Go to the Recipe: Crown and Roulade: The ChefSteps Turkey
Cool, I was looking forward to this!
Don't you do anything other than sous vide now?...
Awesome! A quick question about the timeline for the roulade. Your instructions on this page under "Prep dark meat" say to complete steps 1-4 of the roulade recipe, but that doesn't seem right since step 4 is adding Activa prior to rolling. Should that have been steps 1-7 of the roulade recipe (trim, prep, glue, roll, and store?)
Hi Iris, thanks for your comment. It's true, we've been doing lots of sous vide lately! We've been working on a ton of content to try to help people become more familiar with it, and encourage them to try it. There's not a lot of reliable/approachable sous vide content out there, so for those who want to try it, we hope we can be a helpful resource. We're rolling all that content out over a couple of weeks to try and make it more digestible. But there's still tons of content on the site that's non–sous vide. Anything in particular you'd like to see, or just more variety? We really appreciate your feedback!
Yes, you can roll it a day or two ahead and have it ready to cook when the big day rolls around.
I'm not here to give you an answer, but when I did the chicken roulade I cooked it sous vide 24 hours in advance, then chilled it immediately and put it in the fridge. I then reheated it the night of at a slightly lower temperature than what I originally cooked it at in the bath, dried it off, threw it in the freezer for 10 minutes, and then deep fried it.
But yeah, sorry I don't have answer to your specific question. I could guess, but I won't.
You seem to be selectively ignoring a lot of things. In this recipe alone there is great way to roast the crown, make a gravy, and a mess of side dishes. Not all of those require sous vide and all of them are great.
Fantastic looking spread, folks (no surprise)! Will be definitely giving the turkey crown and dark meat roulade a shot.
Any chance you could give a little insight into the cranberry dish? Looks like an EXTRA chunky (whole) cranberry sauce.
Thanks!
Can't really express how excited I am for ChefSteps: The Thanksgiving. And this year because of family schedules and such, we won't be having The Big Meal until Saturday..... which means I have two entire days for prep. Woot!
Seriously, I'm like equally excited for the non-pressurized prep time as I am Turkey Day itself.
I was thinking about attempting a turkey in a similar way to the Ultimate Roast Chicken recipe but this has me reconsidering. Have you ever done turkey in a similar way? My biggest concern was that the dark meat would be terrible if I pull the turkey when the white meat is 140. It works out when spatchcocking a chicken even though the dark isn't the temp I generally prefer. I was going to do a test turkey this weekend but I thought I'd ask here.
I see a cranberry deliciousness. Is that next tuesday ?
Cranberry recipe
Fresh cranberries - 650 g
Granulated sugar - 200 g
Salt - 5 g
Combine ingredients in a vacuum seal bag and cook at 90 °C for 25 minutes. Transfer the contents of the bag to a bowl and mix to ensure all the sugar and salt are evenly distributed into the cranberries. Transfer to your serving dish and garnish with microplane orange zest and thyme leaves.
If you prefer to cook in a pot on your stove top, combine ingredients with 100 g of water and cook covered on medium heat, stirring every once in awhile. Cook for 15 minutes, add more water if the bottom of the cranberries are starting to stick. Try the berries throughout the cooking process to ensure you cook them to your desired texture.
I had been planning on doing the breast roulade--is there are reason to use the dark meat for that over the light meat? Last year we did the legs confit in duck fat and they were absolutely delicious.
Looks like Chef Nick has the cranberry recipe here in this very comment section.
Gotta say our roasted turkey crown was super fucking easy, no stress, and delicious. Thanks, Crew!
Thanks, Nicholas!
Always on the look out for more cranberry recipes to try.
We invented something for Canadian Thanksgiving a few weeks ago in order to embrace both Turducken (which we've done before) and sous vide poultry of any kind. It was an experiment I'd call a 90% success as it was our first time working with transglutaminase, which I think we could have used a bit more effectively, but nonetheless our sous vide Turducken Cupcakes were a huge hit for a family gathering of 18 people. There is a PDF detailing the whole process available at the page linked below.http://www.wotlarx.ca/#!Turducken-Cupcakes/c18s0/1
Grated or julienned ginger goes well too. To the above I would add 15g+ depended on the strength of the ginger and how forward you want the flavour.
Good eye, Brandon! I'll fix that error.
Check above for Nick's cranberry recipe! He wrote it here in the comments since it's a real quick preparation. You can choose to either do it in a pot or sous vide.
I like that, thanks Tim.
Oooh, dang, sounds delicious. You could certainly do the white meat roulade! We chose to roast the crown so that people don't lose the tradition of pulling a big beautiful bird out of the oven, but can still enjoy nice, juicy dark meat. But it sounds like you're well on your way to your OWN traditions, so good on ya. The breast will take less time to cook; might be helpful to take a look at our Chicken Roulade recipe for some insight: http://www.chefsteps.com/activities/chicken-roulade
.... : o
We wanted to be able to present the whole crown so guests didn't feel like they were loosing the iconic "whole roasted bird" feeling during the holidays. I think you should try your roulade out and serve the legs confit because you know........they were absolutely delicious.
