For the third consecutive year, I hit the CT Renaissance Faire in Lebanon for a walk-thru to see the costumed folk making merry. But mostly to get a roasted turkey drumstick. I’m not big into crowds, Dungeons and Dragons, jousting, shuttle buses from overflow parking lots or cosplay as a rule, but I can get enthusiastic about nearly anything that can be centered around food. In my mind, the Faire is a food stroll set 400 years in the past. Foode, Folkes and Funne.

But the crowds on Indigenous People’s Day swamped the turkey concession and they were completely sold out of drumsticks by the time we were ready to feast. Fie! Alas and Alack! Cor Blimey Guv!

Apparently DCCLXXXIV Henry the VIII’s got there before we did. My nephew Beckett, who was in full knight regalia, had to settle for a bowl of mashed potatoes, gravy, corn and chopped turkey (the same type of KFC concoction Patton Oswalt calls “a bowl of sadness”). He got over it relatively quickly; he’s 4 years old and easily distracted by all the sights, sounds and kettle corn. But I had wound myself up real hard for a drumstick and I had to do something about it.

As tired as I was after a few hours at the Faire, I trucked over to Shop Rite, picked out a couple packs of mega turkey legs and went home to prep the brine to cure them for a few days in the fridge.

Mr. Mean Greens

I’ve been making smoked turkey drums for a few years, since I started making big pots of collard greens. I came up with the idea for using smoked turkey instead of ham hocks for greens when I was testing recipes for a Manischewitz recipe contest. And as far as I was concerned, the turkey tasted better than hocks. My co-workers loved them enough to publish the recipe in the pages of this very paper in 2016: Rich’s Slow Cooker Collard Greens.

But the recipe behind the recipe that I had to work on first was making a really good smoked turkey drumstick, and some research led me to an unlikely source; Disney World. Internet searches for smoked turkey drums turned up hundreds of citations of people raving about the giant meaty legs that Disney cranks out fresh every day for the masses. Disney, to my knowledge, has never made their recipe public. But it wasn’t hard to cull the features on how to replicate them. First, they aren’t simply roasted, they get cured in a brine because the meat has a hammy color and texture. Think pastrami, but with a femur and crispy, mahogany skin. That suggests a combination of kosher salt, sugar and a touch of pink curing salt (aka Prague Powder or Curing Salt #1). None of the recipes mentioned any additional infusions of spices or flavorings, aside from smoke. I do add some peppercorns and a couple bay leaves to my brine to give a little nose and complexity to the bird. You can even try some fresh thyme and a sprinkle of sage to give them more of a Thanksgiving vibe. The whole process is pretty easy and straightforward, but with a couple caveats.

Salt, smoke, injectors and patience

Don’t use iodized salt, only kosher or sea salt with no iodine. And use a scale to measure the weight of the salt. There are big differences in the density of different brands of kosher salt. Also, pink curing salt is not Pink Himalayan Salt. I don’t know of any stores that offer it locally, so you might need to hop online and order a small quantity. I will be including more recipes in the future that call for it, including homemade bacon and my stellar Poorhouse Prosciutto.

You don’t need a smoker to make this recipe. I’ve included Liquid Smoke (Hickory flavor) so you can make this recipe in the oven. And if you want to use your smoker, you can skip the Liquid Smoke or keep it in if you want ’em double smokey.

The drumsticks need to cure in their brine for 2 to 5 days in the fridge, but if you have a marinade/brine injector, you can use it to speed the curing process up.

Smoked Turkey Drumsticks (Disney Style)

4 to 5 fresh turkey legs (approx 6 lbs.)

4 cups of cool water

5 tablespoons kosher salt - 55g

5 tablespoons brown sugar - 80g

1 teaspoon pink curing salt (Prague Powder) - 8g

1 to 2 tablespoons liquid smoke

1 Tbsp black peppercorns

2 bay leaves

Pour 4 cups cool water into a large sealable container. Stir the kosher salt, brown sugar, curing salt and liquid smoke in till dissolved. Add black peppercorns, bay leaves and then the turkey legs. At this point, you can inject each leg with a few squirts of the the brine, if desired. Cover and cure in the refrigerator for at least 2 days or up to 5 days. (I doubled the amount of brine for my latest batch to cover them completely. That left me some room to throw in a few chicken drumsticks, which were also super tasty.)

Preheat oven or smoker to 250°F.

Remove the turkey legs from the refrigerator and take the legs out of the brine and pat them dry with paper towels. You can add your favorite dry rub or glaze the legs at this point, if desired.

Place the drumsticks into a roasting pan or directly on the smoker racks. Roast or smoke them for 1 1/2 to 2 1/2 hours or until the internal temperature of the legs reaches 175°F. If you prefer crispier skin, you can let them cool slightly and then run them under the broiler for a minute or two. Turkey dark meat is a lot more forgiving than white meat of a little extra time in the heat.

Remove from oven and enjoy. These drums can be also refrigerated for a week, or vacuum sealed and frozen for up to a year.

Upcoming and Ongoing

Been tearing it up in the kitchen this week: test batch of Mandarin Marmalade, slabs of new bacon curing in the fridge, the first apple pie from the apple tree in my front yard, fresh apple cider from the neighbor’s apples, hacking through my annual gift of huge Maitake (Hen of the Woods) mushrooms for drying.

I’m still recruiting local folks (in SE CT) to sample new recipes. If you would like to be on my food jury, email me at the address below and I’ll give you the details. To all those who have responded thus far, some of you will be contacted at random soon for our first trial run of a test bread. Ladies and gentlemen, start your toasters!

Rich Swanson is a local cook who has had numerous wins in nationally sponsored recipe contests. He is also the layout specialist here at The Day.

Comments? Questions? Suggestions? Rich Swanson can be reached at TheSurlyTable@gmail.com