12 hours to influence how I make my first turkey ever and hopefully not give 14 people food poisoning while at the same time not replicating this experience: "Terrible Turkey"
There was some Martha Stewart recipe a ways back that called for draping a cheesecloth over the bird after soaking it in various flavorings. According to family friends, all this results in is smoking cheesecloth. Avoid.
Eat steak. (For serious, it's too late to wet brine, but you can dry brine it: salt the turkey under the skin all over and let it rest overnight. Not as moist as wet brine, but a lot more flavorful).
Tofurky sucks balls, get this instead for your vegetarian friends and they will be _very_ happy: www.quorn.us/products/44/roast/ I shudder to think what unholy monster could choke down a fat wad of tofurkey without deep pain and suffering. I sure as shit want nothing to do with it ever again. Switched to Quorn a few years back for thanksgiving and it was -- by comparison -- like my tastebuds had all gotten off simultaneously. It was just so nice (as a vegetarian) to get _actual food_ on thanksgiving rather than topunishment.
Not a fan of Tofurky either. Quorn may be better but it's not vegan and I've known people to get mild allergic reactions to the mycoprotein. Trying this one this time around since I've had decent luck with Gardein products in the past. I'd like to try this Unturkey recipe some time when I'm feeling ambitious and have other veg*ns around to share with. Honestly many years I avoid all this fake meat garbage and just make a nice Indonesian meal with tempeh or something. To bring this somewhat back on topic Ozzo is right about the dry brining above, according to Kenji at Serious Eats. I love the Food Lab series on that site, even if it pertains to things I don't eat, because SCIENCE.
I like to go to the local Honeybaked Ham and buy some delicious ham and turkey. As much as I love cooking most of the year, the amount of effort (and fear of disaster) associated with preparing the main course of a feast detracts from the holiday for me. But yeah, you probably should have wet brined it a while ago. Don't go too light on the salt - that's a lot of meat, and meat needs salt.
Putting butter, seasoning, and edible flavorings between the skin and breast will help. Also using fresh mayonnaise with flavorings (and seasoning) on the skin will give you a flavorful and golden crispy skin as well. Lastly, put a bouquet of flavorings (these should be the same or pair well with your other flavorings) in the cavity while roasting (and liquid) will help keep the meat moist and infuse it with flavor. The best way of course is to wet brine the turkey for a day or 2 (depending on size), but as mentioned that point as passed.
This year we're spatchcocking two smaller turkeys instead of doing one big one. Crispy skin all over! Everything's done at the same time like twice as fast as normal! Also, you get to say 'spatchcock' a lot, and that is not a benefit to be underestimated.
So: it seems that my parent's new convection oven is really good at cooking things--the turkey is done now, about two hours in advance of the rest of dinner. Advice? Will covering it and keeping it in a 200 degree oven for that long work, or is it doomed to dry out?
Per Kendra, your two best choices are to put it back in the oven at 200 degrees (with a pan of water on the bottom rack of the oven to keep it moist) or, if your oven needs to be used, wrap it in foil with some water sprayed on it, then wrap that whole thing in some kitchen towels (I assume home towels would be fine), then, if you have one, put it in a cooler (I think one of the foam ones would be fine but I don't know). I hope that helps.
It does, thanks. We don't need the oven that it is in, at least for now. What do folks think about putting the cover on the roasting pan, keeping the oven shut, and just killing the heat? Or will it cool off too much?
You could make a foil bowl and pour water into it and then put that in the enclosed roasting space with the turkey if you wanted. I'm not sure if that would keep the turkey as moist as the other method would, but it'd definitely be better than no water. I doubt it'd get too cold, but that's not really my area of knowledge, and Kendra's making turkeys at work all day so getting hold of her is pretty sporadic at best. :( Sorry I can't help with this part, Ben.
No problem. There's plenty of basting juice in the bottom of the roasting pan, so I'm not worried about keeping the air inside the pan moist.
Spatchcocked turkey: holy crap was that good. Super tender white meat, juicy and tender dark meat, perfectly golden and crispy skin, and putting the bird on a rack above the stuffing meant that juices dripped down into the stuffing and made it even tastier than usual in-bird stuffing. We'll definitely be doing that again.
Thanksgiving was seven weeks ago, but here's a present anywhoo: Happy thanksgiving, American friends!
According to this chart I have only two options: Use a shotgun or decipher an incomprehensible squigglefest.
I accidentally cooked mine upside down. I blame my wife, because she can't read maps. When flipped (carefully) for carving, the breast was this horrid, white, wet, shriveled hot mess. It was moist and delicious, my best bird ever.
