Cooking a Turkey

[Koolblue13]

If you were to follow this advice... wait for it

You'd be the turkey

:chestram:

Oooohhhh! (in a Dice Clay voice)

I'm on a quest for a roasting pan. Just ordered one off amazon.com but had to cancel b/c they couldn't ship in time . Of course they couldn't tell me that until AFTER I placed the order :jerk:

Any advice on a roasting pan? They seem to range from $29.99 to $199.99 for the All-Clad

Easiest? I would just get a cheap throw away from the grocery and place a sheet pan under it.

[zoony]

Oooohhhh! (in a Dice Clay voice)

Easiest? I would just get a cheap throw away from the grocery and place a sheet pan under it.

so the thickness doesn't have anything to do with it?

Besides- it needs to be up on a rack, doesn't it?

[Mark The Homer]

Re stuffing the bird with classic stuffing --

It seems to me you are better off stuffing it with something JUICY. Keep the bird moist. You can cook the stuffing just as well in a pan.

The other problem is, if you slow cook it like I do, the bread-like stuffing could start to rot.

[Koolblue13]

Yes, you don't want any meat sitting and stewing in the juices.

They are cheap as well. Cheap aluminum throw away pans will sometimes have ridges in the bottom. You can also make a ring out of foil and set that in there.

No, the thickness of the pan (as far as a roaster only) makes no difference to the final product.

If you had a dutch oven that was large enough to cook an entire turkey and it was an older, well seasoned pan, than yes, but for an entirely different reason.

[The Brave Little Toaster Oven]

I'm trying to get my family to do a deep fried turkey this year...can any of you give me some recipes you use for the rub or any other tips?

[sleazye]

I'm trying to get my family to do a deep fried turkey this year...can any of you give me some recipes you use for the rub or any other tips?

Brine that bad mf in sal****er for 15-24 hours. That's all you need.

Fry him in peanut oil. Make 100% sure it is completely defrosted. Do it outside, and make sure to lower the bird in slowly.

That's the Alton Brown turkey episode. Someone else posted that earlier.

Don't bother making his crazy gadget with the ladder and everything- just lower the turkey in with the kit that comes with the deep fryer.

[Kosher Ham]

I'm on a quest for a roasting pan. Just ordered one off amazon.com but had to cancel b/c they couldn't ship in time . Of course they couldn't tell me that until AFTER I placed the order :jerk:

Any advice on a roasting pan? They seem to range from $29.99 to $199.99 for the All-Clad

Just get a cheap one. I have one similar to this that I have used for years.

20 bucks. http://www.bedbathandbeyond.com/product.asp?order_num=-1&SKU=14250069

I think you need the rack, I think it helps from overcooking the bird. And when I first start to carve, it keeps the bird in place.

[bcl05]

I'm a big fan of brining the bird for 24 hours before a nice slow roast in the oven. Comes out juicy and flavorful every time.

[MurrayH81]

Here's how I do it.

Remove bird from bag, put innards into a separate pot on the stove to cook down for graavy.

Wash bird thoroughly. Let it dry for about 10 to 15 minutes.

Get your raised rack in the broiler pan, make sure there is plenty room to slide it in to the oven.

Grab some Olive oil and some vegetable soup, garlic soup, or onion soup mix (dry). Rub the Olive oil into the skin of the bird, and then dust the soup mix on. Rub the mix into the skin.

Now, turn the sucker upside down (breast down), and put it on the V-rack and cover it with the foil tent. The reason for the breast down cooking is to make the dark meat juices run into the dry (white) meat while cooking.

Cook on the heat noted for the length noted (that came with the bird packaging).

Remove foil, and let brown up on both sides (getting to your choice of external crispiness).

Add broiler pan drippings and such to the gravy brewing.

Serve.

[Zguy28]

Everything you want to know about the turkey.

http://www.foodnetwork.com/topics/turkey/index.html

Alton Brown just recommends rubbing canola on the outside, a little salt and pepper, stick it in a pan with a rack and into the oven.

Cook at 500 for one hour then down to 350 for the rest. He said at 151 degrees inside, its done. No stuffing inside.

