I’m hosting my first Thanksgiving dinner this year.
Despite the fact that I don’t particularly like turkey, I suppose I must serve it for the more traditional minded people.
So I was wondering if anyone has any great stuffing recipies or clever ways to make a turkey.
I like both bread and rice stuffings, but I never cared for fruit in my stuffing. Of course, you’re free to share any recipies you have.
Thanks.
I like oyster stuffing the best. Anyone have a good recipe for oyster stuffing?
Turkey dinner! One of my favorite things to make! I’ve been a catering & personal chef for several years, so this is one of my favorite ways to do a turkey.
It isn’t a particularly clever way to make a turkey, but it’s delicious and relatively simple.
First of all, you’ll want your turkey fully defrosted. Know that this will take several days in your refrigerator–depending on the size, it could take up to a week if you have a particularly large bird. Defrosting in a sink filled with cold water (don’t use hot to speed up the process–you can cause any salmonella bacteria to multiply quickly that way) will also work.
Once your bird is defrosted, check the cavities to remove the bag with the organs and usually the neck is in there, too. Some people like to use the giblets for gravy, I don’t–but I do keep the neck and use it in the broth I’ll have simmering for gravy. Check the skin for feathers, and pluck those out. You’ll sometimes see them around the legs and wings.
I preheat my oven to 450 degrees.
While the oven is heating up, I prep the turkey by first stuffing the cavity with 1 small quartered onion, a half of a lemon, a handful each of fresh sage and thyme, and a few bay leaves. I don’t actually put stuffing into the turkey, due to the high risk of salmonella poisoning if it’s not cooked fully. Plus, the turkey cooks up to 30-45 minutes quicker without it.
I take one stick of softened butter and smear it over all of the skin of the bird, then season the skin liberally with salt and pepper. Put it in a large roasting pan (you can use a roasting rack if you want, but
it’s not necessary), close the door, and set your timer for 30 minutes. When the 30 minutes goes off, turn down the oven to 350, and let it go for another 1-2 hours (depending on size)–and don’t open the door. I check doneness by testing with a meat thermometer–you want your turkey to hit an internal temperature of 165 degrees to be fully cooked. Since leg meat takes longer to cook than breast meat, I’ll go in and cover the breast with a few layers of foil for the last 30 minutes of cooking, so the leg meat can finish up without overcooking the breast meat.
When you remove the turkey from the oven, you want it to rest. Cover with foil and let it sit for 30 minutes so all the juices in the meat can redistribute. It will be juicier and will cut into slices much easier.
To help plan your cooking time, you’re looking at around 2.5-3 hours for a 10 to 18 pound turkey, 3-4 hours for an 18 to 22 pounder. And definitely spend the $7 or $8 to get a meat thermometer if you don’t have one. It’s really worth it.
I got so excited about turkey that I forgot about the dressing.
I’m actually trying to find a recipe I did for someone last year, which was a cajun-style cornbread & sausage dressing recipe that was really good. I believe the recipe came from Bon Appetit magazine, but I’m not finding it on epicurious.com right now. I might have it in my giant pile of recipes, but that means climbing over a sleeping husband right now, so you might have to wait until tomorrow. 
The one I make for my family is very simple (this is the one they ask for every year). Sorry I don’t have an exact recipe, I just eyeball everything and throw it together.
1 loaf Day-old french bread
1 small chopped onion
1/2 small bunch of celery, chopped (I personally like using the small, tender inner stalks, with the leaves)
Lots of chopped sage
Butter
a few cups of Homemade turkey stock
Drippings from the cooked turkey
I’ll usually start this the day before by tearing up the bread into small pieces, and letting them dry out a little more. I’ll use about 1/2 a stick of butter, and saute the onions and celery until they’re soft and getting a little color. I’ll toss them into the bread with the sage, salt and pepper, then add enough of the stock to moisten the bread without making it sopping wet, then put into a casserole dish. This can easily be done several days in advance, then popped into the oven an hour or so before service. When your turkey comes out of the oven, take a 1/4-1/2 cup of the drippings and pour on top of the dressing while it’s in the oven, and let bake until the top is golden. When I’m cooking for my in-laws, they like fruit in their dressing, so I’ll put in a chopped Granny Smith apple and a handful of raisins into this recipe, and they’re thrilled.
