Hey all, I have a turkey defrosting that I am going to fix on Saturday. I’m gonna do the meal, just not today. (I like the meal, don’t like the holiday. Go figure).
I’m a damn good cook. But I’m 42 years old and never made a turkey in my life. I know how to make great beef, pork, ham, steak…but a gigantic bird strikes me as a recipe for dry meat.
The only way I’ve ever managed to make moist chicken is on a rotisserie on the BBQ. I don’t want, nor can I, BBQ my turkey, so I’m soliticiting tips.
My gut instinct is to do to it what I do to other kinds of meats I want to be tender and moist: cook it very, very slowly. But I’m told that won’t work for poultry. Anyone know for sure? And what about cooking it breast side down? Does it make a difference?
I’ve also heard about cooking it in a paper bag, using water somehow…I’ll listen to anything.
One method is to soak the bird in brine (not sure the ratio of salt:water) for 24 hours. We had that kind tonight, and it was so moist it melted in the mouth.
A good brine recipe, found here at the Food TV website.
I wanted to try the brine method this Thanksgiving, but waited too long and had to skip it.
I did the 500 degrees for a half-hour down to 300 for a couple more with the tin foil method and it came out better than I had ever expected. Turkey just about fell off the bird. MMmmm.
Before you do anything, be sure to remove any quills and burn off the pin feathers from the wing.
I always rub the bird with soy. Then I massage a mixture of kosher salt, sage, black pepper, ground rosemary and butter into the skin, I place an inch of water in the pan. I put ground thyme and sage and a bit more soy in the pan and baste the turkey every 30 minutes with this liquid.
Instead of the butter massage you can just wrap the turkey in bacon. Different flavor but it really made the skin moist.
And it came out absolutely perfectly. I changed the seasonings a little, omitting the cinamon and allspice and adding crushed juniper berries, but it was far and away the best, juciest and most flavorful turkey I’ve either cooked or eaten. (And I’ve done a lot of both.) This is without a doubt my standard recipe from now on.
Thank you, Zenster and everyone else! Great, great tips! now I just have to hope my bird is defrosted by tomorrow so I can do the brine thang.
And that does sound vaguely obscene, doesn’t it? :o
So it would seem.
Ya know…I’ve actually gone to the trouble of counting. As of this morning, there were 105 election-related threads that have been active since Nov 8. I have been responsible for the most, 9. Maybe 10. However, that leaves 95 or 96 started by others. Many by people who started as many as 6. There were very many that were repetitive threads (often with nearly identical subject lines!) , and lots that quickly slipped into oblivion. My threads, on the other hand, usually get dozens of posts within hours and generally stay active for awhile. People are free to ignore them and let them die…but they don’t.
So tell me, Zenster…why am I getting so much goddamn grief about it? Do I have a pixel quota that I have exceeded? What exactly is my crime? I was always under the impression that the ability to create OP’s that inspire others to participate was a positive thing.
Or is it just that a small but noisy cluster of Dopers can’t stand me and delight in seizing upon any reason available to give me shit?
Ok, yes, you can soak in brine- but in any case, as you take the (hopefully) still very slightly frozen turkey out of the fridge, you will wash it off in COLD water, then let it soak in COLD rather salty water (helps stop baterial hrowth, also) for the 30 minutes+ while you are getting the stufing ready. Just put a lot of salt in there- no need to measure. In your average sink, I might say 8TBLspoons+.
Next, make sure your stuffing is very moist. Add a liitle extra butter & broth.
Then, and here is the big secret- bake it UPSIDE down, for half the time. Also, note, if you like a 350* oven, use a 325* oven here. Then, at the halfway point, turn it rightside up, and the oven to 375*. It will brown very nicely then. And, baste, baste, baste. If you need to, melt a little butter with some fresh finely chopped sage, strain the sage, and baste with the sage butter. Mmmmm.
I started helping my Mom with the turkey since i was 8, and that is a lot of turkey experiance.
Don’t worry Stoid, it just seems that way when every other thread of yours deals with the same sort of subject. Personally, I feel that this kind of interchange is healthy beyond belief.
[subliminable blather]
Hang in there and may [sup]Gore[/sup] the [sup]Gore[/sup] better [sup]Gore[/sup] man [sup] Gore[/sup] win.
I’m gonna have to disagree with you on this one Daniel. Alton Brown, on the Good Eats show linked to above, got pretty worked up about this very issue. He staunchly disagrees with the approach you propose.
In fact, he almost got a bit emotional as he began to describe the correct way to cook the bird. Basically, he doesn’t like your approach because the low temperature and time suggestions will tend to dry the bird out. He’s also against moving it around during cooking because it makes for a poorer presentation- the bird gets ‘smashed up’ in the process.
Besides the brine method mentioned, Alton suggests, nay, demands, that a correctly cooked bird should follow a specific plan of attack.
He first proposes a ‘shock’ kind of approach to brown it. You put the bird in a 500 degree oven for about a half-hour or so, or until properly browned. This will encapsulate the flavors in the bird. Then, place a pre-formed double layer of tin foil over and around the breast to stop the browning process from continuing. At this point, turn the oven down to about 300 and leave it there.