[Rudechain]

Zoony, this is a pretty easy one to follow and it comes out quite tasty.

The tent can be used, and I have tried it, but I find if you can cook at a low heat, it's not really needed. ( but you have to have the time which means I usually would start mine very early in the morning.)

Ingredients

* 1 turkey, approx. 15 lbs.*

* Juice of a lemon

* Salt and pepper

* Olive oil or melted butter

* 1/2 yellow onion, peeled and quartered

* Tops and bottoms of a bunch of celery

* 2 carrots

* Parsley

* Sprigs of fresh rosemary, thyme

* Need help figuring out how big a turkey to get? Butterball has a turkey calculator that helps you figure out just how many pounds you need. In general, plan for:

12-15 lb turkey for 10-12 people

15-18 lb turkey for 14-16 people

18-22 lb turkey for 20-22 people

Method

1 To start, if the turkey has been refrigerated, bring it to room temperature before cooking. Keep it in its plastic wrapping until you are ready to cook it. While in the refrigerator, and or while you are bringing it to room temp, have the bird resting in a pan, so that if the plastic covering leaks for any reason, you are confining the juices to the pan. If you get a frozen turkey, you will need to defrost it in the refrigerator for several days first. Allow approximately 5 hours of defrosting for every pound. So, if you have a 15 pound turkey, it will take about 75 hours to defrost it in the refrigerator, or around 3 days.

Handle a raw turkey with the same amount of caution as when you handle raw chicken - use a separate cutting board and utensils to avoid contaminating other foods. Wash you hands with soap before touching anything else in the kitchen. Use paper towels to clean up.

Remove the neck and giblets (heart, gizzard, liver). Use the heart and gizzard for making stock for the stuffing. The neck can be cooked along side the turkey or saved for turkey soup.

Note that if your turkey comes with a plastic piece holding the legs together, check the instructions on the turkey's package. Most likely you do not need to remove those plastic ties for cooking (unless you plan to cook your turkey at a very high temperature). If you remove the plastic ties, you will need to use kitchen string to tie the legs together.

2 Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.

3 Wash out the turkey with water. Pull out any remaining feather stubs in the turkey skin. Pat the turkey dry with paper towels. Lather the inside of the cavity with the juice of half a lemon. Take a small handful of salt and rub all over the inside of the turkey.

4 In this method of cooking a turkey, we don't make the stuffing in the turkey because doing so adds too much to the cooking time. For flavor, put in inside the turkey a half a yellow onion, peeled and quartered, a bunch of parsley, a couple of carrots, and some tops and bottoms of celery. You may need to cap the body cavity with some aluminum foil so that the stuffing doesn't easily fall out. Close up the turkey cavity with either string (not nylon string!) or metal skewers. Make sure that the turkey's legs are tied together, held close to the body, and tie a string around the turkey body to hold the wings in close.

The neck cavity can be stuffed with parsley and tied closed with thin skewers and string.

5 Rub either melted butter or olive oil all over the outside of the turkey. Sprinkle salt generously all over the outside of the turkey (or have had it soaking in salt-water brine before starting this process). Sprinkle pepper over the turkey.

6 Place turkey BREAST DOWN on the bottom of a rack over a sturdy roasting pan big enough to catch all the drippings. This is the main difference between the way mom makes turkey and everyone else. Cooking the turkey breast down means the skin over the breast will not get so brown. However, all of the juices from the cooking turkey will fall down into the breast while cooking. And the resulting bird will have the most succulent turkey breast imaginable.

Add several sprigs of fresh (if possible) thyme and rosemary to the outside of the turkey.

7 Chop up the turkey giblets (gizzard, heart, liver). Put into a small saucepan, cover with water, add salt. Bring to simmer for an hour or so to help make stock for the stuffing .

8 Put the turkey in the oven. Check the cooking directions on the turkey packaging. Gourmet turkeys often don't take as long to cook. With the turkeys mom gets, she recommends cooking time of about 15 minutes for every pound. For the 15 lb turkey, start the cooking at 400 F for the first 1/2 hour. Then reduce the heat to 350 F for the next 2 hours. Then reduce the heat further to 225 F for the next hour to hour and a half.

