Holiday Turkey Roast ala La Caja China

Whether your family is small or large, getting together for Thanksgiving always leaves us with great memories and a sense of fulfillment…in hunger! The tradition has always been a frozen turkey with marinade and stuffing, then placing it inside your kitchen oven for an extreme amount of hours and watching some football while you wait for your dinner. As much as I love football, I love food just slightly more, so waiting for a long time is not going to cut it.

So I am here to tell you why you should put your oven to rest this Thanksgiving and use one of the hottest items out there, a “cuban pig roaster”. Most of you already know that you can roast your pork onto one of these babies but I bet you didn’t think about turkey. Typically your turkey is not as large as your whole hog, so for the recipe below I would recommend using the “La Caja China model 3”.

This by far is the smallest roasting box in the list of selections "La Caja China" has to offer. Don’t let the size fool you. Not only is it light weight, but it is also lined with aluminum like its predecessors ensuring its durability. The small body allows your turkey roaster to use half the coal you would be using in a larger Caja Asadora (or in the cajun community the "Cajun Microwave") and it makes cleaning up a breeze. This model weighing in around 20 LBs, makes transferring from location to location easy without any complications. So from your Thanksgiving dinner to just hanging out at the beach, the model 3 can bring you all your roasting needs without having to move around a 70 LB box.

Turkey Roast

1. Make sure that your turkey is well-thawed before roasting. Doing this can reduce cooking time, which means you’ll eat a lot sooner.

2. Place Turkey on top of the rack breast down if cooking whole or skin down if cooking split, attached top rack using the 4 S-Hooks. Pour in a cup of water into the drip tray. Add beer or spices to make the meat more flavorful.

3. Place Turkey inside the box, skin or breast down, attached the probe from a digital thermometer and run the wire under the short top frame. Wired thermometers are best in roasting situations because you would not have to open the roaster as much.

4. You then want to cover your roaster with the ash pan and charcoal grid.

5. Add 10 lbs. of charcoal for model #3. Any of the larger models would require more charcoal.

6. Once lit after about 20 to 25 minutes, spread the charcoal evenly over the charcoal grid.

7. Your cooking time starts right now.

8. After 1 hour, open the box by removing the complete set of ash pan and grid together and place it on top of the long handles.

9. Now flip the Turkey over, skin or breast side up and add 5 lbs of charcoal. Continue to add 5 lbs of charcoal every hour until you reach 175 f.