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DEBONING A TURKEY (OR ANY OTHER BIRD)

1. Place the bird, backbone up, on a large, rimmed sheet pan. Make a slit through the skin running straight down the center of the backbone. If you are right-handed, start boning the left side of the turkey first. (Left-handed? Start on the right side.) Using short strokes, work your knife just under the skin, separating the meat from the bone all the way down the length of the backbone. As you are cutting, you should feel bone against one side of the knife at all times. This will ensure that you aren’t leaving meat on the carcass. Use the illlustrations below as a guide to the bone structure of the bird.

2. After the meat is disengaged from the backbone, your knife will start to go over the outside of the rib cage. Continue to cut the meat from the rib cage in the same way that you disengaged it from the backbone. Soon you will come to where the leg joins the hip at one end of the turkey, and where the wing joins the shoulder at the other end. If you pull the limbs upward toward the backbone (in the opposite direction of the way they naturally move), the joints will pop out of their sockets. Cut through the tendons holding the joints in place, and the leg and wing will separate from the carcass.

3. In order to get the wing to disengage from the carcass, you will have to cut around the end of the wishbone and the thick bone that attaches the wing to the breast. In order to get the leg to disengage, you will have to cut around the hip bone and slit the membrane surrounding the internal cavity. The leg and wing will now fall away from the carcass.

4. To separate the breast from the carcass, continue to cut around the rib cage, still using short strokes and making sure that you feel bone against one side of the knife. Eventually you will get to the sternum (a large, flat bone that forms the arc of the breast). Scrape the meat from the sternum, stopping at its edge.

5. Turn the bird around and bone the other side in the same way. The bird will now be attached only along the edge of the sternum. Holding the carcass with one hand, and with the sharp edge of the knife angled toward the bone, make small slits down the edge of the sternum as you lift the carcass away from the meat. Be careful to avoid cutting through the skin; it lies right against the bone along the sternum.

6. If you wish, remove the leg and wing bones by grasping the hip bone (for the leg) and the shoulder bone (for the wing), then cutting around the bone with the tip of a knife, removing the meat from the bones. Be careful not to cut through the skin. When you reach the end of the leg, pull the bone from the skin by grasping both and stretching the bone and skin in opposite direction.

THE GRILL

Gas:

Indirect heat, medium (325° to 350°F)

3- or 4-burner grill-middle burner(s) off

2-burner grill—1 side off

Clean, oiled grate

Charcoal:

Indirect heat, medium ash

Split charcoal bed (about 2 dozen coals per side)

20 replacement coals

Heavy-duty drip pan set between banks of charcoal

Clean, oiled grate on medium setting

* * *

INGREDIENTS (MAKES 12 TO 14 SERVINGS)

For the turkey:

1 fresh turkey, 18 to 20 pounds

4 cups Orange-Fennel Brine (page 362)

For the stuffing:

6 dozen chestnuts

2 tablespoons olive oil

2 tablespoons butter

2 large onions, finely chopped

2 bulbs fennel, dark green stems and leaves removed, separated into stalks

2 teaspoons rubbed sage

2 teaspoons fresh rosemary leaves

3 cloves garlic, minced 3 cups chicken broth

30 kumquats (about 1½ pints), halved lengthwise, seeds removed, coarsely chopped

For the pan sauce:

1½ cups orange juice

1½ cups chicken or turkey broth

1 teaspoon herbes de Provence or Provençal Herb Rub (page 373)

2 tablespoons butter

Kosher salt and ground black pepper to taste

DIRECTIONS

1. The day before serving, debone the turkey (see “Deboning a Turkey,” left).

2. Put