For many Jamaican families in the U.S., the traditional baked turkey will not take center stage at this week’s Thanksgiving dinner. Instead, it will be replaced by jerk roasted turkey.
It started a few years ago. I suspect, because somebody got bored with the traditionally baked turkey and decided to add little kick to it. When you think about it, jerking a turkey makes sense. If you can jerk a chicken, why not jerk a turkey?
Well, that idea has caught on. Several Jamaican restaurants now prepare and sell jerk roasted turkeys on order.
Type ‘jerk turkey’ or ‘jerk roast turkey’ on your computer and the search will return several pages with recipes, how-to information, and videos. You can even buy a jerk roast turkey from Nieman Marcus and jerk turkey from Boars Head.
I’ve never had jerk turkey, mainly because I don’t like turkey. I’d curious to give it a try but it won’t be this Thanksgiving. I’ve been invited to join a family for dinner and I expect the turkey will be baked and accompanied by the normal Jamaican fare – curried goat, jerk chicken or pork, escoveitch fish, rice and peas, etc.
If you’d like to try making jerk turkey for your Thanksgiving this year, here’s a recipe I found at Saveur.com.
- ¾ cup olive oil
- ½ cup packed light brown sugar
- ½ cup chopped scallions
- ¼ cup freshly ground black pepper, plus more to taste
- 2½ tbsp. kosher salt, plus more to taste
- ½ tbsp. dried thyme
- 1 tsp. ground cinnamon
- ½ tsp. freshly grated nutmeg
- ½ tsp. ground cloves
- ¼ cup freshly squeezed lime juice, plus wedges for serving
- 1½ tbsp. soy sauce
- 6 cloves garlic
- 2 Scotch bonnet or habanero chiles, stemmed and chopped
- 2" piece ginger, peeled and thinly sliced
- 8 tbsp. unsalted butter
- 1 (12-lb.) turkey
- 1. Heat oven to 500˚. Combine ¼ cup oil, sugar, scallions, ¼ cup pepper, 2½ tbsp. salt, thyme, cinnamon, nutmeg cloves, juice, sauce, garlic, chiles, and ginger in the bowl of a food processor; puree until smooth and set aside. Melt butter and mix with remaining oil; set aside. Rinse turkey and pat dry with paper towels. Season turkey inside and out with salt and pepper and let come to room temperature.
- 2. Transfer turkey to a rack set inside a roasting pan, tuck wings behind turkey and tie legs together with kitchen twine. Brush turkey all over with butter, reserving some for basting. Pour 2 cups water into roasting pan and roast turkey, brushing once with more of the butter, for 30 minutes. Reduce heat to 350˚ and continue roasting, brushing occasionally with butter, until an instant-read thermometer inserted into a thigh, without touching the bone, reads 150˚, about 2 hours. Remove turkey from oven and baste completely with reserved sauce. Place back in oven and continue to cook until internal temperature reaches 165°, about 20 to 25 minutes more. Transfer turkey to a cutting board, and let sit for 30 minutes before carving; serve with lime wedges if you like.
Nigel Spence, one of my favorite Jamaican chefs, does a deep fry jerk turkey and has created this video demonstration for how to make it. Chef Nigel owns a restaurant, Ripe, in Mount Vernon, where he makes and sells his jerk turkey. Deep frying a turkey is best left to professionals or cooks with a lot of experience.
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Happy Thanksgiving!
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That does sound delicious! I’m hoping for some turkey for Christmas 🙂
Hope you do, Nancie. Is it easy to get it there?
that looks like a yummy and different take on the traditional turkey…would love to try this !
This is such a great idea and it makes sense to jerk a Turkey like every other meat. Hope you are enjoying the switch of locations.
Wishing you a very Happy Thanksgiving Season!
Eliz
Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family, Marcia!
Oh my gosh, can’t you just please ship some to me, Marcia???? Happy Thanksgiving! 🙂
Sounds delicious–I’ll be printing this one off, though it sure would be nice to simply order a Jerk Roast Turkey to go, from an expert! I look forward to hearing about Jamaican Christmas specialties!
Seriously you don’t like turkey. How can that be? I can only imagine how flavourful a jerk turkey would be. Interesting how it’s starting to catch on.
Sounds like an interesting recipe, maybe someday we’ll give it a try.
Oh. My. God. I think I’ll make these and then proceed to eat them all one sitting!
I’ve never been a huge turkey fan – but I would love to try this!
Hope you do, Jess!
That’d be a lot of food for one sitting!
Thanks for stopping by, Bai!
Hahaha, I’m not sure. I love the stuffing though and make a mean soup with the carcass.
Unfortunately, I didn’t make it Mike. But I’ll definitely send you some if I do.
Belated Happy Thanksgiving to you too!
Hahaha, I wish I could recommend one in Toronto. I’ll check with my friends might be a restaurant (or an expert) who does it there.
Yes, Christmas is definitely a special holiday for us, much more than Thanksgiving is.
I think I’d have to agree with the Jamaicans, the traditional baked turkey can be really boring. I might have to go out of my way to experience some good jerk roasted turkey sometime before next Thanksgiving, because it sounds great. The recipe doesn’t seem too bad, but I tend to ruin anything I try to cook. This year for Thanksgiving, a friend smoked an entire turkey, and that was incredible. He said it took a while, but it was fantastic.
I’ve heard the smoked turkey is also fabulous, Richard, but haven’t tried it.
Would love to hear what you think.