I read that before i asked the question, but it’s not very helpful. What’s “between the breasts” even mean?
I’m guessing it’s the same muscle as the chicken tender, which is part of the breast.
That is correct. It’s a long strip of white meat hidden under the breast, near the breastbone. Just like chicken and duck.
Unless you make turkey mole, or one of our favorites, sopa de lima.
I like to splurge on a locally raised fresh, free-range turkey. Tonight I will make stock, then a wild rice stuffing (haven’t decided what else will go into it: mushrooms? dried fruit? definitely garden herb), plus a batch of herb compound butter with rosemary, sage, and thyme from the garden. Tomorrow I will do the pie early, then the turkey will get the breast skin separated from the meat and slathered with the herb butter underneath the skin. (First I need to hack off a drumstick, though, for a friend with a serious dairy allergy - his will probably get basted with herb oil instead of butter.) Sometimes I have roasted the turkey breast-don for the first half of cooking time, but I prefer the butter treatment. Stuffing goes inside the bard. Basting with more herb butter throughout.
Huh, this thread is the first time I’ve ever heard anyone claim that the “tender” isn’t part of the “breast”. But i guess times change, and terminology changes.
I’m not “claiming” that at all; of course it’s part of the breast. Tenderloins are attached to the breast meat on the underside of the cut. Take a poultry breast, flip it over and there’s a strip of meat there you can slice off. That’s the tenderloin.
I can’t explain it any better than that, so I’m going to quit now and go get my turkey started - it’s got to sit in buttermilk overnight.
This year I’m using the age-old technique of giving birth to a son who loves to cook 30-odd years ago. The prep takes quite a while but once done it’s the easiest way to make Thanksgiving turkey.
I prefer dark meat, and falling off the bone doesn’t offend me at all. The problem, for others, is that I risk over cooking the white meat, but it’s not a problem for me because I chop up the white meat anyway and make a turkey salad out of it that lasts me for weeks. My recipe for salad is simple: since I don’t like mayonnaise, instead I use yogurt, and put in the mixing bowl chopped up red onion, apples, curry powder and anything I have handy that seems like it would be tasty. If I chop up the white meat fine enough, the wet mix makes it palatable (if a little bland, which is my complaint about white meat generally).
The chick peas are soaking, then I’ll gently simmer them for an hour. Afterwards we’ll dig out the food processor and prep the peas in batches for the smoky umami veg loaf with a maple glaze. Cook it today and slide it in the oven with the frozen Turkey breast tomorrow.
The Turkey breast goes on the oven frozen comes out moist and tender in a couple hours.
No carcasses here.
I’m not doing the turkey this year, but… in times past I rubbed the turkey all over with butter, inside outside under wings, you name it. A bunch of butter. Then I use my turkey rub, which is salt, pepper, garlic powder, rosemary, onion powder if I have it, poultry seasoning, or sage, paprika, parsley, etc. I put a little bit of water in the bottom of the pan, stuff the turkey with an orange, an apple, and some celery, then put a tent of aluminum foil on him and bake, yada yada. Sometimes I baste sometimes I don’t, and I take the foil off in the last hour or two to get him nice and brown. That’s it really. Cooking a turkey ain’t rocket science.
Agree with @slicedalone that turkey is best slow and low.
I always cut off the dark meat and roast it separately coated with poultry seasoning and olive oil and on a rack so it can drip. Not only do I not have to worry about 160 vs 180 and possible different cooking times, but I’ve had non-dark meat eaters try it and talk about how good the prep is.
Then cut out the back and spatchcock the breast OR cut the breast off the bone which I’m doing on one turkey so I can grill it. Note: we have never done stuffing but always dressing. So if you like eating seasoned bread out of a turkey’s butt, this method will not work for you
That’s interesting. I think I’ll try that. The dry brining method I use does something similar, letting the turkey dry out overnight after washing the salt off.
