Cooking a Turkey

[GoSkins0721]

I have never brined a turkey and have had mixed results over the years (too dry, okay, just right). But that was with commercial turkey (Butterball, store brand, etc.). A couple of years ago I decided to try a "straight from the farm" organic turkey. I had a turkey (15-18 lbs.) shipped to my house the day before Thanksgiving the last 2 years. It was, by far, the most moist, tender turkey we've ever eaten. I didn't cook it any differently from the commercial turkey I've cooked in prior years. But it was incredibly moist. And the amazing thing was, there was very, very little fat at the bottom of the pan when it finished cooking. Amazing.

We had a turkey on year that was a store-brand (Ukrop's for those of you from Richmond) that was the most gawd-awful, toughest turkey anyone in the family had ever eaten. It must have been an old "Tom" turkey. It was nasty. Never bought another one of those.

This year I bought another organic turkey from a different Virgina farm (talked about in the book "The Omnivore's Dilemma"). I started buying some of our meat from there and decided to try their turkey this year. But, I'm saving it for Christmas.

[Jumbo]

What's this thread about?

[zoony]

If it's a local bird, it won't have the factory saline injections, nor will it be as tender or artificially juicy as a butterball type turkey. Brining will do those things for you, while adding flavor. It's a must do. It's the difference between putting salt on after you cook something and taste it right away or salting it before you cook it, so it works into the dish and tastes seasoned.

There are some great brine recipes out there.

Here is a great article against it.

Let me start this off by saying I don't brine my meat. Ever. Not for Thanksgiving, not for my Sunday supper, and certainly not for a quick weeknight meal. This post is about the reasons why.

It seems to me that as little as 15 years ago, dry turkey was a given. The yearly Thanksgiving ritual at my family's table did not, include any ill-mannered offspring crying out "DAAAAaaaad, Mom ruined the turkey again,"—turkey wasn't something that could be ruined. It was dry, tough, and stringy, and that was a fact of life.

Then, about a decade ago, brining entered the scene.* Thanks to an overnight soak in a salt water solution, gone were the days of dry breast meat and extra servings of gravy. I, for one, welcomed our new moist-breasted overlords. Even my mother could throw a turkey in the oven and pull out something remotely edible a few hours later. It was positively magical!

http://www.seriouseats.com/2012/11/t...nksgiving.html

I'm pretty sure I told you about brining two years ago and you argued with me that fried was the way to go. If I want so lazy I would find the thread

[GoSkins0721]

What's this thread about?

Sorry, didn't mean to derail the thread.
I was trying to make the point that buying a good quality turkey will have the biggest impact on how it tastes after it's been cooked (brine, no-brine, fried, basted, cooked-in-a-bag, etc.)

[Skinlanta]

Is stuffing the Turkey vastly overrated?

NO!!! I dont consider it a true turkey without stuffing cooked inside, and im not talking about this southern "dressin" crap....real stuffing, made from real bread left out night prior to harden...

[Botched]

You should try oyster stuffing. It's the bomb. Replace the sausage with a pint of oysters.

To make my stuffing, I usually buy the bags of cubed bread for stuffing.
Cut up a small onion and 3 stalks of celery and then saute the onion and celery in butter for 10 minutes until tender.
Mix that up with the cubed bread. Add sage and rosemary for seasoning.
Then add the pint of oysters. Some receipes suggest using chicken broth to moisten the bread cubes. Don't do that. When you pour in the pint of oysters, use the water that is in pint.
Bake for 35 minutes uncovered at 375 degrees.

I know this post is a year old, but I'm thinking about doing an oyster stuffing this year.

When you put the oysters in, do you cut them up or anything? Do you cook them in any way before adding them to the stuffing?

[Forehead]

I've still never cooked a turkey and that won't be changing this year. When we host people, my wife and her mother always seem to take over the kitchen, which is fine with me, there's football to be watched. Two Thanksgivings ago was the worst. I was several beers into the day, perfectly content to watch football from the couch with everyone...and the turkey is finished cooking. For some reason, I got nominated to carve the thing, since it was my house and apparently, that's the "man of the house's" job by tradition.

What a ****-show that turned out to be. Seemed like no matter where I jabbed at the thing, I was hitting bone or something tough. Someone produced an electric carver which worked better, and everyone got their meat, but really, I would have been perfectly happy to continue consuming beers and watching football from the couch. I suppose we'll have to host again soon and I should probably learn how to do that properly.

[Kosher Ham]

^^^ I have a longer carving knife. It works perfectly, but you also need a good pair of kitchen shears. Until I got the shears, I had no idea how they did it back when I was a kid.

[Forehead]

^^^ I have a longer carving knife. It works perfectly, but you also need a good pair of kitchen shears. Until I got the shears, I had no idea how they did it back when I was a kid.

Part of the problem is that my family didn't do a lot of the "traditional stuff" growing up. For one, my parents divorced when I was 8 or 9 so I was doing the split custody thing. My fathers family mostly lives in PA, my mothers family is mostly from Colorado/New Mexico, so at these holidays, the max number of people in the house might have been 5 or 6 at best, often just 2 or 3. No one was making a giant turkey for something like that. So yeah, never learned how carving a turkey was supposed to go, and when I had to give it a shot, there were a lot of WTF moments.

[DCSaints_fan]

I bought a electric turkey fryer (much safer/easier to clean up) and I am going to try my hand at deep frying this year.

I have heard that brining is pointless when you deep fry, because the hot oil keeps the moisture locked in anyway, so you just defrost, inject and hot dip the bird.

[DM72]

Alton Brown from the food network recommends NOT stuffing the turkey or basting as they increase cooking time, which = dry turkey.

It depends on the turkey. I use a honeysuckle and I stuff mine and it comes out very juicy.

[Kosher Ham]

PH, You need a fork too. Just use the one that you use when grilling, if need be.
The rack and fork will help you keep the balance while cutting.

Then slice away. I thought it was hard too until I actually had the tools, and was forced to do it.
At this point I could go old school and use a regular fork with a steak knife. It would just take longer.

I pulled amd picked (even with the knives) , until I learned from practice. Then with the knives...easy. I can carve it down to the bone now.

[DM72]

I bought a electric turkey fryer (much safer/easier to clean up) and I am going to try my hand at deep frying this year.

I have heard that brining is pointless when you deep fry, because the hot oil keeps the moisture locked in anyway, so you just defrost, inject and hot dip the bird.

Yeah, I have an electric frier too. You'll find it very handy. I actually use mine to deep fry fish quite often.

[KAOSkins]

Fried might be ok for a casual football get together but the smell of a turkey in the oven all day is part of what makes Thanksgiving special in my opinion. Gets the juices flowing even if they're in my mouth and not in the turkey so much - that's what gravy is for. Duh.

[Elessar78]

Alton Brown also says that the stuffing in the birds cavity... you run the risk of salmonella and another kind of bug IF the stuffing doesn't hit 165°.