Cooking a Turkey

[iheartmaytag]

May sound contrary to tradition

You can also poach a turkey, if you have a pot big enough.  Just build you a broth around him with onions, celery, carrots, chicken broth works.  and boil gently  like you would a whole chicken when making chicken and noodles.

 

Your skin won't be crisp, but the meat will be moist and tender. 

 

I know some of the soup kitchens that don't have oven capacity do their Thanksgiving Turkeys this way. 

 

[whirlcool]

When I was growing up my grandmother used to put cheesecloth over the turkey breast while the turkey was baking. She'd baste the turkey right through the cheesecloth.
I've never seen or heard of that done that way before.

 

[norgeway]

RE Poaching/boiling

My Grandmother Craig boiled her turkeys back before stoves had large ovens, My Aunts said she  boiled them in a blue enamel canner.

 

[sudsmaster]

Here's a method I found works very well.

 

Usually I rotisserie a 14lb or less bird out on the patio. But if using an oven:

 

Get a V shaped roasting rack. Preheat the oven to 475F.

 

Rinse and dry the bird off thoroughly, Make sure it's totally thawed. Bend the wings back, putting the tips under the upper part of the limb. Tie the legs together. Do not stuff; but you can put an herb mix in the body cavity.

 

Using a pastry brush, coat the entire bird with a good quality vegetable oil. I use organic virgin olive oil. .Peanut oil is good, too.

 

Set the bird breast down in the V-shaped rack in a shallow roasting pan. The reason for this is that the fattier parts are on the back, and in this position it tends to self-baste. The other reason is that the breast side needs less heat to cook to a lower final temp than the back/legs. It will get less such heat if kept facing down. Pop into 475 oven, and leave for 15 minutes. Then turn the oven down to 325 and roast as long as it takes for the breast meat to get to 165F, and/or dark meat to 175F. For the last 30 minutes. turn the bird breast up so it gets browned. Do NOT baste. Basting only helps to dry out turkey. The initial oil rub is all the basting it really needs.

 

The idea here is that the high 457F heat sears the outside of the bird, locking in the juices. The relatively low roasting temp (325) helps to insure the bird is cooked through wihout getting tough and dry. Prolonged high heat will denature proteins and make them more like leather than succulent morsels.

 

This oven method has given me good results over the years. I prefer the rotisserie method, though because the side heat and constant turning helps to lock in the juices and brown the outside evenly. I use a similar method with the rotisserie: high (475+) heat for about 15 minutes followed by a low roast temp.

 

 

 

 

OH, and I've tried deep frying a turkey, using a Butterball electric turkey fryer. What a mess. Never again, esp since I returned the fryer to Costco for a refund. And that oil cost more than the turkey!

 

 

[stan]

That video of Fanny

Talk about cross contamination! Yikes

 

[artcurus]

Morton Thompson turkey

Extremely labor intensive and at one point, it looks like it's burned black, but I've heard this the best Turkey in the world. I have yet to try out.

http://www.europeancuisines.com/Chr...Famous-Black-Turkey-Recipe-Of-Morton-Thompson

 

[mattl]

Whirlcool - I've done the cheese cloth method a few times, it seems to work - as well as any other method I've tried.

 

As I've posted in the past, my Eleoctrolux oven's "Perfect Turkey" option does create a perfect turkey.  You  just prep the turkey as you like, place it on a V shaped rack, insert the temp probe, and put the turkey in a COLD oven.  It does the rest.  I do baste from time to time, but I set the oven to stop cooking when the probe reaches 160 degrees and the turkey is great, evenly browned and nice and juicy.

 

[revvinkevin]

And now for something a little different....

... and more labor intensive...

How about a Turducken...

Or a BACON wrapped turkey??

YUM!!!
Kevin

 

[lordkenmore]

>That video of Fanny
>Talk about cross contamination!

I was, frankly, cringing. Although I'm very cautious/conservative when it comes to handling meat these days. Even compared to when I was young, I'm cautious/conservative. For example, if I whipped up a beef stew-type dish in 1990, I'd have probably just washed the equipment that touched meat. And that would be that. Now, the dishes get washed carefully, and are separate from other dishes. Anything that I might eat off (say a small bowl that I'd used to marinate a small handful of meat for a stir fry) will be sanitized, as well as the dishpan.

I dream of a dishwasher, and one reason I dream of a dishwasher is just to be able to sanitize things.

I'm not sure why or when I became so cautious. I never had any really bad incident I can recall (e.g., catching a bug that causes vomit to spew faster than an erupting volcano). Maybe it's just the effect of all those warnings about contamination.

Although it's helpful to remember a couple of things as far as old cooking shows are concerned. First, by nature, they had to cut corners where possible to save time. Areas of safety might not be the best place to cut a corner, but...where do you draw the line? At some point, one assumes that the viewer is or should be smart enough to understand and follow certain rules. Julia Child didn't have to warn people that burners were hot enough to burn a hand.

And secondly, issues with meat weren't as big a consideration once. Part of that might be "just not known." But I'm personally convinced that a large percentage of the trouble comes from modern factory farming practices, where no animal is probably remotely "healthy."

 

[stan]

Fanny

Stuck her fingers into a new jar of honey AFTER she'd handled the goose.
She contaminated the jar! For taping purposes the honey could have been pre pored into a dish that she worked out of.

 

[combo52]

Best Roasted Turkeys Ever

I have ever had we did in our Thermador-Micro-convection wall oven.

 

You simply put the turkey in on a rack in a pan upside-down and cook about 1/2 the time [ about 30-40 minutes for a 15-20 pound bird ] then flip it over and continue cooking till done about another 30-40 minutes. The bird is cooked at 375F and medium-high microwave power, you do not even pre-heat the oven.

 

You will have the most beautifully browned turkey with crispy skin, and the juice will just flow out of the white meat as it is carved. The bird does not have time to dry out and get tough, yet it it still looks like a turkey not all falling apart like it was boiled etc.

 

I know that Jon C. in Mass has also had great success with his Thermador MTO when roasting turkeys.

 

I will be roasting a 16 pounder this Thanksgiving this way. I always buy a few frozen turkeys this time of the year and stash them in the freezer for cooking later when the stores have their come-on pricing on frozen turkeys.

 

[firedome]

Turkey Day...

we like to put lots of pats of butter and whole sage leaves from the garden under the skin, put the bird in a bag shaken first with flour, roast upside down using a V- rack, with home-made chicken stock and fresh cut up carrots and onions in the bottom of the pan under the bird. When done we pierce the bag and let all the juice out into the pan...makes amazing gravy when added to the juice from the bird added to juice from the giblets that we cook in water for several hours in a covered sauce pan! Favorite sides: home-made sauerkraut cooked with pork ribs, ricotta mashed potatoes, butter-mashed butternut squash, creamed onions, and green beans almondine, along with stuffing, of course.

 

[ken]

So after reading comments here about using a roaster I've decided to give it a try this year. My question though is when done this way is it necessary to do it breast down to keep the white meat from getting too dry?

 

[ea56]

Ken,

its always a good idea to roast a turkey breast side down, regardless of what method you use. The reason is because there is more fat in the dark meat than the white and by roasting breast down the fat and juices drain down into the breast thereby basting it in its own juices. I also think that the dark meat tastes better when the bird is roasted breast side down and the breast meat is moister.[this post was last edited: 11/23/2015-17:15]