I have to disagree with you here. I thought the exact same thing, so I don't blame you. When I first read about salting the turkey I thought "Isn't that bird dry enough without doing that?"..

However, if you seal it in a plastic bag (oven bag) while salting, the moisture is reabsorbed into the bird along with the salt and spices. I used the recipe above for the first time about a month ago with some family and we were all loving it.

Thanks for the input...it sounds like either method works, yet I'm not sure if you are saying that salting is better or if you think it is just another option

I think if I was going to fry the turkey, I would brine it. Roasting it, I would salt it.

I'm going to have to disagree with the reasoning on that one. Salting the meat brings protein rich fluid to the surface as the salt then enters the protein cells to form a state of equilibrium through osmosis. Even if the plastic bag did allow the moisture that was originally drawn out of the turkey to be re-absorb back into the turkey, you'd really only be back to where you started before you salted the turkey in the first place.

The presence of the salt and the scientific principal of osmosis will force an equilibrium in the turkey to occur. This means the plainly salted turkey without the presence of an exterior source of moisture (ie. a brining solution), will actually hold less moisture than an unsalted turkey.

By the way, if you roast a turkey in a "roasting bag", you're not really roasting it but instead you're actually steam poaching. Just incase your were curious.

Very Interesting, I thought I may brine our turkey this year, but now after reading all this I think I may just do it the way we have always done ours as it always turns out great, and I figure "Why try and fix something that aint' broken?"