Alton Brown is God. I followed his turkey instructions last year and it was easily the best. bird. ever. Brining is essential.
Find it here: http://www.goodeatsfanpage.com/
And remember: Stuffing is EVIL! (if it’s cooked in the bird, anyway)
If you like White Castle, I remember seeing a recipe for White Castle turkey stuffing somewhere online.
I did that two years ago, and I have to admit, it’s a spectacular way to do turkey. Sadly, though, my family said, “Well, it’s really good, but can you do it the old way again next year?” :rolleyes:
There are several different ways to do turkeys, all of them good (or potentially really bad ;)). It’s finding what you feel comfortable doing to your cooking knowledge level.
My Grandma’s Cornbread Dressing:
Stuffs one small turkey.
1 pan of cornbread
1 cup celery, diced
1 cup onion, diced
1/2 cup green onion, diced
celery hearts, chopped
Giblets from the turkey, cooked in a bit of water or chicken broth, and chopped fine. Reserve the liquid from cooking the giblets.
2 hard-boiled eggs, chopped fine
salt, pepper, and dried sage
Slice cornbread into 1 inch chunks. Place in a large bowl. Saute celery, onion, and green onion in a little butter. Do not saute the celery hearts. Mix sauteed vegetables, celery hearts, chopped giblets, and eggs with the cornbread. Add salt, pepper, and sage to taste. Moisten mixture with the strained giblet broth. Do not add too much liquid or the dressing with be soggy. Stuff turkey or bake in a greased dish for 20 minutes at 325 degrees with foil over the top.
I follow the directions here at www.turkeyhelp.com, by the authors of Cook’s Illustrated. My turkey always comes out fantastic - the breast is juicy, the thighs are done, the skin is crisp.
Also, I typically buy a fresh (ie, not frozen) turkey. They cost more, but taste a LOT better.
How about making a turducken. Simply stuff a duck inside the turkey, and then a chicken inside the duck. Cook, eat.
The recipe I use is very similar to JavaMaven’s (above), with the addition of 1 lb pork sausage ( I usually use Jimmy Dean’s Original), 2 beaten eggs, and less broth.
I don’t do the drippings thing, but I think I will add this to the recipe this year. Sounds fabbity-fab-fab.
I brown the sausage in a skillet, and then saute the onion & celery in the sausage drippings. Add it to the bread, sage and eggs in a large bowl, mix it all up. I add a little broth from the simmering giblets, or turkey stock if I have any, so that the stuffing is moist but not wet.
I do put some of the stuffing in the bird, because that’s the way my mom really wants it, and the rest I bake in a casserole dish. To this I will add turkey drippings this year. Can’t wait! JavaMaven, you are a genius!
Alton is as good a God as any other! But DCU, Alton recently recanted that and the “no oil in pasta water” statements. Wish I could point you to the particular episodes.
However, to repeat and emphasize, BRINING IS ESSENTIAL. Brining will allow you to cook the thighs to the necessary 165 degrees without drying out the breast. I plan to brine this year’s turkey beginning Tuesday night. A brine can be as simple as a salt/water mixture, but it is a good time to impart other flavors directly into the meat (instead of just the outside). When cooking, I loosely stuff the cavity with quartered onions, oranges and lemons, plus fresh herbs. These will steam in the turkey, adding additional flavor from the inside-out.
Alternate option:
Frying a turkey. Fried turkey is very good and not at all greasy, but you need special equipment and a safe place to do it. I recently saw an electric turkey frier at Home Depot, but when I do indulge in buying the set-up, I’m visiting Hank Hill and going propane all the way! You’ll want to use peanut oil, because of its high smoke point. This is the fastest way to cook a turkey, and something on my list of things to try this decade.
If you have cable, check out FoodTV. Now is the time of year that all the chef shows start doing Turkey Day shows. As much as I love Alton, my own turkey style has evolved from multiple chefs’ tips, with Alton’s recipe serving as the base.