Adam Ragusa suggests leaving it in the refrigerator overnight to dry out, but I think his concern is drying out the skin specifically so it cooks up all crispy.
Note that 40 deg F - 140 is the danger zone for bacteria growth. Restaurants aren’t allowed to let raw meat sit at this temperature for more than an hour or two, for good reason.
I do know that, but things spoil MUCH more slowly at 50F than at 70F, and honestly, they spoil enormously faster at 75F than at 68F.
I’m careful to pasteurize the meat when i cook it (lots of temperature checks) but i also have an excellent sense of taste, and can tell when meat begins to go off, and I’ve never had a problem with that.
Turkeys are huge, and take a long time to warm up, which is why i do it overnight. I like to leave smaller roasts (including a chicken, unless it’s getting close to going bad) on the counter for an hour or so before roasting for the same reason. But that’s too warm to leave a turkey out overnight, the exterior might spoil before the interior warms at all.
And yes, i know that some pathogens have no distinctive flavor or odor. But just like the cheap check of water safety is to count (harmless) coliform bacteria, because they are an indicator of contamination, ordinary spoilage, which you can feel and smell, is a decent indicator of whether a piece of meat has been out too long.
Also, restaurants, which might feed immune compromised people, and which have a ton going on with many people sharing responsibility, really do need tighter rules than home kitchens. I volunteer at a commercial kitchen (sort of a meals on wheels) and I’m certified as a commercial food handler. I follow all the commercial kitchen rules at the commerical kitchen. I also would have passed the certification test without having done the training, although it’s set up so you can’t even try. 
Sorry, i suspect that came off a lot more aggressive than i intended. I was mostly surprised at the internet descriptions which seem to imply that only the outer muscle is the “breast”, and the inner muscle is a different thing. Anyway, now i know. A turkey tender would make a nice family meal.
I tried to do that, but it didn’t quite come out that way. Congrats to you. 
I’m not a particular turkey fan,but I will typically choose dark meat over white. And I always choose dark meat chicken over white. Just much better, IMO. But I guess it’s good different people like different things.
The idea isn’t that the meat is going to spoil in those overnight hours, it’s that you’re actively culturing colonies of pathogens which you’re then going to feed people. Despite then cooking the pathogens until they’re hopefully harmless, it’s better not to grow and cook and serve E. coli et al in the first place. But if you’re comfortable with that, so be it.
Brine the bird, substituting unfiltered not-from-concentrate apple juice for the water and add whole allspice, cloves, a diced sweet onion, a habdful or orange slices, and lots of rosemary. Leave in brine overnight. On Thanksgiving morning drain the brine, rinse the bird, put in a roasting pan. Loosly stuff with diced onions and apples. Pour in a bottle of sauvignon blanc and sprinkle over the liquid a generous teaspoon of chicken bullion, stir a bit to mix. Add the neck to the liquid. Add some fresh sage. Rub melted Kerrygold over and and under the skin as far as I can get.
Roast until done. The resulting pan drippings, which have the most exquisite taste, make a great gravy. Serve with homemade cranberry sauce (use orange juice instead of water).
I love chicken drumsticks and thighs, I cook them in the air fryer and they are just scrumptious! I don’t care all much for white meat chicken… My point previously was, we looked forward to white turkey breast sandwiches, with the works, after Thanksgiving, but as stated, Mr. S. used it all up for himself. The gamey underdone slimy dark turkey meat left over was OK in soup or something. But not in a sandwich. White turkey breast on marble rye, with cranberry sauce, dressing, lettuce and mayonnaise.
I still really don’t get it. If someone is in the household and there are family leftovers (not a roommate situation where everyone has their own food) then anyone who wants it eats it until it’s gone. Unless it’s only enough for one meal that you all plan to eat together, it’s first come, first serve.
I also, as I said, don’t think dark meat turkey is slimy or gamey.
Admittedly, in my house there was enough turkey left that one person couldn’t eat so much turkey in one sitting that there wouldn’t be enough left for anyone else to have a sandwich.