Help me cook a turkey
xa52
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Help my gf's parents are arriving at my house tomorrow night, and on Sunday night my gf and I have to prepare some sort of early Thanksgiving feast. I am concerned that I will somehow fuck this up.
If anyone else is in a similar situation, or will be in 3 weeks, we can make this a general help-thanksgiving-wtf-do-i-do thread.
Here's Alton Brown's recipe. Can anyone can point me toward some legit place online where I can watch this episode of Good Eats?
I have 2 concerns- the stuffing and the turkey. I don't know a good stuffing recipe. My family's stuffing involves sausage meat, and it's really good, but I don't think my guests this year are really that into sausage. If you make good stuffing and wouldn't mind sharing the recipe (and if it doesn't have to be shoved into the turkey), please post.
What really concerns me though, is the turkey:
Is an 8lb bird good for 4 people with leftovers? Do turkeys come this small? What if everyone wants white meat? Does the smaller size change any of the cooking times or oven temperatures in the recipe posted above?
Do stores stock fresh turkeys this early before Thanksgiving? If I get a frozen one, I just leave it in the fridge to thaw, right? Some random website said 1 day per 4 pounds to thaw. Does that sound right?
What do I need to do before putting it in the oven? I know there'll probably be some giblets or something in the cavity, and Alton says to tuck the wings. Anything else I need to do? Should I tie the legs or something?
Alton says to brine the turkey, but I simply don't have the facilities for that (no bucket, no room in the fridge, and small home with no basement or cold rooms). With that in mind, should I rub any herbs or spices on the skin with the oil to add flavor, or would it just be a waste? Is there anything else I can do to mitigate the lack of brining?
Is it worth the effort to make the gravy from scratch? I don't want to use a powdered mix, but I'm going to have some other things on my hands.
What tools will I need that aren't in a typical kitchen? I bought a big disposable foil roasting pan. Will I need a rack to put in there? I'm going to buy a probe thermometer, and hopefully I can borrow an electric carving knife. Anything else? Do I need a baster?
Thanks H/A!
If anyone else is in a similar situation, or will be in 3 weeks, we can make this a general help-thanksgiving-wtf-do-i-do thread.
Here's Alton Brown's recipe. Can anyone can point me toward some legit place online where I can watch this episode of Good Eats?
I have 2 concerns- the stuffing and the turkey. I don't know a good stuffing recipe. My family's stuffing involves sausage meat, and it's really good, but I don't think my guests this year are really that into sausage. If you make good stuffing and wouldn't mind sharing the recipe (and if it doesn't have to be shoved into the turkey), please post.
What really concerns me though, is the turkey:
Is an 8lb bird good for 4 people with leftovers? Do turkeys come this small? What if everyone wants white meat? Does the smaller size change any of the cooking times or oven temperatures in the recipe posted above?
Do stores stock fresh turkeys this early before Thanksgiving? If I get a frozen one, I just leave it in the fridge to thaw, right? Some random website said 1 day per 4 pounds to thaw. Does that sound right?
What do I need to do before putting it in the oven? I know there'll probably be some giblets or something in the cavity, and Alton says to tuck the wings. Anything else I need to do? Should I tie the legs or something?
Alton says to brine the turkey, but I simply don't have the facilities for that (no bucket, no room in the fridge, and small home with no basement or cold rooms). With that in mind, should I rub any herbs or spices on the skin with the oil to add flavor, or would it just be a waste? Is there anything else I can do to mitigate the lack of brining?
Is it worth the effort to make the gravy from scratch? I don't want to use a powdered mix, but I'm going to have some other things on my hands.
What tools will I need that aren't in a typical kitchen? I bought a big disposable foil roasting pan. Will I need a rack to put in there? I'm going to buy a probe thermometer, and hopefully I can borrow an electric carving knife. Anything else? Do I need a baster?
Thanks H/A!
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Clean your turkey before it goes in the oven. Rinse it in cold water and remove the giblets. You can put the neck of the turkey in the roaster for your gravy. Tie the legs together with some cotton string and drop it in the pan. Rub the turkey with olive oil, garlic, salt, pepper and oregano. No water is required in the pan because the turkey will make it's own juices. Cook it uncovered but if near the end you see it's starting to get crispy, loosely lay a sheet of aluminum foil over the top. Baste the turkey ever hour with a turkey baster and the juices in the pan. Use that time to try and break up the neck of the turkey to get better juices and bits for the gravy. Use the joices instead of water when making gravy mix.
Powdered gravy is just as good as home made, if not better imho. I'd not waste the time on the gravy. Just use a mix.