We did a few birds last year in the style of roast chicken. I don't recall specifics, other than being over all unimpressed(keep in mind these were some free range organic hoogie boogie blah blah turkeys we had got them for there smaller size super last minute birds). This preparation however, so good. And it leaves a lot more room in the fridge, have you ever tried hanging even say an 8# bird? Turkeys are extremely long.
I thought this was a clever way of still meeting that iconic "whole roasted bird" look. Thanksgiving is such a dinner of tradition that God forbid you stray from how it should be/look, regardless of how it tastes.
Thanks for the info!
Step 6 says to baste the bird in the early stages of cooking to get crisp skin. Why and how does this work? I always thought we wanted to keep the skin as dry as possible to make it crisp.
Randy check this out http://www.chefsteps.com/forum/posts/spraying-skin
Ah! Perfect thanks
I use a very similar method, except I add the zest of an orange into the bag before cooking sousvide, and mash the cranberries in the bag before chilling and reserving for Thanksgiving. Reheat at 140F - 150F if desired, or serve a little colder than room temp with the same garnish you described above.
I think a nice balance for future content would be to say "the ideal method is XXX, but if you don't have XXX tool (and you should - your missing out if you don't) then you can roast the dish with a different result. XXX of course being sous vide, pressure cooker, or whatever tool that some cooks think is scary - when in fact they are not. Its always good to show more than one way to skin a cat!
14 pound ?! I thought my favorite place on the net was all metric
Hi Chefs, doing the Crown Turkey and Roulade this year. Loved the tenderness using the Modernist Cuisine brine (apple juice, milk, salt, sugar) and wondering if it would enhance these recipes. You thoughts please! Thanks!
Why such a controversial ingredient such as MSG?
Hey Chefs, does any of you have a life changing Cornbread stuffing recipe ?
Why would i cook the turkey crown in the oven instead of sous vide? It's easy to mess up in the oven and my oven is cheap so i do not trust it keeping temperature although I have not personally tested it as such.
Can I refrigerate the Hawaiian Sweet Rolls dough over night? We can't eat all 16 of them in one night.
For the injectable brine, is it 25g kosher salt or table salt?
Thank you so much for this easy to follow guide! The meat was perfect and all my guests raved about the gravy. I look forward to investing in sous vide and I wouldn't have the confidence without you.
Thanks for this! The most delicious and the least stressful Thanksgiving meal I've ever cooked-- and I've done quite a few. Several CS recipes and a lot of sous vide this year:
Deviled eggs w/ CS pickled mustard seeds
Turkey Crown, Turkey Roulade and CS Gravy- wow, sooo good. Best (and easiest!?!) turkey gravy I've ever done.
Vegetarian gravy (from Herbivoracious)
Sous Vide Glazed Carrots, Sweet Potatoes, Stuffings - all made ahead and re-heated.
Pecan pie w/ whole grain (because I suck at shopping and bought whole grain pastry flour accidentally) pate brisee crust, Egg-Free Canela Ice Cream, Pumpkin Ice Cream w/ CS Sweet Spice, Whipped cream (w/ the whipping siphon and xanthan!)
The rest was done more traditionally: mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, creamed corn, cranberry sauce, sage crescent rolls and pumpkin pie (again w/ the whole grain pate brisee crust).
Thanks again, the food was great if I do say so myself!
Truly, it was the greatest thanksgiving dinner ever! Everybody loves it!
Turkey Crown is perfectly roasted. The skin is very crispy.Turkey leg roulade is very tender and juicy. I skipped the Activa RM, and used kitchen twine to tie both legs together and it held really well. Turkey gravy is also easy to make.
I also did CS rich as F**k biscuits, pomme puree, roasted beet, and caramelized carrots. All of them was fantastic. And thanks Nicholas for the cranberry sauce recipe, it was delicious!
For the dessert, I made Earl Grey Pie (attempt to recreate the infamous pie hole's earl grey pie from LA) . I used CS pate brisee recipe for the crust. Some of them was broken but overall it is very good and flaky.
Others on the menu were green bean and radish, crackers with berry cream cheese, and ginger ale apple cider.
Thanks ChefSteps!
Prepared turkey this way for a Canadian Thankgiving dinner I had with my friends. I cannot express my enthusiasm for the success behind this method. I've tried various renditions to get an equal compromise between the leg and breast meat, from injection brining and low-temp roasting with a final sear, to straight up deep-frying the whole bird. This really did it for me. Thank you for a wonderful recipe. The roulade was a gem!
