Well, it’s that time of year again. It’s the time when my old blog gets slammed with traffic looking at my posts about how to dry brine a turkey and cook it in half the usual time.

Cooking a turkey can be terrifying. It’s a heavy, slippery, hairless and headless bird with an “interesting” bag of bonus items stuffed in the end. It’s no wonder people are madly googling, looking for help.  You don’t want to be the one who presents the guests with a dried out turkey, a still raw one, or one with the innards still inside. Yeah, I did that. Apparently they put a bag of delectables in both ends.

I have been cooking turkeys for 11 years, ever since I got married. I get better and better at it each year and last year I achieved turkey nirvana. If you are thinking, Hey, what’s this cooking the perfect turkey nonsense? That’s not aiming low!, don’t misunderstand, I’m bragging about my aiming low skills, not my culinary ones.

The only way I get through the cooking Olympics every year in November and December is by doing it with the least amount of inconvenience to myself as possible. The most labor-intensive and time-consuming part of the meal is the holiday turkey, so I’m always trying to simplify the process. Also, my husband vetoed my idea of starting a new Thanksgiving tradition of going out for Chinese food, a la A Christmas Story.

After years of trying just about every conceivable turkey technique, I have found the path to turkey enlightenment. I am one with the bird and want to share my discoveries with you. They will save you a ton of time and you will get rave reviews. After all, it is the pinnacle of aiming low to make people think you slaved away creating something wonderful when you know it was so easy. You’re like the mother in that Rice Krispie treats commercial who threw flour on her face. Just make this turkey and bask in the glory.

Years ago, as a panicked newlywed cooking my first turkey, I did it the hard way. Like all those folks coming to my blog, I also googled and read everything I could, and tried it all over the years. I bought a free-range, never-frozen turkey. I used a syringe and injected the bird with stuff. I covered the turkey with cheesecloth. I fried the turkey out back in a boiling cauldron of oil (that one will really work your nerves with small children about). I smeared butter and herbs under the skin. I labored. I was aiming too high.

I listened to Martha, and Julia, Emeril, and Flay, and every year after hours of preparation and cooking the turkey would turn out okay. Just okay. I, however, was an exhausted husk of a woman.

A few years in, I discovered that sexy cooking wizard, Alton Brown. When Alton started talking about the concept of wet brining the turkey, I listened. I mixed up elaborate concoctions of salt, herbs and spices to soak my bird in for days. I bought the expensive bags from Williams Sonoma to get this done.

My husband tried to “help” one year by getting the turkey out of the brining bag very late on Wednesday night right before bed. The heavy bag slipped out of his hands and gallons of turkey juice infused salt water poured all over my kitchen floor, soaking into the grout and splashing all over the lower kitchen cabinets and appliances. It was horrible and I still have flashbacks.

Last year the skies parted and I found the dry brining method shining on a blog. Hmmm. Intriguing. Provocative. Easy. Oh, no, what would Alton say? I had listened to him about wet brining and was ecstatic when he proclaimed a frozen turkey better than fresh. He convinced me that only a masochist cooks a turkey weighing more than 14 – 16 pounds.

It felt like cheating, but this method promised to get just as much flavor into the bird, without all the mess (and potential flood) of the wet brine. I was in! Around this time I also realized that Ziploc makes a really big bag for a fraction of  the cost of the Williams Sonoma bag.

Here’s the recipe for dry-brining. I must warn you, it’s long and complicated. Ready? Sprinkle the clean turkey with about three tablespoons of kosher salt and put it in the fridge for a day in a big bag, rubbing it through the bag a few times. Then, put it on a plate uncovered in the fridge for 8 hours prior to cooking. No need to even rinse because the salt is now inside the bird. That’s it! And, in a startling development, it turns out that you can sprinkle the salt on a frozen bird and the process works perfectly while the bird defrosts. Could it get any easier?

Now, all you have to do is cook it. Wouldn’t it be so nice if it didn’t take so long? I’ll tell you how to cook your turkey in Part 2.

To be continued…