You will need something under the foil pan because it's not stong enough to support the turkey when you go to lift it out.
I make a very simple but yummy stuffing (roughly a 5lber):
1 loaf bread, equal parts of diced celery and onion (roughly 1/2 cup each but I use a lil more onion because I'm partial), 1 egg, 1 stick of butter, thyme, salt, pepper
- Break up the bread into small pieces (nickle sized) into one large bowl. Do not use the crust.
- Melt butter in pan then add onion and celery. Coat well then mix into bread with the egg.
- Season with thyme, salt and pepper (I like a lot of thyme and go light on salt and pepper)
- Stick up the bird's bottom
As for my birds I tend to rub them with a little oil then fresh garlic (you can use a lil garlic powder if you want). I then season with thyme, salt, pepper and paprika. I put a lil oil and water in the bottom of the pan and then bake on 400 for 20 mins per pound (general rule of thumb). To thaw my birds I take them out two days before and leave them in the fridge, if small enough I put it in a bowl of water. I don't bother tying the legs. I've never used a rack or a thermometer but a baster is a must. You want to baste the bird every so often to keep it moist.
I always get birds with giblets because they make the easiest good gravy. Put them in a pot, cover them with water (add more depending on how much gravy you want) and boil for 30 mins. Drain the liquid into a bowl and add pan drippings (avoid the floating fat). Mix in some flour to thicken and you have a simple gravy. I prefer it a million times to dry gravy and find not making gravy to be kind of lazy. Why not just get a stuffing mix too then you know?
For four people and leftovers I'd get much bigger than 8 pounds. Especially if you want to make a pot pie from the leftovers, which is easy and delicious.
Consider investing in a digital thermometer with a probe you can leave in the bird while it cooks. I prefer not to stuff the turkey but to cook the stuffing seperately (techinically, this makes it dressing instead of stuffing). An unstuffed bird cooks faster.
My stuffing also involves sausage meat, but you could substitute plain ground pork or even ground turkey I guess. I don't use an exact recipe but I play it by ear with proportions and ingredients. Usually I use mushrooms, green pepper, onions and celery which all get cooked a little with the sausage meat once its mostly cooked and then in add in the bread crumbs, spices such as Poultry Seasons, Paprika, Salt and Pepper, and then the chicken stock. A large wok works pretty well for putting it all together.
Also, pro-tip: Make the stuffing a day ahead.
Here's a USDA page on all things Turkey.
Brining a turkey makes it taste amazing. Since you really should be thawing your turkey in the fridge (make room) you should be able to do it. If you buy the brining kit, it comes with a bigass bag you put that guy in, so you don't need a bucket, just whatever pan you were going to cook the turkey in anyway.
Also, DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES STUFF THE BIRD PRIOR TO THE MOMENTS IMMEDIATELY BEFORE SHOVING IT IN THE OVEN.
If you stuff it in advance, turkey juices laden with salmonella will soak into your stuffing. The stuffing will not get hot enough to kill it. Your guests may die or just hate you a whole lot. Stuff immediately before putting it in the oven, no sitting around.
Also, get a small sauce pot. Put some olive oil in there. Put some butter in there. Put some poultry spice in there. Melt the butter, get it all stirred together, pour this over the bird after it's already in the cooking pan, and use a pan with a lid. I endorse methodologies which do not leave the bird exposed in the oven.
CUZ THERE'S SOMETHING IN THE MIDDLE AND IT'S GIVING ME A RASH
This easily one of the worst, most hideous lies I've ever seen in H/A. We're talking top five, people.
CUZ THERE'S SOMETHING IN THE MIDDLE AND IT'S GIVING ME A RASH
I find the people who think this have typically never had home made gravy. Like the people who love box mashed potatoes and swear it's as good as fresh ones.
I've had good home made gravy. I've made good home made gravy. Maybe i've never had knock your socks off home made gravy, but I enjoy the "Club House" gravy mix.
Brining makes it way more awesome. You can make your own out of chicken stock and spices. But watch that turkey episode of Good Eats, Alton knows what's up.
There is no reason to do this. If you want to put some aromatics in the cavity or a couple slices of onion, fine... but shoving soggy bread up into a cool wet crevice is just a bad idea. You can still make dressing, and serve it with the food. Good dressing beats the shit ouf of stuffing anyway.
(Alton Brown says this in the episode)
He qualifies it - stuffing a pork chop or something of like size is ok, but he's still against stuffing birds. Personally, I still do it, and I've yet to have any problems, but I'm won't be surprised if I get ill on the 28th. Well, not me. I've got an iron stomach. My wife maybe.
