Turkey III

I'm pretty comfortable cooking a turkey by now. It's not that it's super difficult, but it is sort of easy to mess up. I'm always happy with my results, moist meat, crispy skin.

This year it was a 18lb bird. Which is a good size to have plenty of leftovers. Could go a bit smaller even.

This was my first time buying a Butterball. It was on sale for $23. It turned out great, but really no better than any other brand.

Make sure you thaw it about 6 days in advance.

My Method:
The night before, take out the crap, wash it, leave it in the fridge overnight exposed.
In the morning, put it in the roasting pan, rub with some oil, season with salt, pepper, chicken rub.
Breast side up, legs to the back of the oven.
Roast at 500F for 30 minutes. Then drop it to 350. For an 18lb bird, it needed an additional 3 hours at 350.
I covered the white meat with foil when I was happy with the color.
When it's done, transfer to the cutting board and cover it loosely with foil again to let it rest and retain heat.
That's it.

My carving job this year was less focused on presentation, and more focused on not carving more than I needed. Hours later, I carved the rest so that the leftovers could be as moist as possible.

My Second Turkey

So last year was my first turkey. This makes two.

I did things a bit differently this year. 

I got a 20 lb bird and put in the fridge to thaw Friday night.

Brining is all the rage but I read this year that you shouldn't brine a turkey that comes injected with a saline solution, as that is already pre-brined. Of course, all the frozen turkeys I've ever seen are like that. So I'm not sure how everyone and their mom is talking about brining--is everyone really paying big bucks for a fresh turkey?

I think this turkey was around $14 and it was a Honeysuckle premium brand and huge. 

Brining is a pain in the ass, spilling liquid everywhere. Plus, I heard that trash bags aren't good to use as they can leach chemicals, so I didn't really have a plan for doing it in the fridge anyways. 

So no brine. Also, no roasting bag. Going old school. But with an Alton Brown twist. 

The night before I opened the turkey, pulled out the crap, and let it sit in the fridge overnight exposed. The idea was to let the skin get nice and dry so it would crisp better. 

In the morning, I pulled it out, rubbed canola oil all over, salt, pepper, a little herbed chicken rub. Put it in the oven with the legs to the back. And put in at 500 degrees. For half an hour. That's the Alton Brown method.

After 30 minutes, drop the temp to 350 and add foil to cover the white meat. At this point the turkey's already got a nice color. I roasted it for another 3 hours. I did flip it over with twenty minutes to go to brown the bottom a bit. 

I pulled it out before the thermometer popped up as Mr. Brown says you can't trust it. That by the time it's popped it's already drying out. 

Let it rest for a long time, then carve. Then top it with hot cider/butter/honey glaze right before serving. 

Turned out excellent, without the need to brine. Easy peasy. 

Though I do need a roasting pan, as the shallow pan I used was overflowing with grease and burning on the bottom of the oven, making a bit of smoke. So yeah. Turkey was great though.

my first turkey

So this was my first time cooking a full turkey. I bought a 15.5 pound bird. I put it in the fridge to thaw on Sunday night. The package said 2-3 days, but it was still partly frozen when I got it out Wednesday night.

I made a brine: water, salt, brown sugar, some all-purpose rub, rosemary and sage. I had to keep it in the fridge but that was a challenge. I couldn't get the bird fully submerged even though I had enough liquid--it was the angle and the fridge space. And even double bagged, when I opened the fridge at 8am, a couple cups of brine fell on the floor. I would be better off using a bunch of trash bags and putting it in a cooler.

I cooked it in an oven bag with a couple apples and some onion inside. Canola oil on the outside. I cooked in the bag for 2.5 hours, and then about another hour until the thermometer popped up.

Then I waited an hour and carved it like so.

And then I made a simple glaze with some honey, apple cider and butter. Probably should have used less cider and butter to keep it thicker and stickier.

All in all, a pretty good success.

turkey talk

I suppose this could be a regular feature called "meat zone" or something, but whatever. I have a lot of thoughts on turkey right now. I think it gets a bad wrap. I say that because when someone says "turkey" I think bland, weak, no flavor crap.

But it shouldn't be like that. I love thanksgiving turkey when done right. I've had plenty a bland, dry turkey while watching the Lions lose. But I've also had it moist, seasoned, delicious. What's even better is the post-Thanksgiving sandwich leftovers. Usually I just go with turkey on mayo with cracked black pepper, a little mustard. You could add pickles or a cheese like provolone (cheddar goes better with chicken or roast beef) and toast the bread if you want. But that's a damn good sandwich.

So why then, is the sliced turkey sandwich, what people order year round, the worst goddamn thing in the world? You got to Subway, you try and make it yourself with Hillshire Farm Deli Select sliced turkey, and it tastes like shitty nothing. It's TERRIBLE. I told someone how good Bellacino's sandwiches were. They went and got the turkey sandwich and said it was just okay. Well of course it's not great, you ordered the wrong fucking hoagie.

To correct this injustice to turkey, I recently bought a pre-roasted 1/2 turkey breast for 9.99 at Trader Joe's. I've looked at roasting my own turkey breast before (as I've done with a whole chicken) but it seems that even just the breast usually costs around $15. I suppose it's a fine value for the meat, but that's a mental price barrier that's a little steep for me. But at Trader Joe's I was looking at 25oz of roast turkey for $10. Since I usually pay around $4 for 9oz of sliced ham, I went ahead and got the turkey.

It's delicious. I've had 3 sandwiches so far and should be able to get about 6 more out of it. So how does slicing turkey turn a delicious meat into a slimy, flavorless, soft mush? I don't know. Ham tastes better sliced thin and piled high. But turkey? Eesh.

That was all I was going to say about turkey, but then I was doing some research to find anyone else that agrees with me that sliced turkey sucks. I came across a recipe for thanksgiving turkey jamabalaya which caught me eye. Except if you have to roast the turkey first which is a laborious process it seems to be adding a lot of work. Perhaps it would make a nice Thanksgiving side dish if you used pre-roasted breast to cut down on prep time.

And then I came across this page of layered Thanksgiving leftover sandwiches. As I said before I'm usually a simple leftover sandwich guy. But if I were to think about such things, I wouldn't be a fan of cranberries or mashed potatoes on mine. Instead I would go with turkey, dressing (aka stuffing, but we don't stuff ours) and a little bit of brown sugar sweet potatoes. Mmmm.