Perfectly prepared! Why not try a new, faster roasting recipe this year.

AP / LEO GONG

Last year, my friend Rose Mahdesian taught me how to roast a turkey in less than two hours. I thought it was the greatest thing ever because it freed the oven and meant I could sleep in a bit on Thanksgiving. Prior to the holiday, and sharing the recipe on these pages, I made it with varying size turkeys and it worked each time.

Her late father-in-law, Harry Mahdesian, was a cook at the old Spaghetti Place in downtown Providence, and taught her how to cook turkey when she was just a bride back in the ’50s.

The secret is to cook with high heat and water. Crank that oven up to 500 degrees, pour some water into that roasting pan with the turkey, and you’ll have a turkey cooked and glowing golden brown in 1 1/2 to 2 hours, depending on the size. And, yes, there are plenty of drippings with which to make gravy.

“My meat is as juicy as can be,” she testified. The steam from the water helps it cook moist and fast.

But later I heard that some cooks were afraid to try it. Don’t you hate it when fear grips a kitchen?

This year, we have secondary sources to encourage trying high heat cooking of the Thanksgiving turkey. It comes from the newly published, The 150 Best American Recipes (Houghton Mifflin) by Fran McCullough and Molly Stevens. The heading says it all: “What we’ve learned about roasting a turkey.”

They say that they have joined such institutions as Gourmet magazine, the New York Times, Safeway supermarkets and Sunset magazine, in believing in hot roasting a turkey to cook in under two hours.

“The technique is revolutionary, and not only that, it’s the best way to do,” they write.

Revolutionary? Apparently they didn’t know Harry Mahdesian.

The method they write about it is slightly different than his. The temperature for their recipe is 450 degrees and they suggest a turkey that is 12 to 16 pounds. Roast for one hour and then turn the pan around and continue roasting. If the breast seems to be browning too quickly, cover the bird loosely with foil. After 1 3/4 hours, check the temperature. When it reads 165 to 170 degrees, remove it from the oven. Tip the pan so the juices in the cavity run into the roasting pan so you can make gravy. Let the bird sit on a serving platter, covered loosely with foil, for 30 minutes to finish cooking. It will be 180 degrees.

Tom Douglas, the inventive Seattle chef, offers another quicker cooking method in their book. He believes you let the turkey come to room temperature before roasting. That means letting it sit out for about 3 hours before cooking. Then you roast the 15 pound turkey at 350 degrees for about two hours.

The bottom line is just because you let the turkey slow roast for all those years doesn’t mean you can’t try something new.

I’ve reprinted Rose’s recipe here as well as Douglas’s.

Don’t let fear make you lose any sleep on Nov. 23.