Whatever you do, don’t open the oven from this point on, it will only cool the oven down and extend the cooking time, thus, drying the bird out even more. Besides, he contends, basting does nothing to help tenderness and flavor.
He goes on to say that the bird needs to be on a flat rack, as opposed to a grasping type rack, and it should never, ever, under any conditions, be basted- once again, in the long run it hurts rather than helps.
Personaly, I have to say he presented some good arguments for why his approach is better than the others. I was watching his show, quite by accident, the other day when I happened to catch his turkey tips. Seeing how emotional and passionate the guy was about all this, I decided, actually, I felt compelled, to give it a shot.
As I previously mentioned, I missed the deadline to try the brine method, but I did try the other methods he talked about. I have to say, Alton is right on the money on this one. It was probably the best bird I’ve ever had. Moist, juicy, and damn tasty.
Give it a shot, if it works for you as well as it did for myself and the other poster, you’ll be quite pleased.
BTW- I have to say that after the success of the turkey thing, I’ll be looking more closely for his shows from now on.
One further note- It’s taken me about 45 friggin minutes to type, correct, verify, re-type, and preview this Goddamned post. Cook book writing is not in my future.
Defroft in the fridge, not in the open. Allow 24 hrs/10 Lbs
Cook in a shallow pan. If you have it, elevate it slightly on a wire rack inside the pan. Never a deep pan. Do not add water to the pan, or it will steam the meat and disintegrate it.
Prepare turkey without stuffing inside. Stuffing can cause salmonella poisoning, and it adds a great deal of time to the overall cooking. This will cause the meat to dry out while the stuffing is reaching the safe temperature. Never stuff the turkey.
Cover the bird with a buttered cheesecloth during the cooking, removing it for the last 1/2 hour. No basting will be needed, except for a bit of butter on the cheesecloth as it dries out. Brown scorching of the cloth is normal.
Don’t bother basting. It cannot penetrate the meat enough to be worth the time it takes to do it. The cheesecloth will do the work for you.
Never carve the bird directly after cooking. Allow at least 30-40 minutes setting time. Heat drives the juices away from the surface, it it takes about 30-40 minutes for them to redistribute themselves back through the meat.
That’s about all I can remember right now. Good luck!
I’ve been making the Thanksgiving turkey since I was about 10 years old. (Mom was sick one day, so I gave it a try. Been making them ever since!) No turkey this year, as I was alone; but when I make the turkey in a (Reynolds) roasting bag it comes out perfectly and I get lots of compliments. I like to disobey the directions and pack the bird pretty solidly with stuffing, but they turkey has never been overcooked or undercooked. Cooking in a bag also seems to reduce roasting times substantially. The bird comes out nice’n’juicy.
Anecdote: My mom made a turkey last year. She liked the turkey I made (in the roasting bag), so she decided to try it. Ufortunately she accidentally put it in the pan upside-down. Bad news: The breast wasn’t browned. Good news: It was the juiciest turkey I’d ever eaten.
I also did not cook a turkey this year (working) but I’ll second Johnny L.A.'s cooking bag. I’ll never do a turkey without one for all the reasons he cited plus a biggie - cleanup is so easy. (I too pack the stuffing in there.) And once the turkey is in the oven, you can forget about it until it comes out which leaves you time to do all those last minute fixings.
I agree with Johnny L. A. and brach…
There’s no easier or quicker way of getting a perfect and juicy turkey than the Reynolds cooking bags. They come in different sizes and also work great for baked chicken and roasts. Very moist.
I defrost my turkey in the sink. It takes about 12 hours so I do it overnight while I sleep.
To prepare:
Remove the bag of internal organs, clean the turkey with scalding hot water inside and out - no soap… just the hot water.
Place in a large enough pan to hold the turkey and a large amout of drippings. Generally I use a pan deep enough to hold about 5 cups of drippings, which fills the pan about half way with a 12 - 16 pound turkey.
I take one pound of butter, coat the sides of the turkey and the inside and then season with sage, oregano, basil, garlic salt, and celery salt. I pour 5 cups of water in, and then set the turkey in the oven at 350.
Every 15 - 30 minutes I baste the turkey with the drippings, sometimes adding more butter to the pan. In about 8 hours the turkey will be done.
Take out turkey and pour the drippings into a large pan. Keep the drippings over a low flame and slowly add flour as you mix with a whisk. When the drippings start to solidify, add pepper to taste and you’ve got gravy.
I don’t add water while cooking. After the turkey is done I open the cooking bag and suck out the juices with a baster, taking care to draw from near the bottom. I put the juices into a large (4 cup) measuring cup (or two, depending on the size of the turkey) and allow it to sit. The grease will rise to the surface. I draw a cup or so of the liquid with a baster, taking care to draw from below the grease, and put it into a saucepan. I add flower and whisk it until it is smooth, then add about a quart of milk. Add a little salt, some pepper, and the cut-up giblets. Simmer until thickened, stirring frequently. If it starts to get too thick, add more drippings.
By transferring the juices to a measuring cup and letting it sit for a few minutes, you can avoid having to eat all of that rendered fat.
Dang. Now I wish I had cooked a turkey. (Too bad they don’t make single-person size.)
