Bird on the Grill

The easiest and cleanest way to cook a whole turkey is outside on the kettle grill. First brine the bird for at least 8 hours and no more than 12 hours. Set up the grill for indirect cooking with a generous stack of hot coals on each side of the bird and a drip pan underneath the bird between the coals filled with 4 cups of water, wine or beer. You can add soaked wood chunks over the coals to add a smoky flavor. Rub the outside of the bird with butter, put it on the grill, cover it, adjust the air flow to attain a consistant temperature of between 300 and 325 degrees F. then walk away. Check the bird after 4 hours. If need be add more hot coals to further brown the bird. but I"ve never found this necessary if you start with suffiecient fuel and properly adjust the heat level and air flow. This is one delicious bird.

I learned how to do this when I was living in the Virgin Islands in the late 70's. On Thanksgiving morning we were supposed to go to a breakfast at a neighbors house but we had a dinner party later and we were supposed to bring the bird. Impulsively I suggest to my girlfriend that we just throw the bird on the grill as we didn't have time to monitor and baste the bird in our indoor oven. Over at Mary Lou's we had a wonderful buffet with Belgian waffles, tropical fruit, grilled ham steaks and many pina coladas, daquiris and glasses of champagne. Linda and I stumble home around 11 a..m. and immediately fell asleep. When we woke in late afternoon I went out to check the abandoned bird. It was perfect. The coals were totally burned out. We packed up the bird and took it to the dinner party.

We ate the bird a la francais (at room temp). It tasted of the green tamarind wood I smoked it with and of mango, tamarind and lime I stuffed it with. The perfect island bird.