Untrue. He cooks a turkey with a stuffing that gets fully cooked and doesn't make the bird dry out and is delicious. He fully admits that stuffing is not evil, but that it is complicated to make correctly in the case of whole poultry.
What this person said.
Personally I use italian seasoning in lieu of thyme (I like a bunch of spices mixed together) and poultry spice as well, no paprika. I put both of those seasonings into my stuffing, and ontop of the bird (rub it into the skin). Also, I cut teensy holes into the skin in a couple spots and stuff butter under the skin. Mmmm, butterlicious.
For stuffing, I don't use an egg like above, but I do fry the onion til clear and cook the celery some too. This year for thanksgiving (Canadian here, so it was earlier) they were out of hte dried bread chunks I normally use so I ended up using half croutons and half some French baguette roughly chopped kinda small.... SO GOOD.
There are no words.
Just time it right, and eat is as soon as its done frying... like... done? plate carve eat.
It is so easy to stuff a turkey and do it right. If I can figure this out at 19 I find it hard to believe a trained chef had to keep working on a stuffing that didn't dry out the meat or make the stuffing too soggy.
We brined our turkey (last month) for the second year in a row. It does take some work, but the results do blow your socks off. The light meat it much more moist, especially the leftovers. I'm completely sold and you'll now need to do some serious arm twisting to get me to make a bird without brine.
Anyways, I just wanted to weigh in and suggest not stuffing the turkey with the stuffing or anything you're planning on eating later.
The other thing I wanted to say was about the brining. You don't actually need a bucket and stuff. I did mine in quadruple layered garbage bags (because I'm paranoid) and a plant pot and it came out just fine so I imagine you could even cut out the plant pot and just use the trash bags.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/13/AR2007111300406_pf.html
Basically, if you cut the backbone out of the turkey and break the breastbone, you can lay the turkey out flat. It cooks faster and at a higher temperature, and retains more moisture naturally. (Both times I have spatchcocked a turkey, I have not bothered with liquid injectors or anything, and basting was only done to keep the skin from searing too much.) All you need to do it is a defrosted turkey, and a pair of good kitchen shears. At the end, you can 'reconstruct' the turkey's natural shape by just pushing it together and fastening it with bamboo skewers along the bottom, that you can hide with dressings like roasted tomatoes and potatoes.
Can I please request the super slow cooking link?
Also, how long you brine your turkey? And do you brine it in a basic salt solution, or do you get fancy and add herbs and stuff to it?
* 1 cup kosher salt
* 1/2 cup light brown sugar
* 1 gallon vegetable stock
* 1 tablespoon black peppercorns
* 1/2 tablespoon allspice berries
* 1/2 tablespoon candied ginger
* 1 gallon iced water
I didn't have allspice berries, so I used powdered. I also didn't measure the peppercorns or ginger. It was a 'guess and toss' event. As long as the liquid/salt/sugar ratio is good, the rest is just extra seasoning.
I brined for 6 hours, turning it over at the three hour mark. A quick rinse at the end and then I used The Joy of Cooking's Turkey instructions. If you're going to go low and slow, you really need to brine. The fall off the bone is great, but it's going to be much more dry then it would be with other cooking methods. I've never used Altons blast furnace approach (see the link in the OP) to cook really high to brown and then cover and drop the temperature. But I have rarely been disappointed with any of Altons Instructions, no matter how unusual.
EDIT - oh and I used a bucket for the brine this year. It had a water tight lid that snapped on, this meant I could leave it outside without little critters chewing at my meal. But in the past I've used the plastic bag method and it worked really well.
Some poultry stuff I've found out recently:
Duck and Goose are fatty birds, because they have a layer of fat between their muscles and their skin to keep them warm. To cook these birds, you need to poke the skin all over so that the fat renders out in the cooking process. Of course, this also means that a properly cooked duck or goose will be delicious thanks to the fat naturally cooking into the meat.
Turkeys do not have this fat layer (nor do chickens). That's why many people end up with dried out turkey breasts, but it's also why so many people stuff their birds with a fatty stuffing.
So the reason the "standard" way of cooking a turkey (boil the neck, pick the meat & fat off and throw it in the stuffing, throw the stuffing in the bird) tastes good is because it supplements the lack of fat with a fatty interior. Hence, it actually makes the most sense to stuff the bird with a fat-laden stuffing, such as a buttery stuffing or with a stuffing based in duck fat.
Of course, you can achieve a similarly moist bird by coating the outside in butter or duck fat, or piercing the skin in a few spots and rubbing said fat around so it gets inside the skin.