It's not clear how you are using the carcass in this prep. It seems as though it's not going into the gravy (neck, leg bones, and giblets). If not, may I reserve the carcass for stock, or should I be chopping up the carcass for use in the gravy? I know this is quibilng over semantics but I would perfer to make stock if possible. Thanks.
I've got a 22 lb bird. How long should I plan to cook the crown?
Because it's an umami enhancer and the "controversy" over this ingredient was proven to nonsense long ago.
I prepared my turkey this way for our Thanksgiving Dinner. Although I found some parts of it difficult, the results were spectacular. Butchering the bird and removing the tendons from the legs was the most difficult part,but I got it done. When I rolled the meat there was not enough skin to cover the complete roulade. I proceeded anyway and it turned out fine. The crown was moist and tender and had an excellent turkey taste with nothing to get in the way. The instructions were clear and concise. I would appreciate more standard measurements as I do not have a kitchen scale. Even with the extended time it took I would definitely do this again.
So two days before serving, I prepared the turkey as directed, but because I had another turkey that I planning to roast and another I was planning to smoke, I decided to make all of the turkey parts for this recipe-sous vide. I prepared the roulade as directed with an addition of some garlic and onion powder and a little poultry seasoning added to the suggested ingredients, and cooked it sous vide ahead of time. I cut the crown in 1/2, seasoned each with some salt, pepper, poultry seasoning, garlic powder and a little poultry seasoning, and sealed them with some butter and sage and cooked them sous vide to a temperature of 151 F. I chilled the cooked turkey parts in an ice water bath and stored them in the refrigerator. An hour or so before the other turkeys I was making were finished, I heated the sous vide water to 151F and heated up the the turkey parts. I then broiled each at "Hi Broil" as directed, sliced and serve them. I must say, that with the added spices the roulades and the breasts were anything but bland, and with the broiled crisp skin both the roulades and the breasts were crispy, moist and delicious-to the point that I got tired of explaining what they were and how I had prepared them, and that is a good thing-just so you know.
Hi Megan, apologies for not catching this before Thanksgiving! How did it turn out?
Hi there! The carcass can definitely be used for stock!
Couple of bests in ChefSteps turkey recipes for me. BEST gravy ever! Hands down. Excellent turkey breast and crispest skin EVER! I'll be doing the crown again for sure. I found the results were truly exceptional and worth the prep. Roulade... not bad but I need to practice that one. Getting the air out properly without wide cellophane was a challenge that it suffered for. ~m
Read this recipe and thought to myself, "Self, why cook the parts that nobody's going to eat?" Not being a professional chef, and wanting to try sous vide turkey, I followed the instructions about making a roulade of the legs and thighs. Then, I thought, why not the breasts too? After all, I'm feeding people, not painting pictures. So I performed a double mastectomy on the bird and made a roulade of the breast meat as well. "Now," I thought, "I can make stock for the gravy while that Activa does its job." And I did. I used a freeze-dried herb mix sold on the cheap to a local grocery store, and it worked really well. Bright, strong flavor. I stopped the boil after 1.5 hours and pulled the edible meat from the turkey bones to use in turkey sandwiches, then returned the pot to a boil with the rest of the bones for another 2 hours. Good gelatinous stock resulted.
But the roulades! I've got ONE sous vide setup, and two roulades that require different temps. What to do? Well, hell, they only differ by 6°F / 3°C, so use the higher temp. Both of these roulades came out great. Guests said they'd never had better turkey anywhere, and these are folks that will tell you when you're acting like an asshole.
But using 151°F for both the light and dark meat roulades is a mistake. My discerning palate determined two things: 151 is too hot for the breast meat; and I needed some of that herb mix applied to the meat before rolling it. The dark meat came out perfectly tender, but the breast meat had that somewhat overcooked surface quality and was tougher. More tender than anyone had ever experienced, but tougher than the leg meat. So use 145 for the breasts, even if you have to borrow another sous vide rig or do it manually.
This was my first experience with meat glue, so I didn't want anything messing it up. That's why I left out the herbs. But never again. Even though it was wonderful unseasoned (except for the gravy), and even though proper seasoning may make it too good for mere mortals, I'll do it anyway.
Thanks for the recipe, guys. It was inspiring and helpful even if I did mangle it a bit. No photos, but you wouldn't like them anyway. As I said, it was done for eating, not presentation. Next time though....
Knowing that Chefsteps is highly committed to sous vide cooking makes me question while we sous vide the legs why we don't do the same with the breast? Is there any special reason for that? According to J.Kenji López-Alt (Serious Eats) baking powder also makes skin super crispy. Do you have any experience with this method?
Hi Bruce: Here's our guide to cooking both the legs and the breasts sous vide: https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/a-better-way-to-turkey-cook-that-bird-sous-vide-for-the-best-feast-ever
next time, cook the legs first at 151, cool, and fridge. Then, day of, heat the breasts to 145 and reheat the legs to 145 as well.
