Uh, guys? I have a problem I’ve never had before. I got this fancy-schmancy organic free range silk sheets bluebirds singing turkey this year, and evidently this kind of rarified animal rates better than a plastic bag to put its innards in.
So after five minutes with my hand up an 18 pound turkey’s ass, I have collected the following:
Neck (surprisingly penis-like)
Liver, in paper packet (thrown away, then hand-escorted to the outside trash after near-miss with cats, EW)
Gizzard, sneakily on the other end
Aren’t I missing the heart? Is there anywhere, uh, else it could be? I mean, it’s kinda dark in there, but you’d think the heart of a giant freaking turkey wouldn’t be easily missable. My folks are no help - Mom’s never done a whole turkey, and the whole turkeys Dad knows had all their parts when he put his hand up the ass.
The more important question is, if there is a heart and I don’t find it before I cook the thing tomorrow, assuming the heart is not in plastic will it be okay? I know the liver would cause problems, but that’s been given a proper burial.
ETA - you guys, my kitchen is a freaking biohazard area. There has got to be raw turkey juice on EVERY possible surface. I think they really ought to give it the Silkwood treatment now. I just can’t think about it too much, seriously, I don’t know where the hell all that juice got to, or came from for that matter.
Sometimes they just aren’t too careful putting things back in. I’ve had missing organs (in my chickens–I think my own are mostly accounted for) and also Big Two-Hearted Chickens from time to time. Even if it is still in there somewhere it won’t hurt anything.
It’s funny, I’d never thought about it before, but somewhere in my brain I’d made the assumption that the organs Tom has now are the organs he had when he pranced along 'neath the bright blue sky. Dad said, “You know, they don’t just kill one turkey at a time and lovingly nestle its heart and stuff back in its rear end.” Huh. Guess they don’t. I mean, obviously.
I don’t use it because I don’t care for liver done seperately and it’s too strongly flavored for gravy. I didn’t let the cats have it because I don’t think they need to develop a taste for raw meat. They might really like it and come after me. (Of course, the orange one is even as we speak licking the other one’s butthole.)
Mostly, it’s even grosser than the other gross things found up a turkey’s ass.
I throw the goodies right in the pan with the turkey or chicken and cook them up, then serve them to the beasties. Hub even gave them the neck meat last week.
For some reason, I always imagined someone with a nice Hungarian screenname to be a little more fond of organ meats.
Anyhow, if you didn’t find it after digging up the turkey for five minutes, I’m pretty sure you didn’t just miss it. I mean, about 15 to 30 seconds of an exploratory sweep in the turkey’s cavity should pretty much give you all it’s going to give you. Even if you did somehow miss it, you’ll be fine. The heart is not that strongly flavored and it won’t spoil your turkey, provided it’s not wrapped in paper or plastic. I don’t even think a missed liver would spoil the turkey but, hey, I like turkey giblet gravy so I like the taste of liver in my turkey, anyway.
Well, the liver was really JAMMED up in there, and I had a hard time finding it, so I was a little concerned. I make giblet gravy, just without the liver. Cook’s Illustrated tosses it, and that’s where I learned to make it.
I’m not actually Hungarian, my SCA persona was back in the day. Budapest is one of my favorite cities, though, does that count?
ETA - might cut off some meat from the neck to give them once I’m done with that part of the gravy - usually I don’t bother cutting the neck up, I just chop up the gizzard and heart and throw them in after they’ve done all their cooking. Right now we’re at the “simmer and skim” stage.
I guess the heart is where ever the lungs, intestinal bits and other viscera are after they process the bird. In a big vat o’guts at the processing plant waiting to become cat food.
Okay I’m on board with leaving the liver out of the giblet gravy (or giblet dressing, if that’s what you do with the giblets).
I can also comprehend not letting the critters get a taste for raw meat (even if it strikes me as just a leeetle more – sheltering – than I would find rational in my own behavior).
But is there any particular reason that cooking the liver with the rest of the giblets, then giving it to the cats would render the gizzard and heart (when it’s there) unfit for human consumption?
I would assume that for someone who doesn’t like the taste of liver, the liver flavor would mingle (and it is a pretty obvious flavor) with the rest of the organs. Unless you cook them separately.
Hey, I just do it the way Cook’s Illustrated tells me to. Yes, if that guy with the bow tie jumped off the bridge, I’d jump too, 'cause he’d also tell me the best bridge to jump off and how they arrived at that decision and some variants of the traditional jump while we’re at it, like maybe the leap or the fall or the swan dive.
And really, the reason I don’t give the cats stuff like that is because hitherto they’ve been pretty good about not robbing the garbage, bugging me while I cook, begging at the table, or counter surfing, and I’d rather they not start. Currently, the only food they really care a lot about is their own cat food, and I like to encourage that - the dog is a pest, the cats are much easier to eat around. They do try to sneak up on macaroni and cheese, though.