Note while poultry is safe at 165 (and it’s probably ideal for the leaner white meat) most people will prefer the dark meat to be cooked to more like 175-180 - which makes for a challenge when cooking a whole bird, and this time of year you’ll see tons of suggested strategies for dealing with this disparity.
You take it off near the end so that the skin can brown.
Anyone heard of this? When I was a kid I swear my dad used a technique with the turkey: he would take a brown paper bag from the grocery store and cover it in crisco and bake the bird in that. At least that’s how I remember it. He’s not around to ask, but I must be wrong in memory. Surely the bag would burst into flames, right? It was great btw, dad was a great cook.
As long as he set the temp at 450F or less he was safe 
But seriously that might work. The bag coated with oil might have been a pretty decent barrier to keep the moisture in. At the very least it wouldn’t hurt.
I stuff and don’t brine, and have no problem with having a moist bird. But I put seasoned butter under the breast skin, baste the outer skin, and cover the breast with foil until the last bit of cooking. Sometimes I use many layers of cheesecloth on the breast, saturated with cooking oil. Repeated applications keep it moist and help extend the cooking time of the breast.
Cooking bags are where it’s at. Since I discovered them 10 or 12 years ago every turkey has been perfect.
The problematic bacteria - salmonella, e. coli and the like - are killed at 140 F, so 160 to 165 F for poultry is perfectly safe.
For unground meat, the bacteria are all on the outside, so it’s safe to eat as long as the surface temperature has reached 140 F. That’s why it’s safe to eat a steak or roast that’s been cooked to an internal temperature of 125 (or even lower) - the surface of the meat is (or should be) cooked to a much higher temperature than that.
Ground meat is a different question. The bacteria isn’t all on the surface of the meat any more, so it’s usually necessary to cook the interior of the meat to at least 140 F to avoid the chance of food poisoning. There are safe ways to eat rare hamburger. For example, you can take a big piece of meat and sear it on the outside, then grind it using a clean grinder.
BTW, most pork sold in the U.S. today is too lean to cook to 170 F, as your thermometer suggests. It’s almost impossible to overcook very fatty pork, but lean pork dries out easily. There hasn’t been any trichinosis in this country’s pork supply in many years, so it’s safe to leave it pink. I personally like pork chops cooked to an internal temperature of 140 - 145 F, but it’s safe to eat it rarer than that. A pork chop cooked like a steak can be really good.
My MIL is still magically able to dry out a turkey in an oven bag. But you’re not really supposed to cook a turkey for 6 hours, right?
Probably not. I usually get a 20 pound turkey and 4 - 5 hours is plenty. I start at 350 and turn it down to 300 or so in the last hour or two.
Magnifique!
I agree that cooking bags are the way to go for ensuring moist turkey breast, but so is knowing about “carryover” cooking. What I do is pull the bird out when it is within 10 to 15 degrees of the temperature I want, tent the bird with tinfoil, and wait about 20 minutes. The breast meat is done but juicy, and the dark meat is fully cooked. I also start the turkey breast side down in the roasting pan and turn it right side up with about an hour to go in the oven. Hope this helps.
One way to ensure the breast doesn’t overcook is to take the turkey out of the fridge a few hours in advance and put an ice pack on the breast. This keeps the breast cold while the rest of the bird warms up, so the dark meat has a head start on cooking.
Regarding the OP, in general I think American dining has become more sophisticated and less white bready. That’s certainly true of Thanksgiving turkeys.
I suspect a combination of better/more affordable thermometers for the home cook, and increasing education as to proper temperatures as the reasons for moister turkey. I do brine ours, but I find that brining makes more of a difference in the leftovers than it does in the Thanksgiving Day meat.
[QUOTE=Speak to me Maddie!]
Anyone heard of this? When I was a kid I swear my dad used a technique with the turkey: he would take a brown paper bag from the grocery store and cover it in crisco and bake the bird in that. At least that’s how I remember it. He’s not around to ask, but I must be wrong in memory. Surely the bag would burst into flames, right? It was great btw, dad was a great cook.
[/QUOTE]
The oven probably wouldn’t get quite hot enough to ignite the paper, plus the turkey would be generating a fair amount of steam which would permeate the bag.
FWIW, one of my wife’s aunt’s cooked the turkey in a paper bag one Thanksgiving, and went on and on about what an awesome technique it was. She served the driest turkey I’ve ever had. It’s become one of those family stories - all someone has to do is say “paper bag turkey” to have the whole room either chuckling or quietly gagging.
All of that is beside the point, except brining, and not exactly why you’d think.
At sometime in the recent past, manufacturers started injecting turkeys with brine at the processing plant- you’ll see them labeled with “contains up to a XX% solution” or something like that.
In other words, they started pre-brining them before the customers could get their hands on them and dry them out like crazy.
It’s harder now to find a non-brined/injected turkey than it is to find one.
Yup. Do it every year. Although we use peanut oil instead of crisco. Smear the bag until it is completely coated, AND coat your turkey in peanut oil and season with salt and pepper. Cook at whatever it says on the bag the bird came in, mostly because I can’t remember a time and temp from year to year. This is just a variation on the cooking bags others have suggested. I find the oil browns the turkey nicely. When you open the bag, you get a cloud of steam and a beautiful bird. The skin is not crispy like a fried chicken, but it is not soggy either.
I have never, ever, come close to having a dry bird with this method. My in-laws believe I am a frigging genius. They hold this in higher esteem than the time I grilled the turkey. I suspect carlb’s aunt cooked the bird way to long, ain’t nothing going to help that.
The saving grace of many turkeys is actually most likely that most supermarket base model turkeys are already brined. Check the bag for an ingrident list or something about soaking or a solution.
At least for turkey, the temps were redone a few years ago. USDA says 165F for the thigh.
http://www.fsis.usda.gov/FACTSheets/Lets_Talk_Turkey/index.asp
Okay. So it does sound like it wasn’t my imagination that turkey in general has gotten better over time.
They mostly come brined now. Oven bags more commonly used. More realistic and precise cooking times and temps. Fancier techniques like injections/rubs/marinades. Cooking the stuffing by itself (and saving some serious illness as a bonus).
Hopefull this thread will inspire someone out there to give up their bad dry assed turkey cooking habits and do one right for a change and become the culinary hero of the day
I miss the good old days sometimes. But certainly not that dry turkey.
Have a happy and moist Turkey Day everyone!
This problem was not confined to the US. I know a load of people in the UK who don’t think they like turkey for Christmas because of childhood traumas over the dry old bird.
My mother in law actually used to cook the bird on Christmas eve, leave it on the side overnight (not putting it into a fridge), then serving it up cold and dry on Christmas Day with the gravy doing the job of warming the meat up.
I’m happy to report I’m doing the cooking this year.
Yes. Yes the bag would burst into flames. It happened before I was born, but my sisters still tell stories about the year my grandma set the turkey on fire cooking it like that. Rumor has it her “Oh for cryin’ out in the blazing buckets!” can still be heard echoing on some of the lunar seas to this day.
Hey, thats no way to talk about a mother in law.