Garbage Can Turkey

Heard of it? No? Well I can honestly say, I wonder whether I will ever, I mean EVER, cook turkey in an oven again.

We had company all weekend. People from town. Meaning friends came over who live in town and basically minus a few moments here and there, stayed over for the weekend. Hubby and I figure we should just start a resort. I love company - makes life interesting.

So Friday, which is Canada Day and a national holiday, we were all sitting around having a few drinks and someone brought up the idea of having garbage can turkey (here are instructions and pictures to give you an idea - these are not mine, I still need to get a digital camera). I'd heard of it and a few of the guys had had it over at another friends house. So Saturday, Hubby goes and buys a steel garbage can and pulled a frozen 14 lb turkey out of our freezer and threw it into the sink with some water to start the thaw. We have a fire ban here and I had issues with starting a fire in our pit. Especially since the grass all around the fire pit is tender dry and crunches under foot. Garbage wood has been seasoning in the fire pit litterally for years, since we haven't ever really made use of it. So to clean it out for the turkey I had to burn it. Only took one piece of newspaper to get it lit. I had the hose out and sprayed down the grass very thoroughly. It was a bit amusing since my husband is a volunteer fire fighter and I had visions of a neighbour calling the department on us and Hubby having to answer to him why he was burning. Although, we were technically cooking and that is allowed. Anyway...

First we put the turkey into our smoker with some mesquite wood chips while we were starting the charcoal. You use the lid of the can (and we also used an ash bucket from the fireplace to start more) to start the charcoal. You spread about 3 feet square of heavy duty tinfoil onto the ground and hammer a 3 to 4 foot stake in the middle of the foil into the ground. Then you wrap the stake in tin foil. If the stake is thin people suggest that you put a pop can or a ball of foil on top so the turkey doesn't slid down the spike when it is cooked. Then we took the turkey out of the smoker and wrapped the legs in tin foil so they wouldn't burn. Then we tied up the wings and slid the turkey through the cavity, where you normally put the stuffing, down onto the stake. It actually comes to rest on the breast bone. Then we put a can of already smoking mesquite wood chips onto the ground underneath the turkey breast. The turkey was about 8 inches above the tinfoil covered ground.

Next we lowered the garbage can (which we had already burnt the interior and exterior to get rid of the galvanizing) onto the turkey. We had already punched a few holes in the top with a nail to let some of the heat escape. Then we piled up the charcoal around the sides as high as possible (about 6 inches) and that was it. 1 1/2 hours later (yes I said it 1 and 1/2 hours later) we lifted the can up and there was an amazingly perfectly browned turkey there. We lifted it off and it came easily, and I put in into a roasting pan and set it aside for about 20 minutes to let it rest. It was extremely hot. We served it with wonderful french fries and creamy coleslaw and we were blown away by the flavour, the juiciness and the fact that it was the most perfectly done turkey I had ever seen. And the flavour! My mouth is watering still. We fed 10 on Saturday and another 6 people on Sunday morning (I told you we had guests all weekend). Sunday morning we served toasted turkey and tomato sandwiches. Yum. One fourteen pound turkey, 10 pounds of potatoes, 1 head of cabbage, 1 tomato and 1 entire loaf of bread fed 16 people to the point of exploding. Pure heaven.