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I've done this for years (although I like to cut through the backbone, using a cleaver and meat mallet). A rich mushroom/ricotta/parmesan mixture goes between the skin and the flesh, and I smoke the turkey at an average grill temperature of 350º.

Dear Grace: I made this yesterday. I spatch-cocked my turkey saturday morning, after a 12 hour brine, for a friends' thanksgiving saturday afternoon. It turned out SO awesome. I've pretty much hated every other turkey that I've ever had/made except for this one. and it was so fast! I was really worried because after 20 minutes at 400F, there was a 40 deg F temperature difference between my thigh and my breast. (or 22.2 deg C difference). I ended up cooking the breast to a higher temperature than you recommended, yet none of my turkey meat was dry.

The high temperature of 450 I first used when I made this Thomas Keller recipe for simple roast chicken, where he also roasts at 450 deg F. (http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/My-Favorite-Simple-Roast-Chicken-231348)

Interestingly enough, even without brining, Thomas Keller's recipe for cooking chicken at high temperature also avoids dry chicken meat.

his roast chicken recipe is good practice for this recipe in my opinion because of the following reason:

When I made that recipe, I followed the commenters' and my sister's advice, and layered potatoes underneath the roast chicken because otherwise there is quite a bit of smoking.
Why is this important?
The spatchocked turkey also smokes quite a bit when cooking at 450F.
So be prepared for that. I thought it might be butter, but Keller's recipe doesn't call for butter, so it's simply from the poultry.

the smoke is nothing that opening all the windows in my 650 sq. ft apartment didn't fix! But I wonder if you could avoid the smoke by, as many who prepare Keller's chicken do, layering potatoes underneath the bird and throwing those into your gravy or something.

I just want to say that these are what I found to be most key in making your recipe:
Brine overnight
dry with LOTS of paper towels
compound herb butter is a MUST on the breast
prepare for the smoking
and definitely turkey resting is key prior to carving

If anyone else experienced the smoking, or same temperature differential between thigh and breast I would love to hear about it.

everyone loved it!! thank you so much G - you RULE!

We had a Thanksgiving pre-game last weekend and used the spatchcock method. I used Alton Brown's brine recipe, brined for about 8 hours. A 15 lb bird took about an hour and a half to cook. Our guests said again and again that it was the juiciest turkey they have ever had. A few weeks ago I spatchcocked a chicken as a test run and it was the best roast chicken I've ever made. The brine-spatchcock method is definitely the way to go.

@Big Guy : gotta love The Gilded Truffle.

If you're interested in cherry pepper/sausage combos, I recommend taking a daytrip to the Fairfield train station in CT (Metro-North), where Nauti (as in Nautical) Dolphin first introduced me to this underrated topping scenario via their Spicy Sow pie.

I would also like to take this time to warn you and other slice readers about the underwhelming Hellfire pie at Hell's Kitchen Pizza. This great potential equals great letdown.

Michael isn't a dick. he is a middle/younger child who is smarter than you.

i'm sure that Bryan, Eli, Kevin and Jennifer are great chefs, but none of them want to supply the lube for your fap-tasm of self-indulgent self doubt.

the competition is the exciting part.

Robin was the molasses slow slack-jawed annoyance who was edited in for pumped up conflict.

how about gearing up to think some how and somewhat past that?

if you can't then get a towel.

So how was the Seattle crack compared to NYC?

cks56 sounds like some kind of retard.

"almost the consistency of flaked fish food that nearly floats on air when broken"

EXACTLY.

@Pizzablogger/@Big Guy: It does look burned, but it didn't taste burned. How? It's hard to explain, but maybe this will help ... If you look at the upskirt and the hole-structure/crumb shot, you'll see. The bottom of that pie is far from super charred or burned and is probably more indicative of the doneness of the crust.

Now look at the hole-structure shot. See how airy that dough is? And that huge bubble? The end crust is not dense at all, so what I think is going on is that these bubbles are forming and have a very thin "skin" that burns and blackens easily. When I touched those things, they sort of flaked away from the crust. So, A) there's not much heft to the burnt part and B) it breaks away.

I really don't like Michael. His food is impressive, but I rarely actually want to eat it. I find a lot of his winning dishes kind of gross - parmesan jelly, liquid nitrogen treated soup. I get what he's doing, but between finding it generally unappetizing, so his attitude seems really out of place. Also, I was offended at his attributing buffalo wings to New York city. That might have just been me, though.

Kevin just seems like he's on a different level than everyone else. His food's not really that simple, but it's always so well-executed that it seems that way. It seems like he's #1 or #2 on almost every challenge. Last night's salmon and the vegetarian dish show that he can do more than just hearty pork fare - it's just that it feels like he's never taking risks because he's so low-drama and so high-quality.

Oops, typo. My comment should have read: I've missed it ever since Ruth Reichl took over.

No.

About 60 to 70 percent of it became ads, and ads that looked like food pages but were not.

Another 5 to 15 percent were big pictures (although I am not saying I didn't like the pictures) and a lot of recipes...

Which left about 20 percent possibility of real article content for the rest of it. Canceled long ago.