If you want the breast to be browned as well, you can turn over the bird for the last 15-20 minutes of cooking, at an oven temp of 300°F. (Oven must be at least 250°F for browning to occur.) Note that if you do this, you will have a higher risk of overcooking the turkey breast. We never worry about browning the breast.

Start taking temperature readings with a meat thermometer, inserted deep into the thickest part of the turkey breast and thigh, a half hour before the turkey should be done. The dark meat in the thigh should be about 175 F. The white meat in the breast should be 160 F to 165 F. If you don't have a meat thermometer, spear the breast with a knife. The turkey juices should be clear, not pink.

9 Once you remove the turkey from the oven, let it rest for 15-20 minutes. Turn the turkey breast side up to carve it. (See Epicurious video on carving a turkey.)

Making Turkey Gravy

Scrape all the drippings off of the bottom of the roasting pan. Pour drippings into a smaller skillet. Ladle off excess fat with a gravy spoon and save for possible use later. In a separate small bowl take a quarter cup of corn starch and add just enough water to dissolve the corn starch. Beat cornstarch with a spoon to remove lumps. Slowly add the cornstarch mixture to the drippings, stirring constantly. You may not end up using all of the cornstarch mixture. Only add as much as you need to get the desired thickness. Allow time for the cornstarch to thicken the gravy. Add salt, pepper, sage, thyme, or other seasonings to taste.

Save Bones for Stock

When you are finished with your turkey, save the bones from the carcass to make a delicious turkey soup.

[Rudechain]

well thats no fun.

How can basting anything in butter be a bad thing? :hungry: mmm... butter

Butter, like bacon, makes everything better.

Zoony, don't stuff your turkey. It's better to make your stuffing seperate.

Now you can place like half an onion and some celery in the turkey cavity for flavor.

[Zguy28]

Butter, like bacon, makes everything better.

Zoony, don't stuff your turkey. It's better to make your stuffing seperate.

Now you can place like half an onion and some celery in the turkey cavity for flavor.

Except butter can discolor your turkey skin because of the milk solids in it. :2cents:

[Rudechain]

Except butter can discolor your turkey skin because of the milk solids in it. :2cents:

I was referring to taste actually.

[Koolblue13]

There is some poor info in this thread.

Some very good info also.

[zoony]

Well, I cooked it yesterday, turned out GREAT!

Here's what I did. I bought a fresh bird (butterball), not frozen. Washed it real good and patted it dry.

I massaged olive oil, butter, and kosher salt into the skin, all around. Filled the cavity with chopped onions and celery. Put some silicone bands around the legs and wings to keep the orifices closed.

Cooked at 325 on a roasting rack for about 5 hours.

I took it out and the thermometer stuck in the deepest part of the thigh read 170. USDA says 180. But I stopped it there, for fear that the rest would dry out.

Wow was I right. There was just the tiniest little pieces that might not have been cooked all the way down at the bottom of the thigh- maybe like 4-6 oz total. Just threw that away when I carved it.

The rest of the turkey was really awesome!

Oh, and I cooked it about 3 hours with no foil, then put foil over it the rest of the way.

[Zguy28]

There is some poor info in this thread.

Some very good info also.

You know you can't bring that weak stuff up in this humpy bumpy.

[SUSkinsFan]

One of my favorite scenes from The West Wing:

[england]

cook the turkey on its breast that way the meat will not be dry

[Koolblue13]

You know you can't bring that weak stuff up in this humpy bumpy.

What is that suppose to mean?

[StillUnknown]

i'm cooking the bird for the first time this year. picked up alot of good suggestions from this thread, thanks alot

[shuler74]

bump

I just saw this might have to give it a try...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLxJMvKS3w0

[renaissance]

Cook it on the grill every year

[gchwood]

I say smoke or fry the turkey. Once you go this way you never go back. I am going to use my brand new oil-less infrared turkey fryer this year. Used it for a chicken and it was amazing, just as good as oil frying.

[Dan T.]

Add my vote to brining the turkey ahead of time. Combination of salt, sugar, and a few fresh herbs (there are lots of recipes out there, find one that looks good to you.) Brining results in really moist white meat.