Photos: Pillowcase Turkey Adventure

Good Food listener Steve Ellison heard our segment on Pillowcase Turkey and decided to give it a go for Thanksgiving this year. At 11:51 am on Thanksgiving day, I received this comment from Steve…

Near catastrophe after first 20 minutes at 500–started to smoke, and pillowcase a little browner than I would have liked. Fingers crossed for the roasting at 300!

Worried that we had perhaps led Steve astray with the recipe, I emailed Steve and asked him how it went. Fortunately, he confirmed that despite the 5 1/2 hour cooking time, it was one of the best turkey’s he’d ever tasted. His comments are below and photos detailing the event follow…

We were a little concerned when after 20 minutes our smoke alarms started going off, but we caught it before it caught fire. Turkey was really moist, and gravy was potent!. One of our best ever. Took a while—about 5 1/2 hours for the 19.5 lb bird from Shelton’s. It took an entire bottle of wine and most of a container of chicken broth to keep it damp, and we ended up basting nearly every 20 minutes to keep the pillowcase moist.

One thing I’d recommend would be to use an extra large pan. The pan we use is the one we use every year (usually with a turkey bag) and is fine for that, but I had to put a cookie sheet under the pan this year to catch the drippings so every time after I basted I’d have to turn on the exhaust fan on high for about 5 minutes due to inevitable overflow/drippings.

I’m making a broth with the remains now for soup and to stretch out the gravy a bit.

Keep reading for a photo gallery of Steve’s step-by-step Pillowcase Turkey…