Don’t forget the celery! I have never had grapes, raisins, or craisins in a Waldorf salad, but why not? I would choose the craisins for a seasonal flair.
I have had it with raisins, but I think craisins would be much better.
Here’s what drives me crazy: Back in the day, no one worried about salmonella, but now you have to wash you’re hands every time you tough the damn bird. Anyone got a good system for dealing with this? I almost wish I had two sinks, side-by-side; one for the bird and one to keep washing my hands. Or should I just say ef it, I’m not going to worry.
I’ve mentioned this in other threads, but we don’t do turkey. Being all ABCs, we have Chinese food (not the takeout kind, we cook it). We have a couple of roasted ducks, pork belly, fried oysters, whole fried fish, all sorts of unusual and exotic vegetables, a bunch of other strange items my mom still won’t tell me what they are…
I may be in the minority here, but turkey just isn’t that good; at least not nearly good enough to go to as much trouble as people seem to go to for it to be worthwhile. I just don’t get it. If you’re going to all that trouble, wouldn’t you rather have something good?
We do go to the trouble to make something that’s actually good. It’s called turkey. Millions of people love it.
Millions of people love cake, too. They are all wrong.
Turkey takes a long time to cook, but prep time is a breeze. Stick in the oven, watch football or whatever, and take it out when it’s done. What “trouble”?
And besides a great meal, you get turkey leftovers, and the best soup you can imagine.
Turkey is like chicken, only twice as good.
It’s just boring. Perhaps everyone who’s ever made turkey for me was doing it wrong, or badly, but I’ve never tasted any turkey that makes me want to keep having it.
Sucks to be you, I guess.
Do you like chicken? A turkey, cooked right, tastes similar to chicken only much richer.
Maybe if you didn’t grow up eating it, it’s just something you’re not used to.
Dark meat chicken is lovely. Chicken breast is just as boring and bland as turkey to me. And it seems to me that people go to great lengths to get the turkey breast “right,” but in the process end up ruining the dark meat.
It’s identical to the way I feel about cake: it’s not that I necessarily dislike turkey, or that turkey is inherently bad, it’s that 99% of all turkey I’ve had has been not good; at best, it’s just not bad.
To contrast that, I’ve never had a bad experience with a crispy, roasted duck, or a good, fried whole fish. Even the worst duck I’ve ever had was still worlds better than the best turkey I’ve ever eaten.
I heard a suggestion on the radio just yesterday. The big problem is not with the bird itself giving anyone salmonella, because that or any other germs will be killed during roasting. The problem is cross-contamination. The guy on the radio said that you should NOT wash the turkey. This just splashes any contamination around. Have your materials at hand, (skewers, string, stuffing, etc.). Then just put the turkey in the pan and do what you have to do, and then wash your hands and everything you touched.
I have to disagree about the brining. I’m with Alton Brown (Food Network) that brining is key. I know this is controversial. I think brining results in the moistest most flavorful turkey ever.
As for dessert - I am so bored with pumpkin pie (I’ve tried bringing pumpkin cheesecake or an apple/pear cobbler) but my friends always request plain old pumpkin pie.
With all due respect - once we were forced to do the turkey in a bag by a meddling mother-in-law. The turkey was moist, I’ll give it that, but it might as well have been poached. It had none of the flavor of a roasted turkey, in fact it was tasteless.
For Thanksgiving this year it will just be my husband, my toddler and myself, so of course I have enough food to feed 15 people.:smack:
I was at the store repeating “just a small celebration this year” over and over, but before I knew it the cart was full and we are prepped for turkey, ham, rolls, mashed potatoes, green beans, brussel sprouts, carrots, cranberry sauce, onion rings, and three kinds of pie. We will be eating Thanksgiving leftovers until Christmas.
having raised my own turkeys to eat, I am very fussy with any storebought bird [anything from rock cornish game hens up through the various forms of chicken, duck, goose to turkey] the first thing that gets done is washing and examining the bird, and grabbing the kitchen needlenose pliers and pulling out any remaining quills. I can not stand pinfeathers in my crispy bird skin and Ghu knows the autopluckers are not thorough. The little pinfeathers can act as a reservoire for crud and I would rather not cook them in with my food. This is also the perfect time to trim off any excess fat deposits and cut off the 2 end wing segments, the necks, giblets and such that I use to make stock, and salt and pepper the cavities.
I prefer to make dressing outside the bird, it makes it cook faster, and using the trim to augment chicken stock with turkey flavor and extra fat helps make it just as moist and tasty as the stuff cooked inside the bird. You can be making the stock and dressing while the turkey is in roasting. You take the extra stock and use it along with the thickening agent when turning the drippings in the pan into gravy. I tend to use the classic whole milk and all purpose wheat flour, but I have also used corn starch and rice starch to allow for allergies. I like to be condensing down the pan drippings and extra stock to concentrate the flavor.
Yes, there is a reason my family is happy that I took over cooking when my Mom retired from it about 15 years ago 
I know all the favorite recipes too 
With all due respect, I think you cooked it wrong. I’ve been using the bag for years, and the turkey tastes great.
Did you make sure to make some good sized slits in the bag to let some of the steam escape?
No, we didn’t know to make slits, this was a one off and it was not good. Is there any way to get a brown crispy skin on a bagged turkey or is that something you should not expect?
The one time I made the turkey, I was worried about dried-out breast meat because it was a hippie free range bird with no brining or any other additives. I roasted it the first half of the cooking time breast-side down, and it came out fabulous and moist.
So we are frying the bird this year - my brother got a turkey fryer and wants to do the bird … we got the smallest turkey we could find this year because Mom will not be with us. Not sure but this is the first time I have ever seen an 8 pound bird in a store:eek: I do hope it turns out well, but I am thrilled my brother is starting to take an interest in cooking. I hooked him up with Foodgawker so he can find recipes to try. He already has a bookmark to Pioneer Woman, he liked some of the recipes we have made previously from her site like the smashed flat potatoes.