During my three month life in France, I went to the popular Saturday market in Honfleur the week before Thanksgiving. While picking up the milk, cream and rice pudding I buy weekly I searched Google Translate to ask the French speaking vendor for a turkey. I thought I had the right word. She was sure she knew what I wanted and the following week, the Saturday before Thanksgiving I went to pick up a turkey. After finishing my shopping I took everything home to the apartment and unpacked. I realized what I thought was a young turkey was a huge rooster! I had no idea what to do with a rooster.
I went online and read about how to prepare a rooster. One article was very fun to read for help.
After reading the article I realized I had some Calvados, an is apple cognac, that I didn’t enjoy drinking. I added a bit of it to the water, bay leaves, fresh sage, rosemary and crushed garlic to brine. I stuck the rooster brine and all into the fridge and left it for two days. This rooster was fresh so there was no need to thaw, he had never been frozen.
The day before Thanksgiving I took him out of the brine. I dried him off and put him back in the fridge for the next day. On Thanksgiving morning I took him out and placed him on a bed of sliced apples and red onion. I added 1/2 cup of calvados and 1 cup of hard cider, some sage and salt and pepper. I placed him on top of it all and put him in the oven low and slow. We had this weird oven, but 160 C was fine for a few hours.
He was delicious! I didn’t miss the turkey.
