Smoked southwestern turkey with cornbread and tortilla stuffing ...

For a Southwestern-style Thanksgiving turkey dinner, fire up your smoker, pile in plenty of wood, and get ready for a real treat. Oh yes, don't forget to stuff the turkey with my cornbread stuffing. This is not your conventional Thanksgiving dinner!

Special tools: Smoker, wood chunks or logs, see text
Preparation time: About 30 minutes
Cooking time: All day; about 30 minutes per pound for the turkey, if cooked in a smoker over low temperatures, 25 minutes for cornbread to bake
Yield: Enough for the whole family, plus lots of leftovers

1 turkey, 12 to 18 pounds
Olive oil, as needed

For the stuffing:
1-1/4 cups yellow cornmeal
1 cup flour
1 cup milk
1 large egg
1/4 cup butter, melted
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt, I prefer kosher or sea salt
1/2 medium onion, any variety, diced
4 fresh jalapeno peppers, stemmed, seeded and diced
4 cloves garlic, chopped or pressed
3 tablespoons olive oil
3 tablespoons Turkey or Chicken Stock; follow link for my homemade stock recipe
10 CD-sized yellow corn tortillas, sliced in thin slices

To make Southwestern Stuffing:

Pre-heat oven to 400 degrees. Grease bottom and side of square pan 8 x 8 x 2 inches, with shortening. Beat milk, egg and butter in large bowl. Stir in remaining ingredients except for the tortilla strips all together; batter will be lumpy. Mix well. Pour batter into pan.

Bake about 25 minutes until golden brown.

Slice corn tortillas into thin strips. When cornbread is cool, crumble into small pieces in large bowel; add tortilla strips. Mix well.

To prepare the turkey for smoking:

Rub turkey with olive oil, including body cavity. Stuff cornbread mixture inside body cavity. Smoke turkey, using plenty of mesquite wood for smoke flavor. Turkey will be done when breast meat temperature is 180 degrees.

This is an all-day project but worth the effort. I usually make the stuffing the day before I plan to smoke the turkey. On the smoking day, I usually fire up the smoker early in the morning, and let it cook until the smoke is really "smoking." While the smoker is getting warmed up, I rub the turkey with olive oil and stuff it. Then I place the turkey on the smoker and "pop a top" for added pleasure. It usually takes eight or ten hours to cook.

Yes, I know the health police say that you shouldn't eat the stuffing in a bird cooked that long over low heat. With all that said, I have made this recipe many times and suffered no ill effects, except, perhaps, gaining a few unwanted pounds. My advice? Just do it!

On the subject of wood, I use oak most of the time, as its readily available in my area, as oak trees grow everywhere in western Placer county. Hickory works just as well as oak, and apple will implant a sweet taste to the turkey, which is delicious. I have used mesquite a few times, but I can't recommend it, as mesquite has a tendency to implant a bitter taste in poultry. You can use chips, chunks or logs, depending upon the size of the firebox of your smoker. I use a backyard, Texas pit-style smoker, and the firebox is big enough so all I do is take a log that's destined for the fireplace, cut it in half, and it fits perfectly inside the firebox of my smoker.

Here's the menu we enjoyed at a recent dinner: Oak-smoked turkey with cornbread and tortilla stuffing, Cowboy Beans, Mexican Rice, Salsa Cruda, tortilla chips and Guacamole. Now that's truly a Southwestern dinner!

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