There afe some Butterball turkey farms in my area-that's where they grow those tasteless,ghost white turkeys!At the same time there are some WILD ones here if you want to hunt and shoot them-MUCH better,taste better and healthier for you!
To clean that oven...LOL, A open roasted turkey makes almost as big a mess as a duck...But I LOVE turkey any way you fix it!...I put mine in a covered roaster.
is still popular down in this part of the world. Those with sense share a fryer for several households to save on oil. I hate the damn things, just plain greasy. But then I'm not a real turkey fan anyway. I like chicken better.
If this were the only way people were getting saturated fats there'd be no problem. It's all the other crap people eat, processed foods, that are killing them.
I know that it was very, very popular in generations past to use butter in the skillet to cook steaks. I've tried it and it's very tasty. Forces you to use low heat, of course.
Butter in moderation isn’t going to kill anyone. And butter is much healthier for you than margarine. No other fat gives food a better flavor than butter. But I do agree, they did seem to use a rather excessive amount in the old Butterball commercial. My Mom used to put the cheese cloth over the turkey, but she didn’t continue to baste it with melted butter, she basted it with the pan drippings.
Eddie[this post was last edited: 11/7/2017-18:46]
That's what I always loved about Julia Child. I was vegan and/or vegetarian for nearly 30 years but I enjoyed her cooking. She was never authoritarian about foods or ingredients, despite the food and nutrition fads going around. I still think her book and video series, "The Way To Cook", is a great primer for anyone new to the practice.
It's funny, because I remember an era when conventional margarine was loudly proclaimed to be so much healthier. Voices saying otherwise were fringe nuts. And then they discovered that transfat problem...and suddenly margarine didn't look so good any more...
I, too, really liked Julia Child. When I was first cooking, I read chunks of her Mastering the Art of French Cooking, and appreciated it so much. Later, thanks to AW.org, I went out of my way to see her cooking show (on DVD from the library), and what was going to be "just watch enough to get a sense of what this was like" became "watch the whole set."
Rub the bird with oil, then sprinkle the salt,pepper and Bell's Seasoning. I like to surround the bird with celery and onion. I have used the Reynolds Baking Bags for years. Self basting and no mess!
I open roast my turkey in a V rack every year, never much of a mess, but a very good moist and nicely browned turkey. I baste it with melted butter and pan drippings.
And I might as well post this recipe like I do each year. Pack the turkey with unpopped popcorn. Sew it up. Put it into a hot oven. When the turkey's rear end blows off, the turkey is done!
"Rub the bird with oil, then sprinkle the salt,pepper and Bell's Seasoning. I like to surround the bird with celery and onion. I have used the Reynolds Baking Bags for years. Self basting and no mess"
I've used roasting bags for years, too. I make the turkey the day before (mashed potatoes and gravy, too), then slice and pan it with juices to transfer to my nephew's for Thanksgiving.
On butter: I'm in the 'Fifth Food Group' camp. Rarely does a dish not benefit from the addition of a little (or a lot of) butter. I recall a fad a few years ago in which people added a bit to their coffee. No interest in trying that one.
To each his own but I HATE anything cooked in a bag. Tried it years ago and my take is that the food comes out as if it had been steamed, very unappetizing.
I like the roasting bags too. They can have a tendancy to give a steamed like flavor, but if I season turkey with poultry seasoning and place a bed of aromatic vegetables in the bag and place the turkey on top of them I find that the finished turkey tastes really good. And the meat is moister too. Neither of us like dark meat, so I always just roast two bone in turkey breasts instead. And the oven doesn’t get all splattered with grease, which is a plus because our oven isn’t self cleaning, its moi cleaning,LOL.
Eddie[this post was last edited: 11/8/2017-12:49]
<span style="font-size: 14pt; color: #008000;">I recall a Cavalcade of Food video that Kevin & Ralph did on bagged-cooked turkey and how it avoided the usual mess. I'm all for that even with self-cleaning ovens. </span>
<span style="font-size: 14pt; color: #008000;">I've seen several videos on cooking and carving a turkey, but never one on how to properly eat one. I think Sylvia Schnauzer had the right idea...</span>