicy even if you leave it five minutes too long. An unbrined turkey breast forgives nothing. This one forgives a lot. It is the only truly non-negotiable step in the recipe, and it is the one people skip most often.<\/p>\n<h3>\u23f3 <strong>Fifteen years of making this one, published here in 2016<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>I was already making it long before it went online. I have cooked it every year for fifteen years, and it has lived on the site since 2016. Not much changed between the two, because there was not much to change.<\/p>\n<p>What makes me happiest is the number of people who write to tell me they tried it once and now make nothing else. That is worth more than any comment. Christmas turkey is a dish you cook once a year: when somebody decides to stop looking, it is because it worked.<\/p>\n<p>There are two whole birds on this site, this one and the <a href=\"https:\/\/lecoupdegrace.ca\/en\/recipe\/clementine-cranberry-turkey\/\">clementine and cranberry turkey<\/a>. Neither is better than the other: you pick based on what you feel like eating and which flavours you feel like trying that year. This one goes salty, smoky and maple. The other one heads for citrus and acidity.<\/p>\n<h3>\ud83e\udd6a <strong>My real argument: the leftovers<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>I always host at Christmas, and honestly, what I look forward to most is not the meal. It is the four months that follow. Turkey sandwiches with mayo and salt, turkey grilled cheese with cheese that stretches for days, hot chicken sandwiches when it is minus twenty outside. It is genuinely ridiculous.<\/p>\n<p>That is why I buy 6 kg for eight people instead of calculating tight. The extra turkey is not waste, it is the best investment of the whole holiday season. And the maple bacon that cooked on top goes straight into the next day&#8217;s sandwiches.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\ud83e\uddc2 The brine, and why it is absolutely wild A brine is heavily salted water that you soak the meat in. Said out loud it sounds like nothing. What actually happens is that the salt changes the structure of the proteins in the flesh, and the turkey starts holding on &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":10519,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_focuskw":"christmas roast turkey","_yoast_wpseo_title":"Christmas roast turkey, brined and wrapped in maple bacon","_yoast_wpseo_metadesc":"My perfectly juicy Christmas roast turkey: an overnight beer brine, a duck confit stuffing and maple bacon over the whole 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