The late Julia Child would bone the turkey-this took some work, but the turkey then lies flat in the pan, and you can cook it much faster!
Anybody know how to do it?
I know how to basically butterfly a chicken so it spreads out flat. Presumably the turkey would be pretty much the same thing, but on a larger scale.
All I do with the chicken is take a pair of poultry shears and snip the backbone out. It usually takes a bit of force to get through the pelvis on a larger chicken, so I imagine this would be a bit more difficult with a turkey. Then I slide my shears up either side of the keelbone (the triangular bone running down the middle of the breast, similar to the sternum on a human) and yank that bad boy out. Birdie opens out flat, and when he’s cooked you can quarter him in three strokes.
I’ve had excellent success with the Joy of Cooking’s “High Heat Method.” Essentially you cook the turkey under very high heat (475, IIRC) leg up (on its side) and turn it every half hour. It takes less time this way (about 1.5-2 hours for a 12 lb bird) and the breast is protected from the heat. The only downside is, due to the need to turn the bird frequently, it is not practical for turkeys over 12 or maybe 15 lbs if you’re strong. The instructions are in the newest edition of the Joy of Cooking, but not in the “classic” 1972 edition.
I’ve also deep friend a turkey once, and, while you need a special rig and the outlay in peanut oil is kind of steep, it was spectacular. And it only took 30 minutes!!! The fryers are available at Home Depot this time of year.
I’ve made the White Castle Stuffing, and, this is going to sound strange, it was a bit bland. It needed salt (!) and a lot more sage than the recipe called for. It had a good texture and was rich, like a sausage stuffing.
If you’re thinking of the episode where he stuffs (IIRC) a pork chop, then he isn’t recanting a darned thing. He explicitly states that the small mass of a pork chop allows you to stuff and cook it without drying the meat. That isn’t true of turkey, which when stuffed has a tremendous mass, requiring more cooking time to cook any stuffing in the bird’s cavity all the way through, which will dry out the breast meat.
(N.B.: loosely putting onions and herbs and the like into the bird’s cavity isn’t stuffing it, since you aren’t eating those ingredients and they don’t need to be cooked through – they’re just there as aromatics to improve the bird’s flavor.)
If you want stuffing, make it separately and add pan drippings from the cooked bird at the end.
And we agree on this: BRINE, people, BRINE. Brining is the single most effective thing you can do to improve your turkey cookin’, whatever recipie you happen to use.
I’ll post it off the top of my head, but all measurements are totally up to you. Stuffing is like that anyway.
Parmesan Sourdough Stuffing
1 loaf sourdough bread (the pre-sliced rounds are easiest, but get the good stuff. The cheesy kind or whole wheat is yummy)
Chicken stock
Vermouth or dry white wine
Shallots, sliced
Mushrooms, sliced
Marinated artichoke hearts
Fresh Parmesan or Romano cheese
Black pepper
Poultry seasoning
Cube the sourdough (see, this is why the sliced kind is nice) and toast it in the oven. I put it in my big turkey pan and give it a stir when the top layer starts to get brown. Either the bake setting or the broiler works, but keep an eye on it. You can do that ahead of time, just wrap them back up airtight when you’re done.
Then dump the toasted cubes in a big pan (again, my turkey pan is the only one big enough). Saute the shallots and mushrooms, and add them to the bread cubes. Add artichoke hearts to taste (two of the small jars at my house). Add some of the artichoke juice too, what the hell. Pour chicken stock and vermouth over it until the bread cubes are damp but not soggy. Add pepper and poultry seasoning, and give it all a stir. Then top it liberally with grated cheese. Bake it uncovered at 350 for 45 minutes, or until the cheese is all melted and the top gets a nice crust.
This is why I need two ovens, or else have to BBQ my turkey. Ooh, or deep fry it!
Java, thanks for the cooking instructions. I’ m cooking my first this year and anticipate some good bird.
Alton Brown stuffs his bird.
I still don’t.
Alton Brown brines his turkey. My turkey cooking is much closer to this recipe.
Both links have next show time for each episode