It’s Turkey Week here at Big Food! Yesterday Mr. Big Food used the recipe below as a guide to smoke a turkey in a cooking bag. This particular turkey was gotten last Thanksgiving when they were on sale. I’m sure we commented at the time that we’d be having Turkey Week sometime in early Summer.

Today is Marica Cooks Monday and I’m making Turkey Tetrazzini. Tomorrow we’ll be having Bayou Turkey Dinner. Mr. Big Food will also boil the carcass and freeze turkey stock, and make a couple of batches of Plain Old Turkey Gravy. Wednesday he’ll adapt the Blue Bonnet Café Chicken Enchillada recipe for turkey. Turkey Week will conclude Thursday with Baked Turkey Hash.

Mr. Big Food is a fan of cooking bags, so the method was changed up a bit. He did not rub the turkey with Liquid Smoke. He did rub it with sugar and oil, and then put it in the turkey bag. The parsley, Liquid Smoke, oil, cola, and vinegar was mixed and simply poured over the turkey in the bag. I’m going to say he put it in at 350˚ for two and a half hours–until the button popped.

It was delicious. Moist, tender, not overly smokey. Just perfect.

From Faye Kelso, Lee County (Mantachie), Country Cooking from the Mississippi Farm Bureau Federation (1987)

OVEN-SMOKED TURKEY

Yield: 14 to 20 servings

1 whole turkey, thawed, rubbed inside and out with liquid smoke
¼ C salt, plus an additional 2 tsp
½ C vegetable oil, plus an additional ¼ C
1 onion, cut
1 bell pepper, seeded, cut
2 stalks celery, cut
2 Tbsp pepper
2 Tbsp dried parsley flakes
¼ C liquid smoke
1 C cola-flavored carbonated soda (NOT diet)
1 C vinegar

Preheat oven to 375˚. Combine ¼ C salt and ½ C oil, and rub turkey inside and out with mixture. Place onion, bell pepper, and celery in turkey cavity and bake turkey uncovered for 1 hour. Combine additional 2 tsp salt, additional ¼ C oil, pepper, parsley flakes, liquid smoke, soda, and vinegar “into a sauce,” pour sauce over turkey, cover turkey, reduce oven temperature to 325˚, and bake “until turkey tests done.”