RECIPE: Samuel Adams's Boston Lager Turkey

I made this turkey yesterday as a last hoorah for the holiday season and it turned out really, really well, I felt. There were compliments bandied about the table and that's a good sign. Because you know what isn't? People pushing bits of turkey around on their plates and when you ask them how they think it tastes, they say, "You know that dinner you make? The one with the tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches? How's about we have that sometime again soon?"

Anyway, this turkey was served with all the trimmings and I roasted it just in the pan because there were so many irritable complaints about the turkey-in-the-bag I made at Thanksgiving. I thought that method just ROCKED, but everyone in my family hated it: they said it made the turkey TOO MOIST, if you can imagine that.

So here, for your discernment, is Samuel Adams Boston Lager turkey: just moist enough, flavorful, lots of good broth for the gravy and a pleasurable time around the table for all. Well, except for Mr. Tom, I guess.

By the way, here is the Killian's Irish Turkey from last year's holiday season, if you'd like to compare the recipes.

SAMUEL ADAMS BOSTON LAGER TURKEY

Ingredients
1 turkey, thawed, approximately 12-18 pounds
1 large sweet apple, such as Honeycrisp, or 2 or 3 smaller apples, washed and quartered
1 large Vidalia onion, outer skin peeled off, onion quartered
2 celery stalks, each cut in half
2 large carrots, scraped, each cut in half
1 pound butter
2 small cans chicken broth
1 bottle Samuel Adams Boston Lager
salt/pepper/paprika

Directions
Pre-heat oven according to package directions (mine said 325 degrees). Unwrap turkey and remove giblets; rinse in cool water. Salt inner cavity and place in roasting pan, breast side up. Stuff cavity with 2 sticks of butter, half the apple, onion, celery and carrots. Strew the rest of the apple and vegetables in the roasting pan. Softening the remaining two sticks of butter and rub the turkey's skin with a bit of the butter as if you're massaging it. Salt and pepper the outside of the turkey generously; add a bit of paprika if you'd like.

Pour about 1/3 of the beer and half a can of chicken broth on the turkey. Allow to roast for forty minutes; scoop up some of the remaining butter with a spoon or a knife and glide over turkey's skin; add a splash more beer and chicken broth. Continue doing this until the turkey's skin is a nice, deep golden-brown color; cover turkey with a little tent of aluminum foil so that the skin won't burn. Continue buttering and basting at forty minute intervals until turkey is done. Use a meat thermometer to figure out when that is because every turkey and every oven is different and there's just no sense in poisoning your family members with underdone meat.

Carefully lift roasting pan out of oven. Remove apples and vegetables. Decant the broth into a saucepan. Allow roasted turkey to rest for about twenty minutes before carving. Easy-peasy.