There's a few ways to cook a bird, and there's no real "wrong way" to do it. If it's your first bird, just say repeatedly in the cooking process "Well this is the first time I'm making it so hopefully it's good!" The family should be gracious if it ends up "just ok," since that's what side dishes are for anyway ;D
I've heard some people say that it makes more sense to cook the bird upside down, or other things, due to the fact that the fatty leg meat takes longer to cook than the breast meat, but I think a lot of the tricky stuff should wait until you've cooked a bird more than just one time.
Oh, and since the alton brown thing came up:
Stuffing is fine; it just makes the bird take longer to cook (which makes sense). Using particularly aromatic stuffing, such as fresh apples, crushed juniper berries, and so on, can make a spectacular bird.
edit to add: For gravy, homemade *can* be better. Depends on your recipe and how good you are at making it. I've had some pretty sad homemade gravies. However, if you don't want to risk it, don't buy powdered -- buy canned. The canned gravy is essentially a solid, basic "homemade" gravy, and you can spice it up a bit with some seasoning or by adding a tbsp or so of duck fat or butter. If you need it.
My mom typically does one of each -- a canned boat and a homemade boat. Why? You can sometimes run out of the "basics" for the homemade, depending on the turkey, so having the extra can is useful (and cheap). They usually don't taste all that different -- usually the biggest difference is just salt.
He means stuffing as in the bread kind. Alton says to try stuffing it with apples, onions, and herbs in the show.
I'm going to have to try brining the turkey this year. I'll also try the foil armor method of cooking. I've never brined a turkey, but I have roasted a brined chicken and it was pretty tasty. That was only with salt water and cloves, so I'm anxious to see what the full on recipe here does.
I will try to make my own gravy, but I will also buy a can in case that doesn't work out.
As for the brining, I appreciate the tips on how to get it done with my limited facilities. I'll see if I have time for another trip to the store, but I might not be able to do it this time. I'll at least try it for some future roast bird.
Adding to this, you want to sift the flour into the liquid. Because yes, clumping gravy is nasty.
Easier way. Melt butter in a high sided skillet, add flour and stir to make clumps (This is a rue), then I laddle in the juices from the turkey pan and make the gravy that way. 99.9% guarentee to no have lumps.
After watching AB's show on frying, with the awesome but seemingly complicated turkey rig, I think I'm sticking to brine and oven again this year.
All you really need is a pulley and a ladder.
Lacking that, a bronze pair of balls and a clothe hangar.
http://www.eatturkey.com/recipe/recipe_print.cgi/0/11193
I got huge compliments. Another coworker also made a turkey and it was horrible, it was pink in parts and I was too scared to eat it.
But if it hasn't been said already. My uncle gave me good advice, cut up an apple and stuff it in the turkey. It helps keep the turkey juicy. In keeping with the gospel of Alton, I never stuff my bird with dressing, it just dries it up.
Also, after I cooked the bird and carved it up for the office party (Since it was an office buffet, I didn't slice it traditionally, just tore all the meat off the bone, cut it up some and put it in a crock pot) I added in a can of chicken broth into the crock pot to keep the turkey moist.
Enlist in Star Citizen! Citizenship must be earned!
I think that's it, I'm lacking a set of balls...
Oh you mean counterweights. Never mind
No, you definitely need balls of some sort of metal to be doing a jury rigged turkey deep-fry. Brass, steel, bronze, who cares that's gonna be a bit of a risky endeavour
CUZ THERE'S SOMETHING IN THE MIDDLE AND IT'S GIVING ME A RASH
last time i had it, they just used one of those kit thingys you see everywhere, basically a base is inserted into the turkey and you pull it out with a big hook. no pullys or ladders were used. just pull slowly
Roast the turkey at this low temperature overnight. Oven temperatures vary, so it's essential to use an oven thermometer to make sure your oven keeps the right temperature.
Several hours before serving check the meat thermometer. If you've reached 185ºF for the turkey and at least165ºF for the stuffing, keep on roasting at 185ºF until time to serve. Otherwise, turn the oven up to 225ºF (or higher) to make sure your turkey's done on time.
When ready, turn the turkey on its back on a carving board. If the rack sticks, just gently remove it. The turkey will be so juicy and tender it'll be easy to cut. Once you've taste how delicious it is, you'll never want to cook a turkey any other way.
Also, I usually do cut the skin across the top of the turkey and the breast. Then squeeze some butter in there and then when I baste, I can get the juices directly on to the meat. I've made some incredibly juicy turkey this way. I have yet to stuff a turkey, but I don't see myself doing that at all...but I might cut up an apple and it put it in there this year just to see what happens.